What "South Pacific" means to me (Don't miss today's Weekly Blast!)

Student symposium on the themes of the island musical

Feb 16, 2023

• On Sunday, February 19 at Noon ET and Monday, February 20 at Noon and 7 pm ET we’ll have a FREE class exploring the 1949 Rodgers & Hammerstein tropical masterpiece. Register here.

• On Tuesday, February 21 at Noon ET we’ll have a paid class ($5) on the Adler/Ross musicals The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees. Register here.

• This Weekly Blast includes:

A) a SYMPOSIUM of student opinions about the theme of South Pacific;

B) a SURVEY about the Broadway shows of Richard Adler and Jerry Ross;

C) a YouTube GEM about Pipe Dream, a rarely produced Rodgers & Hammerstein show;

D) an ESSAY about the role of baseball in Broadway shows beyond Damn Yankees; and

E) LAST BLASTs about Show Boat, Anything Goes, and Gypsy

Here are some Broadway Maven students on the themes of South Pacific:

Jim Kirkwood: Certainly the main theme is racism, but I think Hammerstein was also exploring definitions of masculinity and femininity in post-war America. Masculine attributes were being a war hero, the head of the household and the family's source of support. Women, who had carried the workforce and supported the family during the war, were expected to return to domestic roles as homemakers and stay-at-home moms. These are the roles that Emile and Nellie embrace after the war and that Cable rejects. Emile is introduced in feminine terms. His tentative courting of Nellie is feminine and contrasts strongly with the explosion of unbridled masculinity that follows as the Seabees sing "Bloody Mary." To the Navy, he is shrouded in mystery, another feminine attribute. In the course of the play, he becomes a masculine war hero.

Cable, on the other hand, begins as a war hero and becomes feminized by his decision to stay on the island after the war with Mary supporting him and Liat. His decision to become an outsider marks him for death like Hammerstein's other outsiders (Judd and Billy). When Nellie hears of his death, she says "poor little Joe Cable." He has devolved from a warrior into little Joe Cable.

Melanie Lee: I'll say the themes of South Pacific are culture clash, racism, and being far from home. Emile, Nellie, Joe, and the whole American military personnel are far from home. Emile, of course, has made a new home on a South Pacific island, with a new family. Nellie and Joe each find romance while so far away from home, but racism complicates those romances. Joe has no problem sleeping with an underage teenage Tonkinese, although he does have genuine tender feelings toward her. He is cheating on his girl back home, of course. He cannot bring himself to marry Liat, however, not because of his girl back home, but because something grilled inside him keeps shouting that Liat is not good enough to bring back home to mother. To his credit, he feels shame over this use-'em-and-throw-'em-away attitude.

Nellie, meanwhile, finds it surprisingly easy to forgive Emile for killing a town bully back in France — yet she can't forgive him for mating with (marrying?) a now-dead Polynesian woman and siring two children by her. I suspect it's not so much that he slept with a Brown woman, but that he kept house with her, perhaps married her, and has kept, acknowledged, and cared for the two mixed-race children she left behind. In Nellie's culture, a white man may sleep with a woman of color on the side, but he must never, ever claim, live with, or raise the children he may create through her. The results of race-mixing are kept far away from pure, respectable white society.

Gerald Rosen: Although the theme of racial prejudice is usually believed to be the main theme of South Pacific, I believe that the real theme is something much simpler. The show brings home the trials and tribulations of our men and women who served in the Pacific Theater during WWII. Their highs and lows, their joy and heartbreak are on display throughout the show.

NEW: Archive The Broadway Maven Archive is the only place where you can access all past and present Broadway Maven clips reels and view specially curated Bonus Features for each new class taught.

Each clip reel is different and stretches back years to cover many of your favorite Broadway musicals with analysis, criticisms, and highlights. If you miss a class and want to make up some of the material; just want to review a video shown during a class; or even if you just want to see a concentrated playlist about all things Broadway, the Archive is for you.

It’s home to more than 30 videos and more than 24 hours of content, with more being added and updated each week!

