Review: SOUTH PACIFIC at Bucks County Playhouse
If you need an escape from the summer heat, this production is it. Catch it quickly.
SOUTH PACIFIC is as iconic as a show gets. Famous composer/lyricist? Check. Songs everyone knows? Check. Famous itself? Check. A plot anyone can summarize from memory? Check. Also a hit movie? That too. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s World War II classic of love, prejudice, and danger has been popular since it first opened on Broadway, and it hasn’t ceased to be loved… or relevant, since then.
It's at Bucks County Playhouse for the early - and long, and hot - summer, directed and choreographed by Denis Jones and featuring a Broadway studded cast that gives its money's worth in sheer delight. Ryan Silverman, from SIDE SHOW and CHICAGO, is here to sing "Some Enchanted Evening," which -let's face it - is the reason you go to see this show. To be blunt up front, he does not disappoint. He's a fine actor, a fine singer, and if he'd like to throw in another reprise, no audience member of sense would object. Now that we've got that out of the way... you should also see the rest of the show.
This critic's favorite part of this classic show is Bloody Mary and the story of Lieutenant Cable. Ann Sanders, a BCP veteran as well as the first Asian American performer to play Anna in THE KING AND I is a flawless Bloody Mary, both funny and fighting the Seabees not to be a source of humor to the military. She's a wonderful singer with a "Bali Hai" that brought tears here. Mike Schwitter, from PIPPIN, is Joe Cable, the Navy man brought in for a deadly assignment whom Bloody Mary immediately spots as the perfect man for her daughter, Liat (Aine Dorman, who is trained in both dance and opera and displays both gifts to great advantage here).
Taylor Crousure, playing Seabee Luther Billis for all it's worth - which is considerable - has an Off-Broadway and Vegas stage background in music and comedy as well as regional background in classic musical comedy parts. He uses all of it here, possibly because "he's having so much fun with [his] honeybun." It shows. Along with Sanders as Bloody Mary, Billis is the under-radar hero of this production.
Did I leave someone out? Oh - Nellie Forbush! Alexandra Socha, one of the great Glindas of WICKED, is a thoroughly sweet but just slightly sharp Ensign Forbush, naive enough to believe in love at first sight, Southern enough to have ingrained mixed-race prejudices, and intelligent enough to be able to see through her own garbage. Socha is clever enough to leave you wondering if her small-town Little Rock girl pose isn't a bit of an act to capture male attention. She's also worthy of a rousing chorus of "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair" and an equally rousing "Honeybun" with Billis. This Nellie Forbush isn't tiring, isn't irritatingly traditional, and isn't Reba McEntire. She is one of the most modern Nellies I've seen, and it's greatly appreciated.
The choreography here is spectacular, especially the Seabee ballet, which is a delight of this production. The Seabees as a whole are a joy, especially Billis, Professor, and Stewpot, who are comedy gold.
If you need an escape from the summer heat, this production is it. Catch it quickly.
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