South Pacific

Rogers and Hammerstein musicals have slipped in the popularity stakes recently with amateur performance, with many groups preferring to present more modern and upbeat musicals, and it was a refreshing change for this society to present this show. Many critics refer to Rogers and Hammerstein as the most important creators of musical theatre in the 1940s and 50s and also with setting new standards in this genre particularly with their production of South Pacific. While none of the situations or characters depicted were true and none of the characters were based on real people, and none of the islands existed, in essence the story was true and everything could have happened.

It is one of my favourite Rogers and Hammerstein musicals being the first one that I ever saw many years ago when I was a fresh faced teenager and it has stuck with me ever since. It was a big contrast to the previous year’s production of Hairspray and no doubt welcome to older audience members although the fact that the production played to about 2000 fewer audience members tells its own story with regards to the popularity of this kind of production nowadays, which is sad. 

This is truly one of the great musicals with its gritty story based during the Second World War in the South Pacific as the American forces await their entry into combat. The two central relationships in the story focus on inbuilt racism and the distress that this can cause. Both central relationships are affected by long held racist attitudes. The musical is also unusual in that the central pairing can be played by more mature performers and in Helen Havilland  and Peter Clements tops found just the right ingredients. Their  growing affection for each other was beautifully portrayed and their singing was nicely controlled. The secondary love interest of Liat and Joseph Cable can so easily be overshadowed, but here Jasmine Northcott and particularly Chris Matanle gave full measure to a romance doomed from the start. Chris has a particularly strong singing voice and this was shown to excellent effect in my favourite number from the show Younger than Springtime. It is often argued that the endings to these two romances are contrived with Emile being kept alive to provide a happy ending and Cable been killed in order to end the romance that would eventually have resulted in unhappiness.

Light relief is provided by Bloody Mary and Billis played superbly by Penny Daw and Gary Abraham. However, these characters tell their own story and in many ways both represent disappointed personas trying to achieve and be something that they are not.

South Pacific always requires a good number of male performers which is not an easy task in today's amateur theatre world but the society managed to field a good number of men and their production numbers were presented with great energy. Rogers and Hammerstein shows tend to be a bit on the long side and it is very is easy to lose pace with lengthy scene changes but this production moved along swiftly and I particularly liked the way the story moved from scene to scene with cast moving the furniture and some of the scenery changes then backing the continuing action to ensure that there were no awkward pauses. All credit goes to the director  for ensuring that pace was maintained and that characters remained true to the needs of the story. Impressive scenery and costumes ensured that the show had a really good visual feel to it.

It goes without saying for this group that the vocals were a first-rate quality and the MD is to be congratulated once again particularly with regard to his control of the large 13 piece orchestra. With a large company it's impossible to mention everyone by name but there were no weak links among the smaller cameo roles and the big company numbers were very entertaining indeed with well thought through choreography. I do hope that productions such as this do not become a thing of the past but I fear that audience tastes particularly with regard to amateur theatre are changing.

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