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PLAYBILL ON OPENING NIGHT: South Pacific — Bali Ha'i Ballyhoo
By Harry Haun
04 Apr 2008
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Kelli O'Hara, Paulo Szot, Matthew Morrison, Li Jun Li and Loretta Ables Sayre, Danny Burstein and Bartlett Sher.
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| photo by Aubrey Reuben | "Your own special island," with its thick forest of Rodgers & Hammerstein evergreens — Bali Ha'i — materialized on the stage of the Vivian Beaumont April 3, as South Pacific finally returned to its roots for its first Broadway revival.
The show docked there just four days shy of the 59th anniversary of its original sighting.
"What took it so long to return?" a R&H spokesperson was asked. "Who can explain it? Who can tell you why?" Bert Fink shrugged lightly. And that, somehow, said it.
Some enchanted evening was had by all. That grand old warhorse of a World War II musical which Joshua Logan, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II stitched together from James A. Michener's poetic and fragmented "Tales of the South Pacific" has, over the years, become synonymous with musical theatre. The score is in the DNA of every showgoer, and it has only to assert itself for it to play you like a harp.
"And what about that harp!" a still-excited Alice Playten trilled later at the Tavern on the Green after-party. "You could hear it. You could see it. It was beautiful."
Indeed, the orchestra was beautiful. The thrust stage of the Beaumont receded during the overture to reveal a full 30-piece orchestra, lovingly conducted by Ted Sperling, and at the center of it was a harp crowned by an orchid lei. This spectacle — a luxurious rarity these days — drew thunderous applause from the audience.
A note in the Playbill points out that Rodgers' music was "being presented in the 30-player orchestration created for the original production. The scores and orchestral parts were restored by The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization using all existing material, including manuscripts (Rodgers, Trude Rittmann), the full orchestral scores (Robert Russell Bennett) and the individual instrumental parts played by the original orchestra." Basically you hear what audiences heard at the Majestic in 1949.
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Mary Rodgers, Alice Hammerstein, Keira and James Naughton, Rebecca Luker, Connie Fisher and Sam Waterston.
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| photo by Aubrey Reuben |
South Pacific is the only show in Tony history to sweep all four acting categories, winning awards for Mary Martin, Ezio Pinza, Juanita Hall and Myron McCormick — impossible, iconic acts to follow, but Kelli O'Hara, Paulo Szot, Loretta Ables Sayre and Danny Burstein gamely and bravely give it a go, meeting with startling success.
Recruited from opera , the Brazilian Szot strikes a commanding and convincing presence as the French plantation owner in Hawaii, Emile de Becque. The part made Pinza a middle-aged matinee idol, and it wears well on Szot — even though he's six years short of the character's 44 years. He sings big, and that's what counts here.
"It's my first musical, ever," Szot confessed, "and the reaction of the public has been amazing. From my first moment on stage, I felt like the audience was so connected to us — like they were singing along. I'm very lucky to be able to do this because these are wonderful songs. And to be able to sing eight shows a week! First of all, it's not easy at all to do something like that because I'm not used to it. Opera singers don't do that. We have, like, three shows a week. But, after this experience, I'm finding I enjoy doing it so many times because I can find out more and more about the character."
Another stranger in a strange land making her Broadway debut is Sayre, who hails from Hawaii and delivers the textbook Bloody Mary, the native matron who peddles shrunken heads and grass skirts — and, when the opportunity presents itself, her own daughter to a susceptible young lieutenant. "I see this man as the best thing that could possibly happen to my daughter," said Sayre, opting for the soft-focus reading of the character. "We're living on a very small island. She could have been married off to a young native boy and had lots of children, and she would probably end up having the same life I've had. I want something better for her than that."
It's a circuitous route that brought her to Broadway — but a logical one, in her view: "Ted Sperling was having lunch with an actor friend of mine when they were still looking at Bloody Marys, and my friend said, 'You're doing South Pacific — why don't you look in the South Pacific? Have you thought of that?' A casting agent with Telsey and Company was going to Hawaii a week later, and they asked him to give up a day of his vacation and hold an audition. There were many of us there — it was a 12-hour audition — and I got a call-back three days later, and they flew me here in August."
Her happy landing on Broadway was understandably emotional. "I could barely hold it together tonight," she admitted about her curtain call. "It was hard for me to realize I'm doing a Broadway show, something I have dreamed of doing all of my life. And to have that dream come to fruition two days after I turned 50 — incredible." Continued...
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