- Royal National Theatre
- OLIVIER Theatre, London December 2001
Music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II with book by Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan adapted from the novel Tales of the South Pacific by James A Mitchener. Original stage production directed by Joshua Logan.
To celebrate the centenary of Richard Rodgers' birth, Trevor Nunn directs Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical masterpiece in the Olivier Theatre, with musical staging by Matthew Bourne and designs by John Napier. The richly descriptive score includes a host of classic songs, including 'Some Enchanted Evening', 'I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair', 'There is Nothin' Like A Dame', 'Younger Than Springtime', 'Bali Ha'i' 'This Nearly Was Mine' and 'Honey Bun'.
Adapted from two short stories by James Michener, South Pacific chronicles two love affairs. The first involves Lt. Joe Cable and a young Polynesian girl. The second revolves around Nellie Forbush, a Navy nurse from Little Rock, and Emile de Becque, a French planter with whom she falls in love one enchanted evening. Rodgers and Hammerstein tied the two stories together by having Cable and de Becque go on a dangerous mission behind Japanese lines.
- Directed by Trevor Nunn
- Musical Staging by Matthew Bourne
- Set Designed by John Napier
- Costumes Designed by Elise Napier & John Napier
- Original Orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett
- Additional Orchestrations by William David Brohn
- Musical Supervisor/Musical Continuity by David White
- Sound Designed by Paul Groothuis
Cast:
| Emile de Becque | Philip Quast |
| Ensign Nellie Forbush | Lauren Kennedy |
| Bloody Mary | Sheila Francisco |
| Lt. Joseph Cable | Edward Baker-Duly |
| Luther Billis, Seabee | Nick Holder |
| Ngana de Becque's daughter | Melanie Min Yin Hah/ Natasha Lee/ Caresse Mingo/ Malissa Tang |
| Jerome, de Becque's son | Wai Chun Cheung/ Samuel Manisty/ Kevin Tan/ Monty Tang |
| Henry, de Becque's servant | Richard Youman |
| Liat | Elaine Tan |
| "Abner", an Islander | Phong Truong |
| Stewpot, Seabee | Paul Hawkyard |
| Professor, Seabee | David Stothard |
| Capt. George Brackett | John Shrapnel |
| Comdr. William Harbison | Stuart Milligan |
| Yeomen Herbert Quale | Christopher Holt |
| Seaman Tom O'Brien | Branwell Donaghey |
| R.O. Bob McCaffrey Marine | Ian McLarnon |
| Sgt. Thomas Hassinger | Mark Hilton |
| Chip Baker, Sailor | Thomas Aaron |
| Lt. Buzz Adams | Joe Young |
| Jerry Tutwiler, Sailor | James Barron |
| Brad Weaver, Sailor | Tam Mutu |
| Ben Johnson, Stoker | Neal Wright |
| Lt. Genevieve Marshall | Sasha Oakley |
| Ensign Dinah Murphy | Sarah Ingram |
| Ensign Bessie Noonan | Nicola Filshie |
| Ensign Sue Yaeger | Jean McGlynn |
| Ensign Lisa Minelli | Cathy Cogle |
| Ensign Connie McRae | Lorraine Chappell |
| Ensign Edna Smith | Sarah Leatherbarrow |
| Ensign Janet Johnson | Sarah Manton |
| Ensign Carla Velasquez | Renee Montemayor |
| Ensign Rita Moreno | Golda Rosheuvel |
| Ensign Betty Bowman | Rebecca Vere |
| Swings | Sarah Bayliss, Zehra Naqvi, Daniel Stockton, Timothy Walton |
| Islanders, Officers, Sailors, Marines | played by members of the Company |
Synopsis:
Set on two islands in the South Pacific of which one has been taken over by American sailors and Marines. Abetting them is planter Emile de Becque, who had come to the island from France, who lived with a native woman, and has two children.
Ensign Nellie Forbush, a
spunky American nurse from Arkansas, falls in love with Emile, the mysterious
French planter, against her better judgment. A man whose lifestyle couldn't be
more different from the conservatism of her own Arkansas background and who is
much older than her, but when she learns that the mother of his children was an
island native, she is unable to turn her back on the prejudices with which she
was raised and refuses Emile's proposal of marriage.
