Everyone loves Broadway, but then there’s that golden age of Broadway—the era of Rogers & Hammerstein, “Oklahoma!,” “Carousel” and of course, “South Pacific,” my favorite since childhood.
My parents saw Mary Martin and Rossanno Brazzi in “South Pacific” in New York on their honeymoon; I grew up with the film version with Mitzi Gaynor. I wanted my own Bali Hai (and later, my own French planter!) from the start, so I was nervous about seeing this classic live at the Wick.
And I was not disappointed.
Wow. Not only were the actors great and the voices magnificent, but the message about prejudice still resonated, decades later. (It always seems to.) Nat Chandler as Emile De Beque was thankfully trés manly and handsome, and he brought the house down with my favorite song, “This Nearly Was Mine.” Adrianne Hick sparkled as Nellie Forbush, with a great voice and a solid range of emotions from her early giddy romantic swoons to the later real fear of losing her Frenchman on his dangerous mission to the island of Marie-Louise. Amy Jo Phillips was a brilliant Bloody Mary and Marc Koek was a swoon-worthy Lt. Cable with the voice of an angel. Michael Iannucci was the perfect Luther Billis foil to all this dreamy longing—down to the ship tattooed across his paunch. The entire ensemble was a delight—start to finish
“South Pacific” is such a great show it’s easy to wonder how anyone could screw it up—but I think that because we have such high expectations, there is that danger. That’s way this production was such a delight—and so worthy of praise. I know it would have been one million times better with a live orchestra—that’s what everyone wants—but even with its limited staging and newsreel-like transitions, it was a beautiful and magical production. The Wick has a done it up right.
