KRCB-FM: Second Row Center

World War II didn’t seem like ancient history in 1949 when South Pacific made its Broadway premiere. Sadly, its warnings of the damage that bigotry and prejudice can do aren’t ancient history now as it bows at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center. Based on James Michener’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Tales of the South Pacific, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan took a couple of the stories, softened some of the characters and created an immensely popular musical tale of wartime love. Set on two islands in the South Pacific during the war, two love stories are at the center of this tale. Navy Nurse Nellie Forbush (Heather Buck) finds herself falling in love with French expatriate plantation owner Emile de Becque (William O’Neill). Mssr. de Becque has a somewhat mysterious past, which doesn’t seem to bother Nellie too much. Well, at least not as much as the fact that he has bi-racial children born of a youthful relationship with a Polynesian girl. Meanwhile, newly-arrived Lt. Joe Cable (Jam