Meanwhile, Lt Joe Cable arrives to carry out a top-secret plan to spy on the Japanese fleet from behind enemy lines. He is befriended by a Tonkinese trader, Bloody Mary, and soon becomes involved with her beautiful young daughter Liat.
The strapping Lt. Joe Cable denies himself the fulfillment of a future with Liat with whom he's fallen in love out of the same fears that haunt Nellie.
When Emile is recruited to accompany Joe on a dangerous mission. The dangers of war make Nellie realize how much Emile means to her and that life is too short not to seize her own chance for happiness, thus confronting and conquering her prejudices and doubts about their eventual union.
Musical Numbers:
Act I
| Dites-moi, | Ngana and Jerome |
| A Cockeyed Optimist, | Nellie |
| Twin Soliloquies, | Nellie and Emile |
| Some Enchanted Evening, | Emile |
| Reprise, Dites-moi, | Ngang, Jerome and Emile |
| Bloody Mary | |
| There is Nothin' Like a Dame, | Wise, Steeves, Johnson, Billis, West, McCaffrey, Stewpot, Adams, Quale |
| Mary And Lootellan | |
| Bali Ha'I, | Bloody Mary, Billis, Cable |
| The Company Street | |
| I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair, | Nellie and Nurses |
| Reprise, Some Enchanted Evening, | Emile and Nellie |
| A Wonderful Guy, | Nellie and Nurses |
| Reprise, Bali Ha'I, | French Girls |
| Younger Than Springtime, | Cable |
| Reprise, Bali Ha'I, | French Girls |
| Reprise, A Wonderful Guy, | Nellie and Emile |
| This Is How It Feels, | Nellie and Emile |
| Reprise, A Cockeyed Optimist, | Nellie and Emile |
| Reprise, I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair, | Emile |
| Finale, | Nellie and Emile |
Act II
| "The Thanksgiving Follies" Soft Shoe Dance, | Nurses and Seabees |
| Happy Talk, | Bloody Mary |
| Reprise, Younger Than Springtime, | Cable |
| Honey Bun, | Nellie, Billis, and Ensemble |
| You've Got to be Carefully Taught, | Cable |
| This Nearly Was Mine, | Emile |
| Reprise, Some Enchanted Evening, | Nellie |
| Reprise, Honey Bun, | Sailors, Seabees, Marines |
| Finale Ultimo, reprise, Dites-moi, | Nellie, Emile, Ngana, Jerome |
We would like to Thank RNT fro providing us with the information and allowing
us to use their South Pacific Logos and pictures.
South Bank meets South Pacific
South Pacific Dir:
Trevor Nunn.Thomas Aaron, James Baron, Elain
Article by Jasper Rees This is London website
It was early 1949. South Pacific, the follow-up to Rodgers and Hammerstein's huge wartime hit Carousel, had entered the try-out phase before hitting New York. Late one night the production team were deep in one of those 11th-hour how-do-we-makeitbetter meetings that always precede the launch of a new musical. Eventually the composer, Richard Rodgers, cut to the chase. "Fellas," he said, "this show is perfect. Let's go to bed."
For all its perfection, for all the joyful familiarity of I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair and There is Nothin' Like a Dame, South Pacific has been kept hidden from Londoners. Aside from a touring version in the 1980s, starring Gemma Craven, there has been no big splashy stage production since before the Coronation.
That is about to change next week when Trevor Nunn brings the fabulously ebullient musical - with its chrome-yellow sky, stifling heat and smell of war - to the National.
Now that it's finally back, it has acquired a sudden topicality no one bargained for. "It's ironic to be doing South Pacific at a time when America is at war," says Nunn, of his last big Christmas bash before he hands over the National to Nicholas Hytner. "It's particularly ironic that just a few weeks ago people were saying, 'Not since Pearl Harbor.' Pearl Harbor is just a few short months before the events of this show."
Many of its songs are so famous they have floated free of their context. Some Enchanted Evening is a staple in hotel lifts. Nunn thinks "most people would be very surprised to discover it's about America at war, it's about colour prejudice in America and it's about two romances where people from completely different backgrounds discover that they are part of one world and the perceived barriers don't need to exist."
