South Pacific
$22-$67. Through July 10. The Palladium, 253 5th Ave. N., St. Pete. 727-823-2040. stpeteopera.org.
James Michener set to music. Specifically, Richard Rodgers’ music and Oscar Hammerstein’s lyrics. St. Pete Opera brings it all to the ‘Burg with its production of South Pacific. There’s love. There’s palm trees. There’s people spontaneously bursting into song, because, yeah, that happens in real life. Oh, right, it doesn’t, but since we go to the theater to escape reality for a while, why not do it with a feel-good musical that makes you think maybe you really could move to French Polynesia and that, in the end, race and all the bullshit don’t matter. After all, it worked out OK for Nellie Forbush, right? Seriously, before you write this off as “just another musical” you should know this: South Pacific called bullshit on racism in 1949, because Broadway’s kind of awesome like that.
