Community United Methodist Church: multi-cultural and inclusive

From My Heart

I had the music for South Pacific when I was a child. I had never been to New York and knew nothing about Broadway, but the songs were terrific – Some Enchanted Evening and Younger Than Springtime. The musical is actually inspired by James Michener’s book, Tales of the South Pacific. It is considered as one of the best musicals ever produced on Broadway. But it is not the easy story of romance that it seems. Michener writes in his book, “I wish I could tell you about the South Pacific,” and goes on to mention the endless ocean, the jungle, the reefs, the full moon. He then writes “But whenever I start to talk about the South Pacific, people intervene.” And the story of South Pacific is a story of love broken by racism. Emile de Becque flees France at the time of World War I and lives in the South Pacific. The war suddenly brings the Americans to his island. He meets Nellie Forbush, a nurse with the US Navy and that romance is where we get Some Enchanted Evening. What the audience finds out is that Emile married earlier when he arrived in the South Pacific and his wife is dead. But the two young Polynesian children always at his house are actually his children. Nellie is shocked that Emile would have married a person of color and runs away from the house and from the romance.

Ronald Tompkins, Ph. D.

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