These difficult issues probably explain the scarcity of revivals. South Pacific is that rarity, a musical about contemporary events. The book was taken from the loosely knotted stories of James A Michener's Tales of the South Pacific (which, like the musical, won the Pulitzer Prize). What he evokes in his opening is "the waiting, the timeless, repetitive waiting" as thousands of American troops lingered in paradise anticipating probable death. Librettist Oscar Hammerstein latched onto parallel narratives in which Americans are asked to overcome their own prejudice. Nellie Forbush, an Arkansas nurse stationed in the Pacific at a critical point in the Second World War when America, in the words of an officer, is "taking a pasting on two continents", falls for Emile de Becque, a French plantation owner 20 years her senior, only to reject him when she discovers that he has sired a pair of cuties by a Polynesian woman. Meanwhile, freshfaced Lieutenant Joe Cable is smitten by a pretty young island girl while being serenaded by her souvenirselling mother Bloody Mary in the show's most evocative song, Bali Ha'i. Cable's Damascene valediction as he fatally heads for combat is the song Carefully Taught. It's said that this homily about racism - daring in 1949 - helped South Pacific beat Death of a Salesman to the Pulitzer; it certainly got the Deep South in a lather when it toured there.
After its Broadway run - it played for 1,925 performances there - the show transferred to the West End in 1951. The gamine Mary Martin reprised her role as Nellie. As people queued for tickets in heavy rain the night before the show opened, she serenaded them a cappella.
But South Pacific lives longer in the memory as a tacky, over-coloured and musically overdubbed movie from 1958 that sold the darker elements of the story short. There is also a studio recording with Kiri Te Kanawa as a less than hick-like Nellie and, as de Becque, Josè Carreras. Earlier this year an American TV channel presented a version starring Glenn Close as a long-in-the-tooth Nellie and the great Serbian actor Rade Serbedzija. Matthew Bourne, South Pacific's choreographer, says it was "embarrassing". Nunn has made a point of not watching it, perhaps to avoid an awkward conversation with Close when he directs her next year in A Streetcar Named Desire.
With Nunn and Bourne back in harness after the triumph of My Fair Lady, the production has the credentials to be a hit. There was no credited choreographer in the original show, as director Joshua Logan wanted the sailors putting on a Thanksgiving show at the end of act one to look natural and amateurish. Bourne's task is to make that amateurishness seem professional. "It shouldn't look like they can all dance," he says. "They'd look like a bunch of chorus boys."
This time there is no star casting. Nunn has once more plumped for authenticity, much as he did with Martine McCutcheon in My Fair Lady. Lauren Kennedy is a squeaky-clean southern blonde from Carolina and couldn't embody the innocence of Nellie's Cock-Eyed Optimist more thoroughly if she tried. And perhaps even ignorance: before landing the role, she says, "I had no idea what the Pacific war was about." Before Kennedy got the part, as little was known about her over here. She was in two of Nunn's US productions of Sunset Boulevard, but South Pacific may do for her what playing Curly did for X-Men star Hugh Jackman in Oklahoma!, Nunn's previous date with Rodgers and Hammerstein. "I thought of her immediately, says Nunn. "I just feel she was born to do this."
Philip Quast, an Aussie like Jackman, continues the long tradition of having non-Frenchmen with big voices in the role of Nellie's French beau. (The role was written for Ezio Pinza, an Italian bassbaritone.) "It is always done operatically," he says, "but there is nothing operatic about it. Nellie would run away if I sang like that. You don't even know that you've started singing. You just slide straight from dialogue into song. It doesn't honestly feel like you're doing a musical. It feels like Chekhov or Shakespeare."
Enchanted Evenings
Sheridan Morleys article from Theatregoer November/December 2001
Half a century ago, South Pacific was banned for its emphasis on racism. Sheridan Morley examines the history of the musical, currently enjoying a revival at the National, and the life of its tortured composer.
How better to kick-start the 2002 Richard Rodgers centenary than with this month's revival of South Pacific at the National? As Trevor Nunn's last musical there, it completes the trilogy of Oklahoma! (about to open on Broadway) and Carousel that have given his South Bank management some of their most profitable and critically acclaimed shows over the last five years.
