South Pacific

With Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza in the lead roles, the musical South Pacific opened at the Majestic Theatre in New York on April 7, 1949, and ran for 1,925 performances. It was the fifth collaboration between composer Richard Rodgers (1902-1979) and lyricist/librettist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960), following Oklahoma! (1943), Carousel and State Fair (1945), and Allegro (1947). The phenomenal success of Oklahoma! and Carousel had made Rodgers and Hammerstein the dominant figures in American musical theater; South Pacific only added to their stature and reputation. Director Josh Logan suggested that Rodgers and Hammerstein base a musical theater production on one of the short stories from James Michener's Tales of the South Pacific, winner of a 1948 Pulitzer Prize. They decided to combine two stories, "Fo' Dolla"' and "Our Heroine," and the resulting musical went on to win Rodgers and Hammerstein their second Pulitzer Prize in a decade (the first was for Oklahoma! in 1943). South Pacific starred Mary Martin, in her first Rodgers and Hammerstein show, and Metropolitan basso Ezio Pinza in his Broadway debut, and was co-produced and directed by Logan. Like Oklahoma!, South Pacific yielded a remarkable number of songs that became popular apart from the show: "Some Enchanted Evening," "There Is Nothin' Like a Dame," "Bali Ha'i," "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair," "A Wonderful Guy," and "Younger Than Springtime." A film version, also directed by Logan, was released by Twentieth Century-Fox in 1958 starring Mitzi Gaynor, Rossano Brazzi, Ray Walston, Juanita Hall, and France Nuyen.

The story takes place in the islands of the South Pacific during World War II, as two very different romantic couples face similar obstacles to their happiness together. First, French plantation owner Emile deBecque and young Navy nurse Nellie Forbush from Arkansas fall in love. When Nellie encounters his children with a deceased Polynesian wife, she reconsiders married life with him. Meanwhile, Lt. Joe Cable from Philadelphia has a brief romance with Liat, a native girl, but like Nellie wonders how he can explain the racial issues to his family back home. DeBecque and Cable go on a secret mission behind the Japanese lines. Cable is killed, but deBecque returns to find Nellie transformed. She has faced her racism and realized that the children are fellow human beings whom she has already begun to love.

Commenting on social issues through music was a pattern in Rodgers and Hammerstein's work from the beginning of their partnership. The issue of racism has rarely been addressed directly on stage in musical theater, with the exception of the revolutionary musical Show Boat (1927), which not so coincidentally also had book and lyrics written by Oscar Hammerstein II. However, South Pacific meets Caucasian versus Asian racial prejudice head on through the stories of its main characters and through the song "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught to Hate." This approach to social justice continues in later Rodgers and Hammerstein shows; for example, there are gender and racial issues in The King and I (1951), conflict between generations and cultures in Flower Drum Song (1958), and issues of freedom and patriotism in The Sound of Music (1959).

The initial touring company of South Pacific traveled for five years. The musical was revived at Lincoln Center in 1967 and staged by the New York City Opera in 1987. The popular film version of 1958 was shot in the Fiji and Hawaiian Islands, but the colored filters that changed lighting effects from scene to scene hinder appreciation of the scenic beauty and the glorious music. Nonetheless, the film has kept the musical before the public, and South Pacific remains a perennial favorite with amateur theater groups around the world.

—Ann Sears

Further Reading:

Fordin, Hugh, with introduction by Stephen Sondheim. Getting to Know Him: A Biography of Oscar Hammerstein II. New York, Ungar Publishing Co., 1977. Reprint, New York, Da Capo Press, 1995.

Green, Stanley. Broadway Musicals Show by Show. 3d ed. Milwaukee, Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation, l990.

——. Encyclopaedia of the Musical Film. New York, Oxford University Press, 1981.

Hyland, William G. Richard Rodgers. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1998.

Michener, James. Tales from the South Pacific. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1947.

Mordden, Ethan. Rodgers & Hammerstein. New York, Harry N.Abrams, 1992.

Rodgers, Richard. Musical Stages: An Autobiography. New York, Random House, 1975. Reprint, with a new introduction by Mary Rodgers, New York, Da Capo Press, 1995.

Taylor, Deems. Some Enchanted Evenings: The Story of Rodgers and Hammerstein. New York, Harper and Brothers, 1953.