Here’s different point of view of the origin of South Pacific from the fellow who wrote the book Tales of the South Pacific that it’s based on, James A. Michener. In his memoir The World Is My Home he talks about how his book got adapted into a musical. He also touches on the creation of the music to the song “Bali Ha’i”, a story that has been retold many times over the years.

According to Michener the stage designer Jo Mielziner was alerted to the book by his (Mielziner’s) brother. After reading it, he agreed it had dramatic possibilities so he took it to Richard Rodgers.

When Rodgers read the book he phoned Oscar Hammerstein, who fell in love with the wild and colorful stories. There then ensued an amusing contretemps during which Hammerstein launched a series of frantic telephone calls trying to locate me so that a deal could be made for my book. He failed to reach me, which was remarkable, for I had then moved to Harvey Avenue in Doylestown and he lived on a farm at the east end of that town, less than a mile away. We had never met, two fellows from the same town who now needed each other.

In the meantime he and Rodgers had allied themselves with two other outstanding talents, Josh Logan, the director, and Leland Hayward, the charismatic producer, and on a snowy afternoon in March 1948 Hayward tracked me down in my office at Macmillan with a secret proposition: ‘I think your book has dramatic possibilities, and I want to purchase all theatrical rights. Five hundred dollars, and you keep it all.’

Since I needed the money, the offer was tempting, but my rough childhood and jobs I had held in my teens that involved large sums had taught me a good deal about financing, and after a few minutes’ reflection I told Hayward: ‘I would always want to take risks with anything I did. Never an outright sale. Only royalties.’

‘You’re a smart fellow, Michener. You’ll hear from us.’ I have not told this story before, and in later years when Hayward and I became friends we never referred to the fact that he had tried to slip behind his partners’ backs and pick up all the rights to what turned out to be a bonanza.

Rodgers and Hammerstein treated me better. In exploratory sessions with them they kept telling me how marvelous my book was, partly I think to keep up their own courage, but after they had buttered me up in ways I positively enjoyed, their longtime and shrewd financial manager would take me aside and poor-mouth me: ‘You know, Michener, your book has no story line. It has no dramatic impact. We couldn’t possibly pay you what we did Lynn Riggs for his Green Grow the Lilacs, which Oklahoma! was based on. That was a real play. It had structure.’

The comparison between Riggs and Michener was significant, for I had learned that Riggs had received a royalty of 1.5 percent, whereas I was being offered only 1 percent. Lest this figure seem appallingly low, I should mention that the ordinary musical budgeted only 10 percent of gross for original source, theatrical book, lyrics and music combined. Thus my 1 percent of gross was really 10 percent of the total artistic budget and on a hit show that could amount to real income. Of course, Riggs’s 1.5 percent on a smash hit like Oklahoma! was a fortune, and continues to this day. I accepted my 1 percent and never had regrets.

It was a privilege to watch Rodgers and Hammerstein work. Dick, the music master, was the genius in things pertaining to what happened on the stage; he had an uncanny sense of what would work, what was needed to lift a scene or when to either cut it sharply or kill it altogether. He was deathly afraid of having the show run too long: ‘Curtain down at eleven-ten so they can catch the trains home, you have a hit. Curtain down at eleven-twenty, they miss their trains, a flop.’

He did not bother much with me in our discussions, because he felt the book was Oscar’s responsibility. At one three-hour session he asked me only one question: ‘Jim, do I have to use wailing guitars and ukuleles?’ I replied: ‘Only musical instrument I ever heard the natives play was two clubs beating hell out of a gasoline drum.’

‘Thanks,’ he said with a deep breath, ‘I hate guitars.’

I sat with him and Oscar at another session in Josh Logan’s New York apartment when Hammerstein said: ‘We lack one essential. A song that will convey the mood of the South Pacific. Something to go with Michener’s inspired place name, Bali Ha’i.’ I can vouch for the fact that the next minute Rodgers was at the piano—others who were present, including Mary Martin, witnessed this feat—and with two fingers picked out notes that would correspond to the pronunciation of the words Bali Ha’i, and within ten minutes he had the song in hand. Later I asked Hammerstein: ‘Was that an act? To impress Mary and Josh and me? Had he already done the song?’ and he laughed: ‘I’ve seen Richard do that a dozen times. I sweat over my words, he lifts his music from the air.’

[…]

Midway through the writing of the play, Oscar lost his nerve—he could not see how to bind the strands together and for the first time I heard the complaint that I would subsequently hear from everyone in the theater or movies or television who had to grapple with one of my books: ‘You have some wonderful stuff here, Michener, but there’s no dramatic story line a man can hang on to.’ Artists in other fields who must work with one of my books earn their pay, and my gratitude; the difficulties they face explain why so many of my major works have never been transferred into another medium.