But it comes at a time when the career and, indeed, the life of Rodgers himself are up for sharp reappraisal. The composer who spent the first 25 years of his working life as the partner of the cynical, gay, alcoholic Lorenz Hart, and the last 25 as the partner of the apparently more relaxed and well-adjusted Oscar Hammerstein, Rodgers has often been dismissed as just the music man, albeit the most commercially successful in all Broadway history. And for perhaps too many years we have always taken him at the face value of his last lyricist, Stephen Sondheim, who memorably noted 'Oscar Hammerstein is all heart, Richard Rodgers all head.'
Now, however, as part of the centenary, a forthcoming biography by Meryle Secrest, written with the blessing of Rodgers's two daughters, raises the curtain on a very different and vastly more intriguing backstage figure.
Rodgers has always been seen, like his contemporaries Walt Disney and Norman Rockwell, as the man who made mid-century America feel good about itself. Oklahoma! -which, as the poet Carl Sandberg once said, 'came in smelling of new-mown hay on barn- dance floors' -reminded GIs and their families what they were fighting for in 1943. Carousel, though much darker, gave us June is Busting Out All Over and the soccer anthem You'll Never Walk Alone. South Pacific, which followed in 1949, was again set in World War 11, derived this time from the short stories of James Michener, and tells of death and miscegenation; indeed, it was originally banned from stages in the Deep South for Hammerstein's splendidly vicious attack on racism in the song You Have to be Carefully Taught.
Stage-struck. But that was not how I remember seeing (as a child of eight) the first Broadway production: the snow was taller than I was; and Mary Martin and the great classical baritone Ezio Pinza (in, perhaps, the first example of crossover) were on stage singing about Some Enchanted Evening. No night at the theatre had ever made me so sure that I wanted to stay there forever. This was also the first Rodgers and Hammerstein score that got away from the (to me, at any rate) dead hand of the Agnes de Mille dream ballets that always somehow interrupted the story at great length: South Pacific keeps the choreography in its place, celebrating instead the art of narrative and character.
Next year there will be worldwide events, from Tokyo to Stockholm, to celebrate Rodgers and 'that thing called hope' in a Taliban time when the idea has never been more welcome. Rodgers is, quite simply, the most played composer of any kind who ever lived: every year, more than 4,000 productions of his scores are produced worldwide, and he has nearly 1,000 songs still in the catalogues, even half a century after he was apparently overtaken by the harsher sounds of rock and pop.
The corn is still as high as an elephant's eye and those hills are still alive with the sound of music. So what's new? Well, a good deal: the new Secrest biography (out here late next year) and an American TV special reveal that Rodgers was alcoholic, a deep depressive and a serial womaniser. His 50 year marriage to Dorothy was effectively a shell, and one that drove her to anorexia and drug addiction. He was largely friendless, could barely speak to his own daughters, and had frequent stints in mental health clinics. He was, in effect, as much of a mess as his first partner, Hart; the difference was that Rodgers was better at keeping his private life just that.
Racial tolerance. And yet, as his composer grandson Adam Guettel notes, out of all that pain came The King & I, Hello, Young Lovers and Shall We Dance? and all the songs that were as corny as Kansas in August and high as a flag on the Fourth of July. Out of pain, sheer showbiz pleasure.
But South Pacific is, of course, as much the property of Hammerstein as Rodgers, and it was he who first realised that within Michener's Tales of The South Pacific lay the possibility of a World War II musical very different in tone and location from Oklahoma!
Both Michener and Hammerstein were racially far more aware than many of their generation; indeed, Michener quit his beloved Hawaii because he thought the local community unwilling to accept his last, ethnic marriage. Hammerstein had, of course, been the lyricist on Show Boat, which, way back in the 1920s - and even before Porgy and Bess -was the first Broadway musical to deal with racial intolerance.
So when Hammerstein came to write You Have to be Carefully Taught, it was yet another wake-up call to an all-white American theatrical establishment, though in a score that also gives us Cock-eyed Optimist, Nothing Like a Dame, Bloody Mary, I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair, Younger Than Springtime and This Nearly Was Mine, it was not surprisingly the one song that somehow got lost -even sometimes cut for ultra-conservative audiences.
But there's something else about South Pacific that hits me every time I see it: in two parallel love stories, the naive Nellie Forbush falls for the worldly French planter with the dark past, and the young Ensign Cable falls for a Polynesian girl in an often unnoticed rerun of Madam Butterfly. Cable, however, cannot face marriage to a dark-skinned girl, and dies in battle; Nellie and the planter overcome her racial prejudice, and get to live and love happily ever after.
