Bali Ha’i-South Pacific by Juanita Hall
One of the themes we have written about is the art of seduction, how a talented performer can place the audience in the shoes of the character on-stage. The performer must not only honor the music and the lyrics but must provide the artistry to convert a tired businessman into an ardent lover. Stranger things have happened; outside the theatre, we call them miracles. One such performer was the oft-overlooked Juanita Hall. As a light skinned African-American, she played the Tonkinese Bloody Mary in South Pacific and the Chinese-American “Auntie” Liang in Flower Drum Song. She was the first African-American to win a Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress in her role as Bloody Mary, a role that she performed for 1,925 performances.
She plays both a broadly comedic role, always getting the best of Luther Billis on the one hand, and a role of supreme matchmaker for her daughter, Liat, who must marry well, whether for love or money. In this latter role, she quickly sizes up a newly arrived officer, Lt. Joseph Cable, and decides that he would make a suitable husband for her daughter, who is protected on the island called Bali Ha’i. For Bloody Mary, the trick is to find a way to entice Cable over to the island. This is no mean trick, because Cable is a no-nonsense Marine who has been sent on a secret mission and must convince Emile De Becque to guide him through Marie Louise Island. Slowly, ever so slowly, Bloody Mary starts the seduction by asking Cable to listen, causing Cable to stop and try to hear what Bloody Mary hears. Once quiet, she sings and sways to the music of a distant dream, the dream we all have of finding the one spot on earth that is our personal paradise.
Juanita Hall would not have been able to set such an exotic trap were it not for two great collaborators who knew of the importance of this song. As Richard Rodgers recalls, he and Oscar Hammerstein had been talking for months “about a song for Bloody Mary which would evoke the exotic, mystical powers of a South Seas island. I knew that the melody would have to possess an Oriental, languorous quality, that it would it would have to be suitable for a contralto voice, and even that the title was going to be ‘Bali Ha’i.’ ”
In this collaboration, Oscar would usually write the words first and then Richard would compose the tune. In this case, Oscar had spent an agonizing week working on the lyrics and brought them to Josh Logan’s apartment, where the three men were to have lunch. Rodgers remembers seeing the typewritten sheet with the words on it. “I spent a minute or so studying the words, turned the paper over and scribbled some notes, then went into the next room, where there was a piano, and played the song. The whole thing couldn’t have taken more than five minutes.”
Genius is not dependent on time.