In the case of South Pacific the savior was Josh Logan, that ebullient manipulator of mood and movement. He rushed down to Doylestown and assured Hammerstein: ‘This can be licked. We can hammer this into shape,’ and together they did, with Logan ultimately receiving co-credit for the book of the play and a Pulitzer Prize.

What they devised was a spirited musical drama about a contingent of American sailors and Seabees waiting on a South Sea island for a major battle against Japanese forces. The play focused on two love stories, that of a Navy nurse with a French planter and that of a Navy lieutenant with a Tonkinese girl. The action was rowdy, romantic and tragic, and it won instant public approval.

I played no role in the adaptation, except for writing, at Logan’s request, some narrative accounts of how the rowdy comedian Luther Billis might operate as a wheeler-dealer, and as an afterthought I suggested that he would probably run a laundry of some kind, and maybe have a shower. Who invented the delightful character of Captain Brackett to represent Navy brass, the agent who holds the narrative together I do not know, but that move was one of genius and the name invented sounded exactly right; it exuded discipline and responsibility.

The score to South Pacific is a collection of some of the best songs that Rodgers and Hammerstein ever wrote and every one is a winner, but if I absolutely had to pick out my favorite, it would be “Bali Ha’i”, perhaps the greatest song of pure lustful seduction ever written.

If I were ever to direct a production of South Pacific, I know exactly how I’d stage it. In the following I have omitted the comic interjections of Luther Billis and his cronies. My added stage directions are in brackets [].

MARY (To CABLE, proffering the shrunken head) Take!

CABLE No, thanks. Where’d you get that anyway?

MARY Bali Ha’i.

CABLE (Looking out at island) Bali Ha’i…What does that mean?

MARY Bali Ha’i mean “I am your special Island”…mean…”Here I am.” Bali Ha’i is your special island, Lootellan. I know! You listen! You hear island call to you. Listen! You no hear something? Listen!

CABLE (After listening for a moment) I hear the sound of the wind and the waves, that’s all.

MARY You no hear something calling? Listen!

 (Silence. ALL listen)

MARY Hear voice? (She sings to CABLE, as he gazes out at the mysterious island)

Most people live on a lonely island,
Lost in the middle of a foggy sea.
Most people long for another island,
One where they know they will like to be.

[As she sings the lights gradually dim until the only people we see are BLOODY MARY and LT. CABLE with Bali Ha’i looming in the background]

Bali Ha’i
May call you,
Any night, any day,
In your heart,
You’ll hear it call you:
“Come away, come away.”

[Tight spotlights on MARY and CABLE as Bali Ha’i grows larger and moves in between them]

Bali Ha’i
Will whisper
In the wind of the sea:
“Here am I,
Your special island!
Come to me, come to me!”

[Spotlights focus on MARY and CABLE’s heads and Bali Ha’i now looms large in between them]

Your own special hopes,
Your own special dreams,
Bloom on the hillside
And shine in the streams.

If you try,
You’ll find me
Where the sky meets the sea.
“Here am I,
Your special island
Come to me, come to me!”

Bali Ha’i!
 Bali Ha’i!
  Bali Ha’i!

[The spotlights on MARY and CABLE have gone dark and they have vanished and only the image of Bali Ha’i now grows to fill the stage. As it grows, it becomes more vibrant, almost like it’s a living thing. ]

Some day you’ll see me
Floatin’ in the sunshine,
My head stickin’ out
From a low flyin’ cloud.
You’ll hear me call you,
Singin’ through the sunshine,
Sweet and clear as can be:
“Come to me,
Here am I,
Come to me!”

If you try,
You’ll find me
Where the sky meets the sea.
“Here am I,
Your special island!
Come to me, come to me!”

Bali Ha’i!
 Bali Ha’i!
  Bali Ha’i!

[Blackout!]

[As the audience applause dies down, the lights come back up. MARY has exited and everyone else is exactly where they were at the start of the song]

(CABLE seems spellbound by her words. BILLIS follows up with a more earthy form of salesmanship)

Here is Loretta Ables Sayre singing it in the Lincoln Center production from 2008 directed by Bartlett Sher. She sings it brilliantly, and while Sher’s overall direction for the show was excellent, I think he missed the mark in this number. So many directors are afraid to let the music speak for itself; they think they have to have continuous movement or the audience will lose interest. So Sher has Cable wandering aimlessly around the stage to no particular purpose. Bah! I don’t think he even understands this song.

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