The moral could not be clearer: tolerance leads to survival, even against all wartime odds. Not that anyone much appreciated it at the time: South Pacific was yet another Rodgers & Hammerstein that nobody loved except the public. When it first opened over here in 1951, two papers headlined their reviews 'South Soporific'. I doubt that'll be happening again just half a century later.
SOUTH PACIFIC Royal National Theatre
Reviewed by Anastasia
There is always a danger in presenting a 'revival' of an older musical that you will be re-hashing old themes, thumping out over-dramatised phrases and banking on the popularity of 'hit' tunes to carry you close enough to balancing the box office budget.
Thank goodness for the National Theatre and Trevor Nunn.
South Pacific, one of Rodgers and Hammerstein's most audience-popular and critic-panned musicals, should round off a nice trio of R&H hits for the National in the last couple of years.
Director Nunn hasn't taken the musical too far from its original format (palm trees, sunsets, boy-meets-girl) and has, instead, gently enhanced the themes that originally meant the exclusion of numbers like You've Got To Be Carefully Taught in the name of political correctness in the 1950s. He hasn't shied away from 'war is hell' and 'war, what is it good for, absolutely nothing' and has allowed the racist elements to raise their ugly heads without ramming the point home in a stream of clichés. In fact, he has done it so gently one almost wishes he had taken it further, especially in light of world events in the past few months.
A strong support cast, notably Nick Holder as the exuberant Billis and John Shrapnel as Captain Bracket, backed by the superb National Theatre orchestra, stomp enthusiastically around the Olivier Theatre stage, leaping oil drums and palm trees, swishing grass skirts. They storm through Nothing Like A Dame and I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair and Sheila Francisco (Bloody Mary) delivers a haunting Bali'Hi, lit deliciously by David Hersey.
The young lovers, Cable (Edward Baker-Duly) and Liat (Elaine Tan) are suitably attractive and romantic. Admirably, Nunn has not glossed over the often toned-down issue of Bloody Mary presenting her fifteen year old daughter for the pleasure of the 'sexy lu-tellan' - Cable has his shirt off before he's said two words to Liat, he knows what he's there for and so does she. And equally admirably, it appears a real surprise to the young officer when he discovers he's fallen in love with the girl, much to his moral dilemma - not that he has been sleeping with an underage teenager when he's engaged to a woman in Philadelphia, but that the girl is 'coloured'. Some nice work from Mr Baker-Duly on this theme indeed.
Nunn continues his more realistic bent with the relationship between the older lovers - US Marine nurse Nellie Forbush and French plantation owner in-exile, Emile de Beque. Philip Quast's Emile has more layers than his predecessors. The tradition has been to portray Emile as a witty, urbane, older, man-of-the-world Frenchman, smooth, slick and stylish. Realising that De Beque has spent the last eighteen years on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean, far away from 'civilization', Quast is boyish, playful and clumsily vulnerable in his attempts to show his love for the pretty nurse, buoyantly charming in his joy at her admission of returning that love. Then by contrast, he allows us to see Emile's deep-set rage at the injustices of those who seek power over others, vividly juxtaposed by his equally great passion for Nellie. Quast shines most in his delightful moments with the two children ('vous chantez tres bien papa!') and in the awesome power of that singing voice. Papa does indeed 'chantez tres bien' - he brings an undeniably masculine realism to Some Enchanted Evening, so often warbled by baritones who obviously haven't listened to the words. Quast's voice is perfectly placed for the role, he is fierce and richly passionate, giving the big notes his all and taking us soaring with him, never once straying from the path of making us believe that he means what he's singing. Where past Emiles have postured and preened, Quast does what he does best - makes him a real man, vulnerable and proud, desperate and heart-breaking. He carries his giggling children bodily off the stage (Dites-moi) and later, on his knees, pours out his heart to us over the woman he has lost (This Nearly Was Mine) - anyone else seeing a pattern here? Earlier this year a Secret Garden reviewer said that 'Philip Quast does male angst well'. Boy howdy does he.
