MUSICAL THEATRE REVIEW:
SOUTH PACIFIC
17 Aug'10

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 5 out of 5

As the curator of any fine-arts museum knows, stripping away years of built-up sediment and grime in restoring a work to its original glory can be a two-edged sword. For even while there are those who will thrill to the breadth and depth of the artist's original vision, there are still others who will complain that the patina of age was what made the work a classic. It's no different if the work of art is a piece of musical theatre, except it is often sentiment and sediment that is stripped away.

Case in point, director Bartlett Sher's justifiably celebrated Lincoln Centre revival and re-imagining of Rodgers and Hammerstein's SOUTH PACIFIC, a work adapted from James. A Michener's Tales of the South Pacific, with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan.

While there are certainly those of us who thrill at the vision of a SOUTH PACIFIC stripped of the layers of sentimentality and tradition accumulated over the years, there are still others who see Sher's new look at at an old work as something akin to theatrical blasphemy. But one suspects even those dissenters will find a thrill or two in the touring production of Sher's SOUTH PACIFIC that opened Sunday on the stage of the Four Seasons Centre, the second and final offering in Dancap Productions summer season there.

Not only is it a beautiful show to watch, thanks to Michael Yeargan's sets and Donald Holder's lighting, it's also a glorious show to hear. And while that's a tribute to the enduring power of Rodgers and Hammerstein's score and impressive work from conductor Lawrence Goldberg and his musicians, it also signals that many of the sound problems that plagued MISS SAIGON during its Four Seasons run have been worked out, as technicians learn more about staging a modern-miked musical in a hall purpose-built for the unamplified human voice.

Happily, there is a host of impressive performances too. for all that the actors cast in all of the principal roles seem to be a little off centre from what one might expect -- all of them except Welsh-born, Toronto-based Jason Howard. He uses a voice as rich and smooth as old port, as well as some smooth acting, to create an Emile de Becque for the ages. Emile, of course, is the French-born planter who, at the height of the Second World War, falls for the charms of Nellie Forbush, a cock-eyed optimist from Arkansas played with a rich and subtle vein of melancholy by Carmen Cusack.

While their relationship is threatened by the racial prejudice of the day -- a racism underlined by the re-introduction of a song excised from the original, called My Girl Back Home -- another love story is being written by Lieutenant Cable (played with a patrician aloofness by Anderson Davis) and the lovely Liat (Sumie Maeda), the under-age daughter of Bloody Mary (Jodie Kimura), the latter relationship with more tragic consequences.

Bloody Mary, of course, is the amoral native entrepreneur determined to make her fortune from the American military personnel who have taken over her island, her greed echoed in the persona of Luther Billis, rescued from clichéd casting by Matthew Saldivar with impressive results.

While this may not be a perfect production -- on a few occasions, Sher drags his feet and allows his audience to get ahead of his production -- it is not only a fresh look at an old classic, but one that takes all that glorious old music and makes it seem younger than springtime.