This week the chat rooms are buzzing with South Pacific talk. Who knew a PBS airing would create so much net discussion. I caught Paulo and Kelli early in the run, so it was a pleasure seeing them again with the aid of the camera close-up. Beside the obvious larger girth around Paulo’s middle (they couldn’t get him a new white dinner jacket that closed comfortably for National TV?!), both were as wonderful as I had remembered. My random thoughts on the broadcast:

• Ables Sayre certainly acts the role of Bloody Mary marvelously, but I still miss the more robust, creamy sound of a legit singer.
• The Seabees dancing still strikes me - for lack of a better word - as sort of gay. And some of them are pushing the butch act a bit too hard.
• Happy to see they didn’t edit out the naked ass scene.
• Andrew Samonsky’s Lt. Cable was painful to watch. His strange audible breathing, odd line readings and forced John Whayne-ish physicality was just plain weird. And all the hard “r” sounds in his singing negated his obviously pretty singing voice. I missed Morrison, even though his singing wasn’t so hot either.