And as his beautiful foil, the absolute joy of the show is Lauren Kennedy. Fresh from a US tour in the same role, she is sunlight, laughter, the all-American girl with all the bells and whistles. She simply lights up the stage. Frankly I wouldn't blame Emile for falling in love with her across a crowded room. The chemistry between Kennedy and Quast is palpable, sparks zapping over raised cognac glasses, their affection for each other obvious from the very start. They have created real people out of traditionally over-played characters, Kennedy's Nellie is bright, joyful and unaffected, she is phenomenally relaxed onstage and bounces through Wash That Man and Wonderful Guy. And yet, like her handsome co-star, she is able to bring us close to tears with her plea for Emile not to die 'before I tell you..', realising that her instinctive prejudice to Emile's Polynesian wife is insignificant in the face of the love she feels for him.
Opening with black and white film footage of GIs and islands, Nunn keeps the obvious technology to a minimum - subtle use of the Olivier's revolve, backing the stage with panoramic slides of tropical beaches and palm trees. The lighting is moody and warm, the set simple in its complexity (bravo to all the cast members who braved either of two full-size jeeps on that suddenly tiny stage).
Even in its warm-up stages this preview week, you can see where
the strengths of the show lie (its marvellous romantic leads, comic relief and
unforgettable tunes) and although they haven't gone for the truly gritty
realism suggested in the pre-show publicity, this is a great show and a must
for everyone who loves that post-show glow while you're walking to the Tube
still humming 'I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love
with a wonderful guy!'
Opening this week: actor Philip Quast on South Pacific
Interview with Philip Quast that appears on the Society of London Theatre website 10/12/2001
Australian actor Philip Quast, one of the industry’s most respected musical performers (and lauded by many as their favourite Javert), might never have made it onto the stage, owing to an avid passion for archaeology and palaeontology. “Even now I have fantasies of giving it all up and disappearing into the outback on field trips and expeditions”. Thanks to director Trevor Nunn, and the National’s revival of the classic musical, South Pacific, he won’t be rushing off just yet as, for the next few months, the Olivier stage becomes his home:
“This will be my first Rodgers and Hammerstein. I play Emile de Becque, the French Planter who falls in love with Nellie Forbush, an American Navy nurse. He not only has to deal with Nellie's racism when she finds out he has two children from a now deceased Polynesian wife, but ends up facing a moral dilemma when the American Navy ask him to be a spotter against the Japanese. I was actually offered the same role in Australia a number of years ago, but I thought I was too young, and so much of what I do depends on my age, which means I tend to take each day (and year) as it comes. I’ll be doing the Diva season at the Donmar in August and, although all the parts I’ve played in the past are special to me in some way (as they reflect where I was at the time, what country I was in, how old my children were, how long I have been married), most of the songs will be original rather than the old favourites. Again, it will be very much a product of the time.
“I actually got involved with South Pacific after Trevor Nunn asked me to come in and meet up. We talked, worked through some of the songs, discussed the French thing… And then, just before I flew to Australia to do Corridors of Power, he offered me the part, and I had to decide whether or not I would stay in Oz to do a movie until Christmas, or come back and be with the family and do the show. I decided on the latter. We have actually worked together before. He directed me in Les Mis back in 1987 in Australia and then, about three years later, I came to England to work with him on Sunday In The Park With George at the National. Trevor is always a draw. Some of the best musical productions I’ve been involved in have had directors with experience in the classics. In fact, Shakespeare and musicals feel so similar to perform, it’s not funny. Even though the critics seem to despise any art form which has mass appeal, musicals are the most difficult of all stage performances to pull off. They require all of one’s skills - acting, singing, the fusion of movement and dance. No one could understand this correlation more than Trevor. He is brilliant at it.”
You can catch Philip Quast as Emile, along with co-star Lauren Kennedy as Nellie, from December 12 at the Olivier, with tickets on sale at the theatre box office until April 2002. South Pacific marks the first in a series of Olivier productions sponsored by Barclays PLC, and the start of an investment which will also involve many strands of the National’s education and community work. For further details visit the Royal National Theatre website at www.nationaltheatre.org.uk.
SOUTH PACIFIC Matinee performance 29 December 2002
Reviewed by Tina
I had gone with some eagerness and a surety of being impressed by Philip Quast's performance - and was really delighted by a refreshing and energetic show all round!
