So Pathetic- Page 2

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 3:43am

Oklahoma, aside from the fact that it WAS so groundbreaking is so darn Amrerican. As a transplanted Canadian, I must say that Oklahoma seems to symbolize all that I came to The States to experience. The joy, the exhuberace of a young, wide, tall, virile country; a country so alive with promise for the future. (Although the last five years under Bush have totally turned me off. I now find it so hard to see what I saw before and that's such a shame. And a digression).

Remember that the show opened in 1943, when things weren't going very well for America. A war on two fronts, both of which were blood-soaked sloggings. And yet, in the depth of the war, here was this show that just screamed of the American dream. That's what first made people love it.

And to this day, it's possible to get swept up in this simple story about a Sunday social and a box lunch (and yes, a murder, but that's very American, too, isn't it?) and a boy and a girl and a buggy with eisenglass curtains.

The reason people love it is becove it's a show that simply loves its setting and its characters.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 2:16pm

Perspective: SOUTH PACIFIC is Andrew Lloyd Webber's favorite musical - he thinks it's perfect.

He is right - and it is such a shame ALW has never bothered to learn what it is that makes SP work: music that supports and enhances the text, LYRICS that releate to thr characters and story, and simple scenery & sets that work. It's no secret, but it does seem to be something that ALW has never learned.

[Ourtime992]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 2:28pm

I am holding my breath to see what Michael Yeargan does with the set for the revival.

[LorelaiGilmore]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 4:18pm

I'm watching the concert right now and loving it. The music is great, and the performances are great!

[Practically Perfect]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 4:24pm

I love South Pacific! Did anyone see the recent revival at the National Theatre in London? I thought it was superb, and reminded me of what a great show this really is. The book and the score are first-rate. Gonna go listen to it now.

Mary P x

[LouW95]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 4:29pm

South Pacific, IN MY OPINION, represents the Golden Age of Bway. Today, the younger theatergoers get excited about Rent, Brooklyn and even Taboo. Once again, this is my opinion but there is no comparison between the productions of the 40s, 50s and 60s and the almost college level shows of today. Of course, there are some exceptions: Producers, Drowsy Chaperone, Chorus Line to name a few.

[TheEnchantedHunter]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 6:42pm

"The production I saw opened with "Bloody Mary" followed by "Nothing Like a Dame" and "Bali Ha'i". Then they transitioned into the scene with Nellie and Emile. I liked that structure a lot better. obviously, people are going to be more accustomed to which ever version they saw first, but for me that was a much better structure and I wouldn't want to see it done any other way. it was flawless, and it is in my opinion very difficult to bring a flawless South Pacific to the stage."

Your 'flawless' structure is a complete ripoff from the the movie. Unless the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization sanctioned it for the production you saw, they would have shut it down fast. This pointless restructuring of the story delays the entrance of the leading man and lady by about 25 minutes and puts the emphasis on the secondary lead of Lt.Cable. No doubt the movie took this misstep in order to give its heartthrob John Kerr greater focus but it's dumb and throws the entire story out of whack.

Ensign Lisa Minnelli
French Polynesia

[TheEnchantedHunter]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 6:45pm

"Remember that the show opened in 1943, when things weren't going very well for America. A war on two fronts, both of which were blood-soaked sloggings. And yet, in the depth of the war, here was this show that just screamed of the American dream. That's what first made people love it."

And why the recent Trevor Nunn-Susan Stroman 'revisal' was such a debacle.



Ali Hakim
Claremore, Oklahoma

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 6:46pm

That structure you describe Hunter was used for the London RNT staging a couple of years ago. Perhaps thats the production he saw. I actually agree, however, that the show as originally written is perfect and don't believe changing the order of those scenes is nearly as effective. It takes too long to get to the main characters and the central theme of the show.

And I don't believe Susan Stroman was involved in the RNT production. She came and went with OKLAHOMA!.

Updated On: 4/28/06 at 06:46 PM

[TheEnchantedHunter]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 10:16pm

Correct, MB. Allofmylife's post, to which I was responding (see above), was discussing OKLAHOMA!






Ensign Lisa Minnelli
French Polynesia

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 11:02pm

"Her breaking up with him because his children are "half-caste" seems unmotivated and just thrown in to have the act end with some conflict. There is no indication in the first act that she had a problem."

Not true. There is a scene in the first act where she gets a letter from her mother, and she tells Cable that her mother is "so prejudiced." How her mother has a thing against people with "different backgrounds." She asks him how he feels about it. This is a straight thru-line that goes from her difficulty with accepting DeBecque's relationship with the Polynesian woman (because it seems she cannot get past her provincial Little Rock upbringing, despite herself)to Cable's "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught."

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/29/06 at 2:43am

As a writer, as a screenwriter to be precise, I am amazed by a good musical book. I have 120 or so pages to tell a story whereas the librettist has about 40 pages to get the entire story across. Granted, the lyrics should continue the story but they also have to reflect ON the characters so really, it's less than four dozen pages of dialogue to get the job done. When one considers how much happens in "South Pacific" on those 40 pages, it's just plain impressive. Certainly, by the time Rodgers and Hammerstein tackled "South Pacific" they had decades of experience but they really were charting new territory. They were bringing subjects to the stage that were rarely apparent in the frothy world of musical comedy. They called the show "a musical drama" which indicated they were reaching for something new and exciting and the long, long run on Broadway and at Drury Lane, plus the DOZENS of touring compainies and international productions really show they achieved their goals.

And that ain't to damn bad.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/29/06 at 2:44am

As a writer, as a screenwriter to be precise, I am amazed by a good musical book. I have 120 or so pages to tell a story whereas the librettist has about 40 pages to get the entire story across. Granted, the lyrics should continue the story but they also have to reflect ON the characters so really, it's less than four dozen pages of dialogue to get the job done. When one considers how much happens in "South Pacific" on those 40 pages, it's just plain impressive. Certainly, by the time Rodgers and Hammerstein tackled "South Pacific" they had decades of experience but they really were charting new territory. They were bringing subjects to the stage that were rarely apparent in the frothy world of musical comedy. They called the show "a musical drama" which indicated they were reaching for something new and exciting and the long, long run on Broadway and at Drury Lane, plus the DOZENS of touring compainies and international productions really show they achieved their goals.

And that ain't to damn bad.

[Tigger]

Posted: 4/29/06 at 7:31am

The fact that a smash hit musical got away with making a positive statement about race and colour in the uber-white,racist and anti-Asian America of the 1940's is a momentous statement in itself.

South Pacific, is, love it or not, one of the most important,thoughtful and influential musical plays ever written that still provokes controversy with its themes of war,older-younger romance and its race issues (yes,to many people out there in xenophobic America, race is still very much an issue) as they continued to be later.It inspired many (such as ALW) and there are echos of it in such shows as Ms Saigon (bui-doi-The Dust Of Life)

The structure of the piece is amazing given its unrelated book origins. The music is
sumptuous with the power to still excite and move,if in the right hands as demonstrated by the sublime Carnegie Hall Concert.

There is a full scale revival of it opening this summer at the Stratford Festival,Ontario that I am dreading after the way they massacred The King and I last year.