21 October 2011
‘South Pacific’ by Rodgers and Hammerstein
was the first musical I played for as a member of a pit band. It was a
production by the excellent Westwood Musical Society at the Key Theatre in
Peterborough in 1991. We did more than a week of performances, at the end of
which I knew the score inside out and could recite huge chunks of the dialogue.
But, being in the orchestra pit, I never actually saw the show and some aspects
of the plot have never entirely made sense to me. Twenty years later I’ve
finally got around to seeing ‘South Pacific’ for the first time. We were at
Milton Keynes Theatre last Saturday to see the acclaimed production from the
Lincoln Center, New York. It was a very straightforward revival which didn’t
attempt anything particular innovative or revisionist but it was excellently
done. In the same way as Shakespeare seems to have inserted lots of famous
lines into ‘Hamlet’, Rodgers and Hammerstein seem to have stuck a load of very
well known songs together to make a musical. It’s an impressive show that
includes ‘Some Enchanted Evening’, ‘There is Nothin' Like a Dame’, ‘I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair’, ‘A Wonderful Guy’ and
‘Happy Talk’. The music was wonderful and the cast were very strong,
particularly Samantha Womack as Nellie Forbush and the operatic baritone Jason Howard
as Emile de Becque. I enjoyed the choreography (by Joe Langworth) but I could
have done with more. I’m always a little disappointed with a musical that
doesn’t have a really big dance number. And though I now finally understand the
story, ‘South Pacific’ is not the most impressive of plots. Nevertheless the
music is so good it doesn’t need much assistance and I really enjoyed the show.
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