For a sample of what the Archive might look like for you, click this link, and enter the password 'archivesample' to view our Les Misérables clips reel. Pay attention to the bottom of the screen, where the time stamps enable you to skip to the section you want to see.

Focused on themes of romance, war, and tolerance, South Pacific is one of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s most beloved shows. With its lush score and vivid characters, the show is tuneful, dramatic, and thoroughly entertaining. We’ll look at the nuances in the show’s depiction of Pacific Islanders and speculate as to what makes the music so powerful. FREE.

Richard Adler and Jerry Ross won back-to-back Tonys for their two Broadway hits, Damn Yankees and The Pajama Game.

- What inspired the plots of these musicals?

- Is the Devil acceptable on Broadway? How do you feel about the depiction?

- How does the music make you feel? What do these musicals do well?

This class is only offered once, at noon ET on Tuesday, February 21. $5.

For your homework this week, watch the 10-minute versions of South Pacific (for Sunday and Monday) and Damn Yankees (for Tuesday). What is the theme of each show? Explain your answers in the comments.

Watch "South Pacific" homework

Watch "Damn Yankees" homwork

Note: links to register for ALL classes are ALWAYS available at TheBroadwayMaven.com.

• Sunday, February 19 South Pacific (Noon ET, FREE)

• Monday, February 20 South Pacific (Noon and 7 pm ET, FREE)

• Tuesday, February 21 Damn Yankees & The Pajama Game (Noon ET, $5)

• Sunday, February 26 The Sound of Music (Noon ET, FREE)

• Monday, February 27th The Sound of Music (Noon and 7 pm ET, FREE)

• Tuesday, February 28 “Musical Theater Writer Guy” Michael Radi on rhymes (Noon ET, ALL-ACCESS Passholders only)

• Wednesday, March 1 Introduction to Jewish Broadway (Noon ET, $5 or $18 for the series)

• Sunday, March 5 Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Noon ET, FREE)

• Monday, March 6 Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Noon and 7 pm ET, FREE)

• Wednesday, March 8 Ragtime and Parade (Noon ET, $5 or $18 for the series)

• Sunday, March 12 Jesus Christ Superstar (Noon ET, FREE)

• Monday, March 13 Jesus Christ Superstar (Noon and 7 pm ET, FREE)

• Wednesday, March 15 Barbra Streisand’s musicals (Noon ET, $5 or $18 for the series)

• Sunday, March 19 Phantom of the Opera (Noon ET, FREE)

• Monday, March 20 Phantom of the Opera (Noon and 7 pm ET, FREE)

• Wednesday, March 22 Fiddler on the Roof (Noon ET, $5 or $18 for the series)

• Sunday, March 26 CATS (Noon ET, FREE)

• Monday, March 27 CATS (Noon and 7 pm ET, FREE)

• Wednesday, March 29 Peter Filichia on Jewish Broadway hits and misses (Noon ET, $5 or $18 for the series)

Note: Students may attend up to 12 FREE classes a year. After that it’s $5 a class.

Reminder: ALL-ACCESS Passholders do not need to sign up or pay for anything. Just show up!

LAST BLAST: The most important musical of the 1920s, Show Boat, and the most important musical of the 1930s, Anything Goes, both take place on sailing vessels with an important entertainment component.

LAST BLAST: It’s not often discussed, but sisters in Gypsy have different hair colors, and the show wouldn’t be the same if they were reversed. It’s hard to articulate why, but a brunette June and a blonde Louise would make for a different kind of show. Knowing this was sort of a quirky opinion, I asked Gypsy Rose Lee’s son, Erik Preminger, when he was a guest of The Broadway Maven last November, and he agreed that Gypsy wouldn’t work the same if his aunt and his mother switched hair colors.

The Broadway Maven, David Benkof, helps students further their appreciation of musical theater through his classes, his YouTube Channel, and his Weekly Blast. Contact him at DavidBenkof@gmail.com.

MARQUEE: The Broadway Maven's Weekly Blast