“South Pacific”

Our afternoon play was the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific.

For some reason, notwithstanding even it several very famous songs, it’s never really been a favorite of mine.  I like it, but not that much.

It’s historically significant, though, for its direct, quite intentional, and maybe even somewhat heroic confrontation with racial prejudice.  Back in the late 1940s, these were the most controversial lyrics in the play:

You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year,
It’s got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

As I say, it’s never been a passionate favorite of mine.

That said, though, here are two further points:

1.  A very knowledgeable person said, just a couple of weeks ago or so on this blog, that Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods is the greatest American musical.  I couldn’t possibly disagree more.  And South Pacific is one of perhaps two dozen American musicals that, off the top of my head, I would rank ahead of it.

2.  This was a very, very good performance.

We had lunch today with our Cedar City friends Will and Belinda Schryver, and then attended South Pacific with them.  We also saw Amadeus yesterday with Will and his daughter.  It’s fun to be here with people we know and like.  I do, though, miss the opportunity to meet my brother and his wife here.  Ah, nostalgia.

Posted from Cedar City, Utah