South Pacific is Enchanting at the Lauderhill Performing Arts

and Casey Sacco are the potential lovers struggling with war and prejudice in LPAC’s South Pacific (Photography by Clifford Spurlock)

By Britin Haller

Looking for somewhere to spend an enchanting afternoon or evening? Then look no further than South Pacific, now playing at the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center.

With an almost perfect production headed by Artistic/Musical Director Michael Ursua, and choreographed by Alex Jorth, this classic Rodgers & Hammerstein musical is guaranteed to bring several smiles . In fact, we were hard-pressed to find anything less than enthusiastic to mention, that isn’t book-related that is.

As fast as you can say “Bali Ha’i”, we’re thrown into the main love story of wealthy French plantation owner Emile de Becque and Ensign Nellie Forbush, an American Navy nurse (and self-admitted hick) from Arkansas. It’s clear he’s doing his best to woo her, but we have no context, and just when you’re thinking how did this most unlikely couple meet, they tell us in clumsy exposition. But no matter because here they are standing in front of us.

Unbeknownst to Nellie, but not to us as we saw them briefly when the show opened, Emile is the father to two Polynesian children. This becomes relevant later.

The setting is the South Pacific (hence the title) and the time is 1943. Pearl Harbor has just been attacked, the world is at war, and the Japanese (called Japs here, yes, yikes), are attempting to take over these peaceful islands to expand their own territories and cut off U.S. supply lines to Australia. It was a grim time. America has sent a fleet of Navy officers, soldiers, and nurses to protect the area and to keep the Japanese at bay.

As Emile de Becque, the widowed Frenchman with a heart of gold, baritone Christopher Sanders is the ideal model of what you would get with a dashing and debonair Broadway actor, and in fact, pretty much any famous male lead role out there that Sanders has already played. He’s lovely both in quiet moments like reflecting on seeing Nellie’s lipstick on her teacup and what that means to have a woman back in his life, and during his big Robert Goulet-like solo number, “This Nearly Was Mine.”

Casey Sacco stars as the female ingenue Nellie Forbush. Having only previously seen Sacco in plays, we were skeptical she could pull off the lead in such a big musical, especially given a shaky first scene with Sanders.

It’s obvious the choreography was tailored to her abilities, and by the time she and her Shirley Temple curls tap danced and cartwheeled in “A Wonderful Guy,” Sacco’s infectious nature and gosh darn cuteness took hold of us, and we are now true believers. Look out local triple-threat thespians because there’s a new gal in town, and her name is Casey Sacco.

Despite the height differences between Sanders and Sacco, it’s cute, and doesn’t hamper anything given their choreography and physical interactions. Likely the tune most well-known from South Pacific and the one considered “their song” is the charming “Some Enchanted Evening,” and when the orchestra swells, our heart grows full.

Also with Broadway under her belt, actor Marisol Morales-Dow is perfect as Bloody Mary, the Tonkinese woman who sells grass skirts from a push cart, but has a much bigger plan for her life, namely to get her teenaged daughter, Liat, (Thaylin Maria) married off to a rich American. Luckily for Bloody Mary, she doesn’t need to look far when the handsome Lt. Joseph Cable (Collin Salvatore) is assigned to the island. During “Happy Talk,” Morales-Dow does her best to convince Cable he need look no further than her nubile daughter.

Morales-Dow has a strong, gorgeous, and haunting voice, and when she soothes us in “Bali Ha’i”, we are transported to the mystical island in our mind. Thaylin Maria as Liat is simply stunning, and it’s clear why Lt. Cable becomes so immediately enchanted with her beauty and sweetness, as he tells us with his head voice in the love song “Younger Than Springtime.”

Collin Salvatore was good as Warner Huntington III in LPAC’s Legally Blonde the Musical, but is more suited to this role. Casting directors, the next time you need a Prince Charming, look no further than Salvatore.

But it’s Lovell Rose as Luther Billis, the head of the Navy’s construction crew, who repeatedly steals the show. With his obviously drawn-on tattoos like the crude sailboat covering his stomach, and his constant finagling to make a monetary score from some unsuspecting sucker, we can imagine Billis as a fun-loving member of the Delta Tau Chi fraternity in Animal House. Billis has a dream and a scheme to make it over to the legendary island of Bali Ha’i because there are women without tops on (pretty risqué for 1949!), and coconut liquor there.

The ”Bloody Mary” number with the male ensemble is short, but includes dazzling dance moves from choreographer Alex Jorth such as bell kicks, so named because your body literally swings back and forth like a church bell when you do them, and even a leapfrog.

And when Billis comes out at the Thanksgiving Follies, during “Honey Bun,” wearing nothing more than a grass skirt, coconut pasties, a blonde wig, and big red lips, and does a mean impression of Steve Martin as King Tut, Rose cements himself in South Florida musical theatre history.

Bill Brewer as Captain George Brackett (nickname Ironbelly), and Dan Carter as Commander William Harbison offer both drama, as the suspense gets ratcheted up, and comic relief. They are quite a pair. Eytan Deray as Stewpot provides some much needed laughs especially when dancing in the G.I. Thanksgiving Follies show.

As Emile’s children, Emily Rose Cardenas and Maddox Marquina shine both literally and figurately. They have such a glow about them, they almost seem angelic. How could someone not immediately fall in love with these babies? Shame on you, Nellie Forbush. We love Izaiah Scott as Henry, the butler who takes care of them.

