|
|
 |
|
'SOUTH PACIFIC'
|
Back on Broadway again and it's still marvelous!
of TheColumnists.com
"Her skin is tender as DiMaggio’s glove, her skin is tender as DiMaggio’s glove, her skin is tender as DiMaggio’s glove, Now ain’t that too damn bad!"
The Seabees sing that in "South Pacific,"
the greatest Broadway musical ever produced, in their testimonial
to their island favorite Bloody Mary. I remember it like it was
yesterday. Well, it was 58 years ago.
I also remember it because it was just a few weeks ago that I
saw the second New York production at Lincoln Center of the Richard
Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein musical creation from James Michener’s
Pulitzer Prize winning novel "Tales of the South Pacific,"
the author’s fictionalized memories of his World War II
service.
The show opened in 1949, just four years after the end of the
war, and I made it to the Majestic Theater in Manhattan in 1950
for my first real date at the age of 18. I had the two $3.50
balcony tickets in my pocket and the beautiful Ruthie at my side.
Then came the overture, the cute sounds of "Dites-Moi,"
the enthusiasm of "A Cockeyed Optimist" and
the romantic "Some Enchanted Evening." Bloody
Mary mentioned DiMaggio’s name and for this baseball nut
and budding sportswriter there could hardly ever be a lyric to
equal it. OK, Paul Simon’s "Where Have You Gone,
Joe DiMaggio?" from "The Graduate" caught
me again years later and I celebrated that accomplishment with
a biography of The Yankee Clipper I wrote with that title, courtesy
of the same Simon.
Musical theater is one of those life experiences you get or you
don’t.
I don’t know an awful lot about music. I can’t play
an instrument. I fall asleep when I’m dragged off to the
opera. Rock music played by my kids and now grandkids in our
car makes me edgy.
All I know is what I like. "South Pacific" has been
the standard of excellence for theatrical entertainment for me
going on six decades. My wife is tired of my cliché response
as we walk out of the theater after a production of a serious
drama, a comedy, a cute musical or a serious reinvention of some
old Broadway revival:
“It wasn’t South Pacific!” I would bellow.
Like books or movies or an occasional television show that last
forever in your psyche for no explainable reason, it is difficult
to pinpoint why certain creations just deposit themselves in
your head. No matter where you go, no matter how old you age,
no matter what the surroundings, they lock themselves into your
being.
 |
the 1949 "South Pacific" is one of the most prized of all Broadway cast albums. |
My wife has often accused me of using "South Pacific" as a reinvention of my youth, thinking back to a memorable date, recalling a grownup type outing into the big city of New York from as far away as Brooklyn or over dramatizing an experience shared by so many.
Maybe some of this is true.
All I know is that I still react the same with laughter or tears, with a tingle down my spine, with the sweet reverie we are entitled to when we pass three score and ten when I hear any lyric from that familiar show.
Memory is a selective art.
I can recite the batting order of baseball games I witnessed over 60 years ago. I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday. I can detail the events of certain contests I covered as a sportswriter half a century ago or watched as a kid in the stands six decades ago. I can’t find my keys.
We all choose to remember what is really important to us, what matters in our psyche or in our story telling. I have been caught up in the sounds and sites of "South Pacific" ever since I saw Mary Martin walk across the stage in 1950 and Ezio Pinza, the elderly Frenchman romancing the little hick nurse from Little Rock, Nellie Forbush, with that classic voice.
Kelli O’Hara and Paulo Szot, the current Lincoln Center performers of the lead roles, do as well in appearance and sound as Martin and Pinza did in my distant youth.
Maybe they are even better. Who knows? What matters is that the story is the same, the lyrics hold up, ("You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear, you’ve got to be taught from year to year, it’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear, you’ve got to be carefully taught.") and the music is unequalled.
Well, forget about getting tickets. They are sold out for years. Why not? It is "South Pacific."
Oh, excuse me now. I have to put the disc on. It’s time for my nap.
©2008 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen
caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. This column first posted
June 9, 2008.
You
can comment on this column online. Please address your message
to either "The Editors" or Maury Allen. To send an
email, click here and don't forget to mention Maury's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
|
|
|
Archives |
|
|