South Pacific is a musical
composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. The work
premiered in 1949 on Broadway and ran for 1,925 performances. At the time, it
was the second-longest running Broadway musical (behind Rodgers and
Hammerstein's earlier Oklahoma! (1943). The piece won the Pulitzer Prize
for Drama in 1950. The production won ten Tony Awards, including Best Musical,
Best Score, and Best Libretto, and it is the only musical production to win
Tony Awards in all four acting categories. Its original cast album was the
bestselling record of the 1940s
The story is based on James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book Tales
of the South. The plot centers on an American nurse stationed on a South
Pacific island during World War II, who falls in love with a middle-aged
expatriate French plantation owner but struggles to accept his mixed-race
children. A secondary romance, between a U.S. lieutenant and a young Tonkinese
woman, explores his fears of the social consequences should he marry his Asian
sweetheart. The issue of racial prejudice is candidly explored throughout the
musical, most controversially in the lieutenant's song, "You've Got to Be
Carefully Taught". Supporting characters, including a comic petty officer
and the Tonkinese girl's mother, help to tie the stories together. Several of
its famous songs include including "Bali Ha'i", "I'm Gonna Wash
That Man Right Outa My Hair", "Some Enchanted Evening",
"There Is Nothing Like a Dame", "Happy Talk", "Younger
Than Springtime", and "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy".
Although book editor and university instructor James Michener could have
avoided military service in World War II as a birthright Quaker, he enlisted in
the U.S. Navy in October 1942. He was not sent to the South Pacific theater
until April 1944, when he was assigned to write a history of the Navy in the
Pacific and was allowed to travel widely. He survived a plane crash in New
Caledonia; the near-death experience motivated him to write fiction, and he
began listening to the stories told by soldiers. One journey took him to the
Treasury Islands, where he discovered an unpleasant village, called Bali-ha'i,
populated by "scrawny residents and only one pig". Struck by the
name, Michener wrote it down and soon began to record, on a battered
typewriter, his version of the tales. On a plantation on the island of Espiritu
Santo, he met a woman named Bloody Mary; she was small, almost toothless, her
face stained with red betel juice. Punctuated with profanity learned from GIs,
she complained endlessly to Michener about the French colonial government,
which refused to allow her and other Tonkinese to return to their native
Vietnam, lest the plantations be depopulated. She told him also of her plans to
oppose colonialism in French Indochina. These stories, collected into Tales
of the South Pacific, won Michener the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Tales
of the South Pacific comprises nineteen stories. Each stands independently
but revolves around the preparation for an American military operation to
dislodge the Japanese from a nearby island.
Act I
On a South Pacific island during World War II, two half-Polynesian children.
Ngana and Jerome, happily sing as they play together ("Dites-Moi").
Ensign Nellie Forbush, a naïve U.S. Navy nurse from Little Rock, Arkansas, has
fallen in love with Emile de Becque, a middle-aged French plantation owner,
though she has known him only briefly. Even though everyone else is worried
about the outcome of the war, Nellie tells Emile that she is sure everything
will turn out all right ("A Cockeyed Optimist"). Emile also loves
Nellie, and each wonders if the other reciprocates those feelings ("Twin
Soliloquies"). Emile expresses his love for Nellie, recalling how they met
at the officers' club dance and instantly were attracted to each other
("Some Enchanted Evening"). Nellie, promising to think about their
relationship, returns to the hospital. Emile calls Ngana and Jerome to him,
revealing to the audience that they are his children, unbeknownst to Nellie.
Meanwhile, the restless American Seabees, led by crafty Luther Billis,
lament the absence of available women – Navy nurses are commissioned
officers and off-limits to enlisted men. There is one civilian woman on the
island, nicknamed "Bloody Mary", a sassy middle-aged Tonkinese vendor
of grass skirts, who engages the sailors in sarcastic, flirtatious banter as
she tries to sell them her wares ("Bloody Mary"). Billis yearns to
visit the nearby island of Bali Ha'i – which is off-limits to all but officers
– supposedly to witness a Boar's Tooth Ceremony (at which he can get an unusual
native artifact); the other sailors josh him, saying that his real motivation
is to see the young French women there. Billis and the sailors further lament
their lack of feminine companionship ("There Is Nothing Like a
Dame").
U.S. Marine Lieutenant Cable arrives on the island from Guadalcanal, having
been sent to take part in a dangerous spy mission whose success could turn the
tide of the war against Japan. Bloody Mary tries to persuade Cable to visit
"Bali Ha'i", mysteriously telling him that it is his special
island. Billis, seeing an opportunity, urges Cable to go. Cable meets with his
commanding officers, Captain George Brackett and Commander William Harbison,
who plan to ask Emile to help with the mission because he used to live on the
island where the mission will take place. They ask Nellie to help them find out
more about Emile's background, for example, his politics and why he left
France. They have heard, for instance, that Emile committed a murder, and this
might make him less than desirable for such a mission.
