by Milton W. Hamlin - SGN A&E Writer

South Pacific
5th Avenue Theatre
Through February 21

Rodgers & Hammerstein's classic musical South Pacific is one of the most honored musicals in Broadway history. The original 1949 production won the Pulitzer Prize for drama and a ton of Tony Awards for production and performances. The recent Lincoln Center revival, still doing great business in New York, also picked up a slew of Tony Awards, including ones for Best Musical Revival and Best Director for Bartlett Sher, who was then artistic director of Seattle's Intiman Theatre. Sher just ended his 10-year association with Intiman, and a big bash last weekend gave him a big sendoff.

The touring edition of the beloved show arrived in town last week for a three-week stay at the 5th Avenue Theatre. There is no doubt that this South Pacific, on tour or on Broadway, is one of the best productions imaginable. Sher has received great praise for returning South Pacific to its position as great theatre that just happens to be a musical. While some of that media praise is total hype - the show has always been great and never strayed far from its original dramatic punch - much of the glowing accolades are well-deserved.

The musical is based on James Michener's Tales Of The South Pacific, a Pulitzer Prize winner itself. This production opens and closes with large reproductions of Michener's typewritten manuscript, paying deserved tribute to its original source. The stage adaptation is a masterful one. The original Tales are just that: unrelated short stories and character sketches based on Michener's World War II service experiences. The musical's book, or storyline, is seamlessly adapted from the disjointed tales - Oscar Hammerstein II (who wrote the lyrics for Richard Rodgers' incredible musical score) and Joshua Logan (who also directed the original production) co-wrote the book, one of the finest in musical theater history. It was good to see a paperback edition of Michener's original Tales for sale at the show's souvenir stand in the lobby.

A simple, stylized set keeps the action moving briskly. While the show at times seems cramped on the 5th Avenue's stage, few theaters in the U.S. have the great expanse of the thrust stage at Lincoln Center. The Lincoln Center production was widely praised for recreating the full orchestrations the show used in its 1949 premiere - a rarity in today's economic world. The touring edition uses a few fewer musicians (and fewer cast members - there is more doubling on tour than in New York), but the show has much the same impact that it had in New York (where this scribe saw it and reviewed it for SGN shortly after its opening two years ago).

The show opens on a quiet note. Emile de Becque, a French planter living in the South Pacific, has just entertained Ensign Nellie Forbush for lunch. They met several weeks earlier at a military function. She is a Navy nurse stationed on the small island. He, much older, has lived in the islands since fleeing France as a hotheaded young man. In the show's first big musical number, Nellie admits that she's a "hick" from Arkansas, a "cockeyed optimist" but still "a hick from the sticks." One of the finest "character" songs in American musical history, "Cockeyed Optimist" defines Nellie 100 percent. On tour, Carmen Cusack is fine as Nellie, and opera star Rod Gilfry is strong as de Becque.

In the quiet, lovely "Twin Soliloquies," both wonder if there is really a romantic future together. Emile then sings "Some Enchanted Evening," one of the most popular love songs in all American musicals. The afternoon ends on the possibility of a future relationship, and Nellie returns to the military base where Bloody Mary, a local native who pedals grass skirts and shrunken heads, is being taunted. The sailors' two big numbers follow one another - "Bloody Mary (Is The Girl I Love)" and "There is Nothing Like A Dame."

Bloody Mary, a solid Keala Settle, then takes stage center and sings of the haunting lure of "Bali Ha'i," the nearby island that is off-limits to the sailors. Luther Billis, the comic leader of the sailors, is determined to get to Bali Ha'i but only officers can requisition a boat. At that moment, a new officer, Lt. Joseph Cable, arrives. (Matthew Saldivar is fine as Billis, and he is obviously an audience favorite - as the character has always been.)

Lt. Joseph Cable (a hunky Anderson Davis) is a Marine Corps officer assigned to the naval detail on the island. He meets Nellie and they bond as friends. Nellie decides that she and Emile have too many differences - his age, his sophistication, and his past. She tells the other nurses, in song, that "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair" during her weekly shower and shampoo at Billis' bath compound. Emile enters during her shampoo and the scene ends with the two reprising "Some Enchanted Evening" and returning to a future possibility.

As a civilian, de Becque has refused to accompany Lt. Cable on a dangerous mission that could help start the defeat of the Japanese navy. Cable is determined to undertake the mission alone, but decides to visit Bali Ha'i before he leaves. There he meets the lovely Liat, a native girl he promptly falls in love with. He knows there is no future back home in Philadelphia for him and a Polynesian wife.

Nellie, also a product of racial prejudice from her upbringing in Arkansas, finds out that the two native children at Emile's plantation are his children, not the children of the native butler. Emile had an earlier relationship with a native woman (now dead), and Ngana and Jerome are living evidence of that love affair. As Act One ends, Nellie rejects Emile, and Emile agrees to accompany Cable on the dangerous military mission.

While Act One has the highest total of the show's classical musical numbers, Act Two centers around the "Thanksgiving Follies," a holiday show that Nellie and Billis are staging to cheer up the men. The two reverse genders for the hilarious "Honey Bun" number. Nellie is now "Butch" Forbish in sailor drag, and Billis is now bewigged and wearing a grass skirt and coconut bra as Honey Bun Billis. "Honey Bun" is one of the few double drag numbers in theater history, and the show-stopping sequence is one of the show's many musical highlights.

The show's "message" song brings Cable center stage to sing "You've Got To Be Taught," a musical indictment against racial prejudice. Emile, realizing Nellie's background of racial prejudice, sings his second terrific ballad, "This Nearly Was Mine." The dangerous military assignment takes up most of the rest of the show, with wireless radio contact quickly summarizing Emile and Cable's work. Nellie, realizing what she may have lost, revisits Emile's home and learns to love his children. The show ends with a tragic end to one romantic relationship and a happy reunion to the other, leaving many audience members in tears at the understated ending.

South Pacific is, and always has been, a classic. This new staging is virtually flawless, but it does have a few missteps. Sher has returned one song that Rodgers and Hammerstein (wisely) cut from the show. "My Girl Back Home" shows Nellie and Cable bonding over similar background prejudices, but it is a weak number that adds little to the already long, long show. Sher also introduces brief male nudity in the nurses' shower scene - a quick laugh to be sure, but one that makes one wonder why the sailors are paying Billis for a shower in the nurses' area. Another quibble: Sher has Nellie smoke after she finishes washing that man right out of her hair. Nellie is a cockeyed optimist, but she does not smoke, and never has. End of quibbles, end of rant.

South Pacific continues though February 21. Tickets seem to be readily available. The theater had an earlier offer for half-priced tickets to any weekday matinee. While that discount has expired, it would be worthwhile for budget-minded musical fans to check with the box office for other last-minute discounts. Be sure to plan a quick trip to South Pacific - with Valentine's Day in the near future, be sure to check it out. Highest recommendation.

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