South Pacific, the famous film and play, was revived
on Broadway in 2008 and played to enthusiastic crowds in a small
Southern town called Natchitoches, Louisiana.
Students from the
drama department at Northwestern State University put on their own
revival of the play, South Pacific, which has been so popular on Broadway and with
critics that it won seven Tonys in 2008. It was considered to be unique for its admonitions against racism at the time as reflected by the lyrics:
For younger audiences, the songs and dances of the play might likely
entertain, but the theme of racial stereotypes and problems of accepting
others with cultural and racial differences was a dramatic step in the
history of theater at the time South Pacific was made. It became
popular, however, for its offerings on many dimensions. It was first
done as a play in 1949 with Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza, then a movie in
1958 with Mitzi Gaynor and Ezio Pinza.
The story is of wartime, of young men and women on an island in the
South Pacific, where cultures collide, where differences become
magnified and who find among the native peoples challenges to their
stereotyped beliefs and values.
The heroine, Nellie Flatbush, from Little Rock, Arkansas falls in love
with a Frenchman who sired two children with a brown-skinned girl who
had died years before. Flatbush struggles with the knowledge her lover
went outside his race for romance, while she deals with her passions for
the man.
Drama student Victoria
Olivier plays a lead, the character of Nellie Flatbush, in the play
South Pacific, now being presented at Northwestern State University in
Natchitoches.
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In the meantime, a young military fellow, whose character is called
Lieutenant Joe Cable, falls in love with one of the native girls, the
daughter of Bloody Mary, a humorous but nevertheless somewhat
stereotyped depiction of Polynesian culture. He recognizes his
conflicts, and the prejudices that have brought them when he refuses to
marry the native girl, in the song, "You Have to Be Carefully Taught,"
the words that reflect how people learn to hate others through the ways
they are educated.
South Pacific can trigger memories, of changing times, of
people who had to live on the edge with something happening in the world
removed from them while they find themselves in a place unknown and
unfamiliar. It is a theme people talk about today with the speed of
life decades after South Pacific was first shown to audiences in 1949.
In the story, the characters must face new challenges through the prism
of their attitudes and beliefs and find in them what opportunities are
lost and what opening the heart might mean.
LeeCee Felix, a drama
student and singer-dancer, plays Liat in the play South Pacific, a South
Pacific Island girl who is rejected by a suitor because of racial and
cultural stereotypes.
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The many songs from the play are familiar from musical history of
America over decades, and that alone can bring positive audience
response. The songs include, A Cockeyed Optimist, Dites-Moi, Twin
Soliloquies, Some Enchanted Evening, Bloody Mary, My Girl Back Home,
There is Nothing Like a Dame, Bali Hai, I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right
Outta My Hair, A Wonderful Guy, Younger Than Springtime, Happy Talk,
Honey Bun, You've Got To Be Carefully Taught, and This Nearly Was Mine
some often find themselves humming or singing, with lyrics that
can be found on the Internet.
The
Broadway play revival with some of its award-winning cast has been
touring the country this month, playing in Hartford right now.
But for Natchitoches, Louisiana the play South Pacific came to
life in familiar ways, with the young people of the town, before an
enthusiastic crowd.
Last night drama students brought again, to a town in the South that has
experienced racial conflicts in its past and continues to struggle with
the legacies of them, a reminder of the messages the play dealt with
years ago, about stereotypes and how to deal with others in a changing
world, not unlike today.
Lyrics | - Youve Got To Be Carefully Taught lyrics |
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