After thinking a bit more about Emile and deciding she has become attracted
on the basis of little knowledge of him, Nellie tells the other nurses that she
intends to end her relationship with him ("I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right
Outa My Hair"). When he arrives unexpectedly and invites Nellie to a party
where he will introduce her to his friends, however, she accepts. Emile
declares his love for Nellie and asks her to marry him. When she mentions
politics, he speaks of universal freedom, and describes fleeing France after
standing up against a bully, who died accidentally as the two fought. After
hearing this, Nellie agrees to marry Emile. After he exits, Nellie joyously
gives voice to her feelings ("I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy").
Cable's mission is to land on a Japanese-held island and report on Japanese
ship movements. The Navy officers ask Emile to be Cable's guide, but he refuses
their request because of his hopes for a new life with Nellie. Commander
Harbison, the executive officer, tells Cable to go on leave until the mission
can take place, and Billis obtains a boat and takes Cable to Bali Ha'i. There,
Billis participates in the native ceremony, while Bloody Mary introduces Cable
to her beautiful daughter, Liat, with whom he must communicate haltingly in
French. Believing that Liat's only chance at a better life is to marry an
American officer, Mary leaves Liat alone with Cable. The two are instantly
attracted to each other and make love ("Younger Than Springtime").
Billis and the rest of the crew are ready to leave the island, yet must wait
for Cable who, unbeknownst to them, is with Liat ("Bali Ha'i"
(reprise)). Bloody Mary proudly tells Billis that Cable is going to be her
son-in-law.
Meanwhile, after Emile's party, Nellie and he reflect on how happy they are
to be in love (Reprises of "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy",
"Twin Soliloquies", "Cockeyed Optimist" and "I'm Gonna
Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair"). Emile introduces Nellie to Jerome and
Ngana. Though she finds them charming, she is shocked when Emile reveals that
they are his children by his first wife, a dark-skinned Polynesian woman, now
deceased. Nellie is unable to overcome her deep-seated racial prejudices and
tearfully leaves Emile, after which he reflects sadly on what might have been
("Some Enchanted Evening" (reprise)).
Act II
It is Thanksgiving Day. The GIs and nurses dance in a holiday revue titled
"Thanksgiving Follies". In the past week, an epidemic of malaria has
hit the island of Bali Ha'i. Having visited Bali Ha'i often to be with Liat,
Cable is also ill, but escapes from the hospital to be with Liat. As Liat and
Cable spend more time together, Bloody Mary is delighted. She encourages them
to continue their carefree life on the island ("Happy Talk") and
urges them to marry. Cable, aware of his family's prejudices, says he cannot
marry a Tonkinese girl. Bloody Mary furiously drags her distraught daughter
away, telling Cable that Liat must now marry a much older French plantation
owner instead. Cable laments his loss. ("Younger Than Springtime"
(reprise)).
For the final number of the Thanksgiving Follies, Nellie performs a comedy
burlesque dressed as a sailor singing the praises of "his" sweetheart
("Honey Bun"). Billis plays Honey Bun, dressed in a blond wig, grass
skirt and coconut-shell bra. After the show, Emile asks Nellie to reconsider.
She insists that she cannot feel the same way about him since she knows about
his children's Polynesian mother. Frustrated and uncomprehending, Emile asks
Cable why he and Nellie have such prejudices. Cable, filled with self-loathing,
replies that "it's not something you're born with", yet it is an
ingrained part of their upbringing ("You've Got to Be Carefully
Taught"). He also vows that if he gets out of the war alive, he won't go
home to the United States; everything he wants is on these islands. Emile
imagines what might have been ("This Nearly Was Mine"). Dejected and
feeling that he has nothing to lose, he agrees to join Cable on his dangerous
mission.
The mission begins with plenty of air support. Offstage, Billis stows away
on the plane, falls out when the plane is hit by anti-aircraft fire, and ends
up in the ocean waiting to be rescued; the massive rescue operation
inadvertently becomes a diversion that allows Emile and Cable to land on the
other side of the island undetected. The two send back reports on Japanese
ships' movements in the "Slot", a strategic strait; American aircraft
intercept and destroy the Japanese ships. When the Japanese Zeros strafe the
Americans' position, Emile narrowly escapes, but Cable is killed.
Nellie learns of Cable's death and that Emile is missing. She realizes that
she was foolish to reject Emile because of the race of his children's mother.
Bloody Mary and Liat come to Nellie asking where Cable is; Mary explains that
Liat refuses to marry anyone but him. Nellie comforts Liat. Cable and Emile's
espionage work has made it possible for a major offensive, Operation Alligator,
to begin. The previously idle fighting men, including Billis, go off to battle.
Nellie spends time with Jerome and Ngana and soon comes to love them. While
the children are teaching her to sing "Dites-Moi," suddenly Emile's
voice joins them. Emile has returned to discover that Nellie has overcome her
prejudices and has fallen in love with his children. Emile, Nellie and the
children rejoice ("Dites-Moi" (reprise)).
