SCERA’s production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s grand classic “South Pacific” suffers from poor casting and some weak performances, but overall serves its purpose in entertaining the audience.
Consummate singer/dancer/actress Jayne Luke, marvelous in everything she does, is miscast as Ensign Nellie Forbush. The nurse is said in the script to be young and naive; in fact, one reason it’s assumed she wouldn’t fall for Frenchman Emile de Becque (Marvin Payne) is that “he’s a middle-aged man.” (Mitzi Gaynor was 28 when she played the role in the film version.)
In this production, though, they’re both middle-aged, and Luke is far older than her fellow nurses. And never mind that she’s also supposed to be “a hick from the sticks” but doesn’t even TRY a Southern accent; Payne’s French accent comes and goes, too.
Still, the two of them are strong performers, almost overcoming the problems inherent in the casting and in fact carrying the show on their shoulders for much of the way. The show’s message about blind racism, now a little dated (honestly, in 1999, who cares if an American marries a Polynesian?), manages to come across in the end.
The other standout is Shawn Lynn as the scheming Luther Billis. Lynn is an amateur actor, but his performance is professional. His “Honey Bun” number with Luke is a high point of the show, and he carries himself with confidence and talent throughout.
Dan Jarvis’s Lt. Joseph Cable is overly dramatic, delivering every line with too much passion. That said, he and Kris Wing as the native girl Liat make an extremely cute couple, and one gets a sense of the true love that develops between them.
The rest of the supporting cast is hit-or-miss, and mostly miss, unfortunately. All have good singing voices, but few can really act. Some scenes, like the “Bloody Mary” number, are energy-drainingly slow and unenthusiastic, as if everyone’s just going through the motions.
If you haven’t seen “South Pacific” in a while, this production may serve as nostalgia. A first-timer, though, is unlikely to fall in love with what really is, and should be, a true classic.