South Pacific is one of the great Rogers & Hammerstein musicals with a powerful story and some great songs. It is currently touring the UK and we went to see it last week at the Bradford Alhambra.
On mentioning it to Pat (my Mum) over the weekend, she reminded me that we had been to see the London production in the late eighties along with my Dad, Neil. (I remembered the show itself, but not that Neil came as well). He wasn’t one for going to see shows or reading too many books, preferring telly and socialising down the pub or club, but he came along to see the show, was smitten and went to the theatre as often as he could with Pat after that.
As to that London production, it was sensational. It was showing at the Prince of Wales and from memory the lead female was Gemma Craven. (I have the cast recording somewhere in my CD collection, along with a concert style version with full orchestra & many famous singers like Kiri De tanawa and Jose Carerras that was popular at the time.) I can recall that we sat near the front on the right, perhaps a bit too close to the orchestra pit because the brass section dominated the sound mix. The show was very close to the movie version and the sets were naturalistic three dimensional ones (as far as they can be in a theatre).
The show is set in the South pacific islands during the war, where American GIs & Marines are fighting the Japanese. The action takes place on three islands, all imaginary rather than specific countries. (The locals are said to be Polynesian and known as Tonkanese). The first island is where the Forces are based and is home to some French plantation owners as well. The second island, Bali Hai, is off-limits to enlisted men, so the French have sent their daughters over there. The third island is a strategic location in shipping lanes and features later in the show as part of the plot. Rather than explain the plot, there is a synopsis on Wikipedia here.
The musical was originally staged on Broadway in 1949 and the movie was released in 1958, a fine year. It raises issues of racism & bigotry, sensitively handled in the movie and the London production that I saw. (It was a bit more “in your face” in this new production, with a number of mimed vignettes showing separatism and prejudice in America during the War behind a gauze whilst the overture played).
Now it is always a little unfair to compare the staging of a touring production to one that is resident in a Theatre for years and years: the former is constrained by the costs and timescales of fitting it in a number of temporary homes whilst the latter is effectively built for its longer term home, including structural alterations like fitting floor slots and traps. (Having said that, the touring versions of Les Miz, Phantom and Miss Saigon are just as elaborate and impressive as their tethered versions, demanding a lot of the stage house where they visit.)
My memories of the London show were that it looked like an island with a beautiful sky and the action flowed. Some scenes strained that credibility slightly of course (like the set piece that represented the innards of an office where the forced perspective was overly forced). The one scene that particularly stuck in my mind was a show within a show, where the nurses performed to the troops. For this, they made themselves an open air theatre, surrounded by jeeps and military paraphernalia and strung beteen the trees were hundreds of lanterns made from anything that came to hand like old food tins, plant pots and packaging. The scene sparkled, it looked massively theatrical and the big song and dance number was a lot of fun. Also very memorable for me was an unexpected visual transformation- in the middle of the massive applause the decorative lights all snapped off and the scene was bathed in the eerie glow of blue backstage working lights & moonlight. The cast also froze and then scurried off, contrasting the glamour of the on-stage persona with the practical reality of backstage squalor.
I eventually got to visit the Prince of Wales in my new day job;- Spotlight Salesman. On reaching thirty, I had abandoned the Corporate Multi-National treadmill way of life and decided to do something I actually enjoyed. The trouble is that technical theatre is mostly poorly paid working very anti-social hours and it alternates between short periods of intense hyperactivity and long periods of boredom. So I did the second best thing, getting a job with a Company that sold theatre equipment.
Going into the West End was not productive as far as sales went but it was essential PR, the role of a rep is in building relationships rather than shifting boxes. It was easy to be interested in their work and the conversations were about the industry, not the products. I also heard some great stories over a Pint in the close to Stage Door Theatre Pubs!
When I was shown round backstage at the Prince of wales, I was amazed how shallow the stage was and how cramped the Wing space was, getting the show in and on was certainly a proverbial Quart in a Pint Pot. The Fly tower was pretty full and a Jeep that featured in the second half of the show was stored on a sky hook way up in the air, chained to a working gallery above. (Most London theatres are cramped backstage like this, (particularly the between the wars ones), with a few noble exceptions like the Royal Opera House, Theatre Royal Drury Lane, the Coliseum and the Royal National theatre)
So what did I think of the touring show? Pretty good actually, but not quite as good as the London one. The sets relied on lots of corrugated iron and wood for backgrounds (including two large pieces that could be flown in and then track left and right, sometimes seemingly with a mind of their own). The basic set was a semi-circular raked floor with substantian banyan trees either side and a cyclorama (infinity cloth) for the sky, spoilt slightly by being wrinkled and with some visible damage high up that the front stalls patrons could see. This basic set was the beach with the addition of some beach props (such as a home made washing machine and a shower cubicle) and transformed to the plantation villa with the addition of a flown in substantial looking house, a trucked on table and a pop-up fence at the back. The theatre set was mostly corrugated iron, with banners made from flags for the proscenium. To large gauzes with maps of America and the South pacific were used for varios short scenes as well as the pre-show opening and interval sets. The gauze was marred somewhat by all of the tie tapes being visible on the flying bar and it not being quite wide enough for the masking so that the edges could be seen (which weren’t vertical, they bowed inwards).
As to the cast, Nellie (the female lead) was played by Helena Blackman, one of the Sound of Music Finalists and she was great, but wasn’t quite how I view Nellie- she had very dark hair and not quite the Doris Day girl next door type that I imagine the character to be. When I first saw Emile (the male lead, played by Dave Willetts) I thought it was Eric Sykes! The Bloody Mary Matriarch character (played by Finipina Shiela Francisco) was a bit hard to understand at first but I warmed to her when she did a superb rendition of Bali Hai. This was a signed performance with an interpreter near the proscenium on the forestage to the right and Luthor Billis, the main comic character (a slightly dodgy sailor with an eye for private enterprise) went over and leant on him during one of the songs, tousling his hair as he went!
Something else I always associate with South Pacific (for totally arbitrary reasons of word association) was an ex Army man called Mike who came to join us at Northern telecom in Maidenhead as training Manager. Before he started we had heard about his imminent arrival and that he was a fifty year old Major, so we half expected him to have a handlebar moustache and a Batman. The reality, however, was very different. He was very practical, very organised and very funny. He had an excellent flair for detecting bullshit, was a great communicator but also delightfully irreverent, introducing the Army term “Wanks for England” into Management meetings. I remember him for telling a joke about an order of monks with a vow of silence that still sticks in my mind twenty years later but it is one of those jokes where the time and the delivery has to be spot-on and I can’t repeat it here as it doesn’t really work in print and it has a very rude word in it.. Shame that…
Corrugated iron and wood?
James, think of Nissan huts. That sort of materian would have been the items of choice for temporary buildings.
I loved that show and I remember how excited we all were when the film came out. And of course, there was Rossano Brazzi as Emile!
I’d be interested to know if they left the song, “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught” out in the production you saw? It’s a horrible song and was left off later recordings.
Welshcakes, the song was in the show. It was also in the 1988 London show and the Dame Kiri de Tanawa recording.
Whilst it is a rather unpleasant song, it is pivotal to the plot in both Lt. Cable (and eventually Nellie) confronting their own prejudices.