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Sunday, April 06, 2008
Paulo Szot - South Pacific
New York Times: "ANYONE who has ever fallen in love with a foreigner — or with the opening scene of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “South Pacific” — knows how tellingly a language is spoken by someone just shy of fluency. Call it fragrancy: when unexpected, latent meanings frequently peek out and bloom. As Oscar Hammerstein knew, the effect is charming; it’s one of the ways he draws the audience (and Nellie Forbush, the young Navy nurse who’s the heroine of the show) so quickly to Emile de Becque, a Frenchman living in the New Hebrides during World War II. It’s also one of the ways he sketches the vast differences between them. When the worldly Emile refers to Nellie’s Arkansas hometown as Small Rock, it’s not so much a mistake as an insight."
I know this show (and hope to see it when i get home from school) and Emile having a voice which not only hits the notes, but does so smoothly like Brian Stokes Mitchell does is so important to keep you in the world of the play. the whole audience has to fall for him and i'm so excited to fall for him when i get home.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of those shows that you really need to be careful about doing because everyone knows it. Every audience member has a notion of what the show should look like and sound like and it's hard to work with that. The pictures of the set and lighting design look top notch, and the casting is a thing of beauty.
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