South Pacific

ln Center Theater's revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein's beloved South Pacific gives the musical a light tap into the 21st century, by adding new dimensions of racial prejudice and feelings of isolation that were overshadowed in the original. It's World War II on a lush tropical island, and Nellie, a nurse, falls in love with a local planter named de Becque -- only to have second thoughts when she learns he is a widower with two children. Meanwhile, U.S. Marine Lieutenant Cable falls in love with Liat, a Polynesian girl. When Cable and de Bacque go off together on a spy mission, the two women longingly await their return. A sweeping romantic story of these two couples and how their happiness is threatened by the realities of war and by their own prejudices, this timeless musical contains core themes -- prejudice, loneliness, heroism and cowardice, war and men waiting for war -- that clearly resonate still to this day.