THEATRE REVIEW "South Pacific"-Only an E for effort
About the article
This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from January 1978.
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It must first be pointed out that the Cayman Drama Society and the Cayman Singers have made a masterful attempt to produce a musical which many of the seasoned amateur groups in the United States have studiously and sensibly avoided for many, many seasons. In the first place, the story, like Nellie's character, is American as Kansas in August and as irremoveable as the Fourth of July. Its human backdrop is the U.S. Navy - perhaps this century's most vivid embodiment of true, raw Americana.
To attempt to depict this salient feature with players whose accents range from robust cockney to Brooklyn-Irish-Catholic brogue is to tax the imagination of an audience already befuddled by the wonderful presence of a Polynesian hot mama misdressed as Harriet Beecher Stowe's Topsy. After saying all that, perhaps one should come right out and suggest that the initial foible occurred in the selection of the play.
Basic Shakespeare teaches that a play is written, or chosen to be produced according to the human material with which one must work. The producers struck out on that one. Secondly, "South Pacific" is a story. whose main thrust was timely when it was included in the tales of the South Pacific. That thrust did not travel, in the same manner that the racial sentiments of the people of Little Rock, Arkansas did not travel into time. The same would be true of "A Majority of One," "Blackboard Jungle," or, to a sadder degree, "The Merchant of Venice."
If the theatre - professional or amateur - exists to educate on current themes while it entertains, the producers of "South Pacific" struck out again. Nevertheless, the choice was "South Pacific," and so commentary must concentrate on that fact.
One simply cannot produce something of the magnitude of "South Pacific" on the stage of the Town Hall in Georege Town. It is, of course, an immense challenge for the set designer, in this case Margaret Barwick. A set designer will create the entire City of London inside the telephone booth at Cable & Wireless, if that is your desire, and that is pretty much the wonderful miracle Ms. Barwick wrought in this instance.
Yet the scene changes, though thoroughly understandable, were annoying. intrusions which too often shook the audience from the aura of the story and into a little game of rying to discern through the darkness what all the furniture moving was about. Inevitably one guessed the next scene.
Ignoring those instances when lines were fluffed, mumbled, or simply left out, one cannot accord equal generosity by turning a deaf ear to the many moments, tender and otherwise, when players had to cut short their climactic notes because they simply could not sing. Many an embarrassing moment came when a character saved himself by abbreviating his final notes, but the band played on to the natural conclusion. Indeed if Jack Dredge could sing as well as Anita Wheaton, and she act as well as he, such a combination might well have served to salvage many a moment of thoroughly bad theatre.
The most resounding criticism of the production, however, must consist in the terrible casting. It was this singular point which so often lost for the production whatever credibility it might have gleaned despite all the other "blames."
The criticism is simple. If we are in the South Pacific during the second World War (or at any other time, for that matter), the mother of a beautiful, believable Polynesian girl, Liat, is simply not a charmingly talented black woman. At least it wasn't in the mind of James Michener (remember him?)
So far as the players were concerned, it cannot be denied that each did his part with spirit and with all the talent and experience gained from acting not only on Cayman's stage, but, in many cases, abroad.
Jack Dredge, once it is forgotten that he is not a singer, played surperbly, often exuding a touch of genius in the confusion around him.
Anita Wheton lived her part, and her total Americanisation of Nellie was so absorbing that one could easily ignore her too-furtive movements when certainly the script might have calleu for ease.
Barbara McCalla, notwithstanding her obviously immense talent, was the most ludicrously miscast character of the lot, and spent most of the evening convincing the audience (as she must certainly have had to convince herself) that the beautiful, curvaceous, talented Jackie Balls was indeed her daughter. Peter Webber as Luther Billis, however, is either hot in the running for one of this year's Golden Conch Awards, or somebody didn't understand what he did to help save the evening. Mike Austin and Nick Press gave it the old college try, but could have scored higher points had they been participants in "The Bridge on the River Kwai." David Bird, as Marine Corps Lt. Joseph Cable, could have made his mark during the "Younger than Springtime" sequence, but his singing and his acting were unfortunately on par.
Most of the ladies were there as picturesque backdrops - except two. Carol Ann Balls and Susan Moir, whenever they came onstage, fell like wonderful bits of heaven on a scene beswarmed with characters in search of a production which was obviously not "South Pacific." The two little girls were magnificent as the daughters of the visionary Emile de Becque, and for those who remember the original Broadway production of the show could easily have matched the dual angels of that era.
Almost to a man, all, the performers showed style and fair professionalism. This is why, to a constructive critic, it suddenly became obvious somewhere in the second act that onstage there was a multiplicity of diverse talent scattered through the production in a hodge-podge of lights and action and drama which did not necessarily amount to good theatre.
The nostalgic songs, the time-worn plot, the forseeable next scene all reminded one of Edgar Allen Poe's tintinnabulation of the Bells, how they chimed, chimed, chimed with a sort of runic rhyme. There is one thing which, in all fairness, must be emphasized: Most of the production numbers were, in themselves, sheer delight to watch and hear. Especially in the case of "Honey Bunch," there was a symmetry throughout, and Judy Dredge must receive top marks for her choreography. Of course all this could not be possible without Marilyn Smith's transformation of a piano, a saxaphone and a set of drums into something of value. Yet, if you liked music, and the sweet songs of Rodgers & Hammerstein's yesterday, "South Pacific" may have been an evening's delight. If a tragi-musical snippet of America's military years in the beautiful South Sea Islands, still holds a place in your heart, then "South Pacific" was definitely for you.
And if you're still intrigued by the hilariously devisive methods by which lonely sailors, stoical nurses and unknowing island beauties while away the endless days, months and years, then "South Pacific" offers up a healthy helping of that, too. A necessary parting shot must be, however, in the form of an admonition to the Cayman Drama Society and the Cayman Singers: Musical theatre, even on its most amateruish plauteau, is like hard liquor if you can't handle it, leave it alone, or devastation is the inevitable final curtain!