Ensemble members with a small credited role include Jorge Amador, Jennifer Fraser, Tanner Fults, Santiago Garza, Dru Loman, Emily Morgan, Eric O’Keefe, Brittni Taylor Rhodes, Allyson Rosenblum, Izaiah Scott, Larry Toyter, Corey Vega, Rachel Whittington, Lauren Wickerson, Rachel Wresh, and Dance Captain/Professor Eli Flynn.

Besides all the other action, South Pacific brings racism to light when Emile’s children are revealed at the end of Act One during a party that Emile is throwing in Nellie’s honor. She’s giddy on champagne, and falling more deeply in love with him by the minute, and the last thing she expects is to have two mixed-race children thrown into the mix. We quickly learn Nellie has no problem that her potential husband, Emile, killed a man with his bare hands, but she can’t stomach the fact he slept with a Polynesian woman and fathered two offspring.

That would just not go over in Nellie’s hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas. “Oh no, look at the time,” Nellie tells Emile as she makes a beeline for the exit. Life lessons abound in South Pacific.

Brokenhearted at her loss, Emile does the only sensible thing and offers himself up for a dangerous Navy mission involving a submarine.

We have to mention a bit that’s so unusual it bears noting. After the ladies perform the cute towel-flicking “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair,” Emile comes in and acknowledges it. This is something we’ve never heard done before in a classic musical, a character actually reacting to a song, and not just everyone pretending that it didn’t just happen.

Technical Director Richard Forbes and Stage Manager Joseph Long deserve a nice rest after the show closes because there are a lot of moving parts to coordinate, what with all the scene changes, backdrops, and cast to juggle. The radio broadcast bit deserves a special mention. Clifford Spulock does his usual terrific work in setting the ambiance through his lighting design. We also have to applaud Christopher Wynters because the only thing missing was the sound of the ocean.

Costume Supervisor Penny Williams had no small job on her hands, and she doesn’t disappoint. Our only suggestion would be to give Sanders’s white linen suit a quick iron right before he goes on in the first scene, otherwise a flawless representation of the era, and Liat’s Polynesian dress is stunning. Justin Lore on wigs nails it, especially Nellie’s ringlet curls.

The phrase “a cockeyed optimist” became part of the American jargon from the song of the same name in South Pacific. Meant to mean a person who is always annoyingly positive, it has more recently been further engrained in pop culture having been uttered by Kramer to Elaine in Seinfeld, and even last week on the daytime soap opera, Days of our Lives.

If we have to find a single flaw in this production of South Pacific, that isn’t related to the book by Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan, it’s the let-down we felt when the “There is absolutely nothin’ like the frame of a dame!” line in the song “There Is Nothing Like A Dame” didn’t go as low as we know it should go. Traditionally, and according to the Rodgers & Hammerstein website, this should be performed by a bass. Is there anyone else in the Seabees who can take this part?

But that’s just nitpicking, because on the plus side, many thanks to Michael Ursua for continuing to give us a real overture, because there is nothin’ like an overture, nothin’ in the world.

South Pacific burst on Broadway in 1949. It ran five years with a whopping 1,925 performances, coming in second at the time only to their own Oklahoma. It took almost 60 years to return to Broadway in a popular 2008 revival, but during that time, and since, has consistently toured and/or been produced internationally.

Due to its unforgettable score and anti-racial themes, South Pacific won not only won a Pulitzer Prize, but 17 Tony Awards in total (1950 and 2009), including Best Musical, Best Musical Revival, Best Score, and Best Libretto. It swept the 1950 Tonys, winning all 10 awards for which it was nominated, including all four acting categories. Its soundtrack was again second only to Oklahoma as the bestselling album of the 1940s. A 1958 film with Mitzi Gaynor, and a 2001 one with Glenn Close, of all people, were well-received.

In a clear case of art imitating life, the material’s original author, the soon-to-be novelist James A. Michener, enlisted in the Navy in 1942 and was later assigned as a traveling journalist in what was known as the Asiatic-Pacific theatre, a command post for the Allies. It was from here that Michener visited the small village of Bali Ha’i, met a real-life woman called Bloody Mary, so named for the berry juice stains on her face, and fell in love with the idea of reaching a mystical island seen in the distance. Later, Michener went on to win a Pulitzer for his 1947 book of short stories entitled Tales of the South Pacific, upon which South Pacific is based.

If you listen carefully, you will hear Bali Ha’i calling your name. So hurry to the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center before the good men and women of South Pacific get deployed elsewhere. We guarantee you an enchanting evening (or afternoon!)

P.S. As the story goes, the real Bloody Mary lived on her beautiful island until her death at the age of 102.  .

Britin Haller is a mystery author and an editor for Turner Publishing. Her recent short story “So Many Shores in Crookland” can be read in the 150th issue of Black Cat Weekly. Britin’s latest edit, a cozy mystery novel called Dumpster Dying is by Michelle Bennington and available where books are sold. Find Britin across social media.

South Pacific runs through April 27 at the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center, 3800 N. 11th Place, Lauderhill, FL (NE corner of US 441 and Sunrise Blvd); Shows are nightly Fri-Sat @ 7:30 p.m. with Wed, Thurs, Sat, and Sun matinees at 2 p.m. Run time of 155 minutes includes a 15-minute intermission. Tickets starting at $45. Call 954-777-2055, or visit www.lpacfl.com. Complimentary parking is easily accessible.