Bali Ha'i May Call You

Review: South Pacific
Vivian Beaumont Theater, New York
January 5, 2010

Evening after evening at Lincoln Center, the sensuous revival of South Pacific whispers, as if on the winds of the seas, here am I, a wartime story relevant as ever. Americans still fight on foreign shores, we are still carefully taught to hate whom our relatives hate, and some even meet strangers across crowded rooms. South Pacific in its present incarnation (from 2008) is no stranger; director Bartlett Sher has taken a sensitive and grounded look at a familiar chestnut.


There are surprises still. Sher has reintroduced dialogue into many scenes, and the song "My Girl Back Home." Nurse Nellie Forbush, weaned on Little Rock prejudices of the forties, now explicitly refers to Emile de Becque's Polynesian lover as "colored." Racial politics emerge even in the lighthearted "There Is Nothin' Like a Dame," where black marines stand to the side, isolated from their white counterparts.

I can't remember a more detailed physical production that I've seen. The World War II-period costumes, the lighting that shifts from golden sunbeams to mysterious and foreboding slats of light peeking through windows. Lincoln Center's wisest move was to faithfully recreate the original orchestrations with a thirty-piece orchestra, who are given their due during the overture and entr'acte.

When I saw South Pacific in July 2008, Kelli O'Hara gave a sweet performance as a forthright Nellie, less rambunctious than Mary Martin and more womanly than the girlish Mitzi Gaynor in the film. Laura Osnes, who has assumed the role, follows O'Hara closely, but her youthful appearance returns the Nellie-Emile relationship to its original May-December romance. Her Nellie is more of a knucklehead and so innocent she shouldn't need to wash anything out of her hair.

Loretta Ables Sayre and Danny Burstein continue to impress almost two years later. Sayre's Bloody Mary is wry and somewhat dangerous; she's not the typical comic caricature, especially as she spins eerie tales of "Bali Ha'i." Burstein plays Luther Billis like the descendent of Bert Lahr: a lion finding his nerve. Andrew Samonsky, alas, gives a darker spin on Lt. Cable to ill effect. In an odd musical lapse, his "Younger Than Springtime" has too rushed a tempo to allow him true fervor.

The ace up this show's sleeve is Paulo Szot, who has won considerable acclaim and awards for his Emile. Younger than most, his Emile is virile and impassioned but also playful. He only indulges in full-out operatic song at key moments; "This Nearly Was Mine" builds from an almost hushed, rueful lament to an all-out cry for the "promise of paradise." Thanks to a few wonderful performances and a team that trusts the material, this revival fulfills that promise.