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No helicopter for director

Jennifer Geens
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Mar 19/04) - Director Christopher Foreman has the set worked out for the upcoming staging of South Pacific, but he didn't get the one thing that would have stopped the show.

NNSL Photo

Dambee Fontanilla, who plays Bloody Mary in South Pacific, sings during a rehearsal at the Yellowknife Actors' Studio on Monday night. - Jennifer Geens/NNSL photo


"They wouldn't let me land a helicopter on stage," said Foreman with a laugh.

Now he'll just have to create the pandemonium of a military evacuation by putting "every boy, man and dog" on stage.

The Rodgers and Hammerstein classic, which features songs such as "Some Enchanted Evening" and "I'm Gonna Wash that Man Right Outta my Hair" is Ptarmigan Ptheatrics' spring musical, slated to open in the first two weeks of May.

Opening night may be just less than two months away but the cast of 62 has already been in rehearsals for the past month learning the songs. Now they've started working out who goes where and does what in each scene.

Monday night at the Yellowknife Actors' Studio, Foreman was kept busy running between rehearsals for South Pacific and Educating Rita, which opens next month.

"Welcome to my schizophrenic nightmare," he said.

Aside from the lack of a helicopter, the biggest challenge facing Ptarmigan Ptheatrics' production is that attitudes of the past are pivotal to the plot.

"It was written 60 years ago," said Foreman. "The whole concept of mixed marriage was a social issue back then. It's something we have no frame of reference for because we've come so far."

It's also something the actors need to underscore so a modern audience can understand why the two central romances are threatened.

Based on two short stories by James Michener, South Pacific is set during the Second World War. Lt. Joe Cable (played by Shad Turner) falls in love with a young Polynesian woman named Liat (Charlotte Overvold), and Ensign Nellie Forbush (Kelley Keppel) falls for French plantation owner Emile de Becque (Ray Bethke).

Foreman is excited by the "new blood" in the burgeoning ranks of singing and acting talent in Yellowknife.

"There was a time when we'd find two leads and a chorus and away we'd go," said Foreman.

The casting for South Pacific required four leads (two male, two female), as well as six to eight groups of singers, including a few al-male groups for the armed forces personnel.

A few years ago, this would have been a problem as fewer men than women were auditioning.

"We've had a breakthrough," said Foreman. "Now there are guys willing to come out and practise week after week."

The director is also excited because many of the roles of South Pacific islanders are being played by members of Yellowknife's Filipino and Polynesian communities.

The first hurdle the actors have to clear is learning to pronounce lieutenant as "lou-tenant" instead of "lef-tenant." But once that becomes second nature to them, it should be smooth sailing for South Pacific.