To set the picture, some real black and white war footage was relayed on a flimsy, white, circular curtain hung across the stage, that would swirl on and off scene, as needed. Scenery was minimalist and adequate. A backdrop of shimmery blue seas, coconut palm and soft sunsets, conveying the light and mood of a tropical, beachy paradise. Emile's house - some lush green foliage on a veranda, table and chairs set.
On rolls Bloody Mary (Sheila Francisco), who's a real treat. Big, brazen and saucy - a quirky, fun character with a strong and sometimes haunting voice - and boy, can she manipulate! However, it's easy to forgive her desperate but fond attempts to manouevre her child daughter into marriage with the attractive lieutenant Cable (Edward Baker-Duly). I think I found him a little starchy at times, though there were some sweet moments with the fragile and fond Liat and some touching sensitivity as he strives to unravel his own urgent feelings of love for her from that of unwanted prejudice. He also considers the predictable reactions of his own folks back home!
On bounce a restless troupe of servicemen in hormone-overdrive to give a boisterous bashing out of There Is Nothin' Like a Dame, led on by Luther Billis (well played by Nick Holder) as a chubby, jaunty and likeable opportunist!
John Shrapnel, as George Brackett, was excellent, funny and dry as the ever-exasperated Captain.
Philip Quast's Emile was immediately winning. A mixture of awkwardness, attentiveness and charm. He was vulnerable, but had a gentle pride. He's a gentleman, but unpolished and appeared in need of being cared for - his suit is rather rumpled! I remained, as always, rivetted to his face while I could, and loved the imploring expression as he begs Nellie to think about marrying him. I was later heart wrung to see the hurt and dismay displayed there, at her flushed and hasty rejection, on learning of his late Polynesian wife. And then, the hands wrung, clenched and raised, and the look of crumpled anguish spread over his features, bought back for a moment, the despairing Archibald Craven. Before all that, Emile watches Nellie closely, always with a playful smile. She's an engaging mixture of lively enthusiasm and unworldliness. They deal well together!
There's a moment of sheer delight when Emile finds a lipstick stain on her cup, and his wondering at the three spoonfuls of sugar required in one tiny cup, is a joy given back to us! There is very real and early evidence of an honest and sustainable affection, and the certain dependance on each other. There are touches of uncertainty and restraint I found quite sexy too! And a brief but lingering kiss to die for between I'm Gonna Wash That Man... and A Wonderful Guy. Lauren Kennedy's Nellie Forbush was sparkling, cheery, exuberant, ever so slightly goofy and initially a little OTT, but I very easily got to love her! Her voice was lovely and bright, too.
Emile, however, is much more than mere tenderness, and is quickly roused to anger at the injustice and tyranny of others, weighing up the necessities of war against it's stupidity, violence and waste. He barks a probing and impassioned "I know what you are against - but what are you for?!" He is later to prove both brave and honourable. As a man, I think he is thoroughly endearing."No woman has ever had cause to hurt me, Nellie." "How could any woman ever want to hurt you, Emile."
There are some lovely moments with his children - bundling them up in his arms and carrying them off, laughing, and lumbering after them, arms raised, and growling in mock fierceness - another opportunity perhaps, for Philip to play the part of a large, hairy, scary bear! Emile wantonly rejects the notion of inbuilt colour prejudice - "I don't believe this is inbred in you!" and "Why do you both feel this way?!" And the rather acid retort of Lt. Joe Cable in You've Got To Be Carefully Taught, really hit home to me!
Nellie's earnest plea for Emile not to "die before I can tell you" gave vent to how much she loved him, above all her earlier foolish feelings - and set me just a tear or two! Emile and Nellie's singing the Twin Soliloquies and Some Enchanted Evening was as predictably beautiful, as was Philip's delivery of This Nearly Was Mine - pure heart stealing! Quast's voice at it's best - rich, eloquent and soaring. There's just a torrent of adjectives to describe Philip's portrayal of Emile de Becque! Honey Bun was great fun - all the cast in uproar! Younger Than Springtime was lovely. Lt Cable could sing - just wished his voice was a little stronger. And Happy Talk, which I was dreading, wasn't silly or sentimental after all! Everybody seemed to be having fun!
Thanks to Tina for contributing this review.
South
Pacific continuation page.
Pictures
taken at the stage door
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