Miss N and I will be heading up to Grandma Leta’s in Hayesville NC Friday to see the play South Pacific. I shared with some of my coworkers that South Pacific is a play about racism. And I received several different reactions to that statement.
My boss in Minneapolis – who claims South Pacific as her favorite Rogers and Hammerstein play – immediately agreed with me. A coworker in Atlanta decided she needed to see the play for the first time. And another coworker looked at me as if I had CRAZY written on my forehead.
The play was first performed in 1949 in New York City. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia’s description of South Pacific:
The musical explores the theme of racial prejudice in several ways. Nellie struggles to accept Emile's mixed-race children. Another American serviceman, Lieutenant Cable, struggles with the prejudice that he would face if he were to marry an Asian woman. His song about this, "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught", was criticized as too controversial for the musical stage and called indecent and pro-communist. While the show was on a tour of the Southern United States, lawmakers in Georgia introduced a bill outlawing any entertainment containing "an underlying philosophy inspired by Moscow." One legislator said that "a song justifying interracial marriage was implicitly a threat to the American way of life." Rodgers and Hammerstein defended their work strongly. James Michener recalled, "The authors replied stubbornly that this number represented why they had wanted to do this play, and that even if it meant the failure of the production, it was going to stay in."
The play was very successful … and I think that it had a small part in the awakening of Americans to their own prejudice that really prevents us from showing our love towards one another. I have never seen the play performed on stage … just the movie that came out in 1958. I expect I will really enjoy the play.
On another subject, I received an email from my buddy Joe who shared that he scored a hole in one on the Par 3 course at the Links. Congratulations … Joe is a young 70 years old … walks the course with his octogenarian friend, Sam.
God bless you this good day.
Agape’
Mr. Jim
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