Thurs at 1:30 and 8 pm, Fri at 8 pm, Sat at 2 and 8 pm, Sun at 1:30 and 7 pm, Tues-Wed at 7:30 pm. Through Feb 21.
Star director Bartlett Sher has burrowed into the heart of South Pacific and found that—to no one's real surprise—it beats pure entertainment. This production is the touring version of Sher's 2008 Broadway production, which won seven Tony Awards, including best director. The Rodgers & Hammerstein musical is pure pop, from a land before rock 'n' roll. (It opened in 1949, one year before the founding of Chess Records, which would help rock 'n' roll forever unseat musicals as mainstream America's soundtrack.) The songs in South Pacific are so familiar, watching it sometimes feels like sitting through a jukebox musical: 'Some Enchanted Evening,' 'I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair,' 'There Is Nothin' Like a Dame,' 'Bali Ha'i,' and on and on. (It's the opposite of a jukebox musical, of course. The old musicals used to give America its hits, stitched together with a few plot points. Jukebox musicals take someone else's hits, stitch them together with a few plot points, and pretend it's something new.) Brendan Kiley