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Irish America magazine - Oct/Nov '08 issue: The Legacy of the San Patricios Lives On , Stars of the South, The Legal 100, Roots: The Mighty Mahers, All Hail The Humble Spud! , Music: Still Fiddlin’ Away , The Real Bill , The Battle over Ulysses, Broadway's Irish Colleen
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Broadway's Irish Colleen
 Story
by Mary Pat Kelly
The beautiful and talented Tony award nominated star of the broadway revival
of South Pacific, Kelli O’Hara, talks about her irish roots and growing up in
Oklahoma.
We all know the wonderful score of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific. The
romantic ballads such as “Some Enchanted Evening” and “Younger Than Springtime,”
the joyous numbers “Cock-Eyed Optimist” and “In Love with a Wonderful Guy,” the
humorous songs “Nothing Like a Dame” and “Honey Bun,” and the insightful lyrics
of “You Have to Be Carefully Taught” – these all play in our heads.
Many of us saw the movie, but none of that familiarity prepares you for the pure
jolt of emotion that the performers in Lincoln Center Theater’s production of
the musical South Pacific, as directed by Bartlett Sher, sends out to the
audience. While being utterly true to the original intent of the show, Kelli
O’Hara as Ensign Nellie Forbush, Paulo Szot as French planter Emile de Becque,
Matthew Morrison as Marine Lt. Joseph Cable and a cast the New York Times calls
“flawless” reveal levels and nuance that take your breath away.
“Even when crying, the audience is happy,” Julia Judge, Artistic Administrator
of Lincoln Center Theater, said of the feedback she’s gotten from theatergoers.
Ben Brantley in his New York Times review wrote, “I could feel the people around
me leaning in toward the stage as if it were a source of warmth . . . it’s the
fire of daily life with all its crosscurrents and ambiguities underscored and
clarified by music.”
 I
saw South Pacific on Memorial Day weekend when Fleet Week filled New York with
sailors and marines who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. When Lt. Joe Cable
jumps out of the airplane that brought him from combat on one of the islands on
which the marines fought so fiercely and lost so many, we’re with the characters
at every turn. South Pacific seems to speak directly to us today. It’s our story
as Americans that’s up there on the stage.
And here is Nellie Forbush (O’Hara) singing, “I heard the human race is falling
on its face, and hasn’t very far to go. But every whippoorwill is selling me a
bill, and telling me it just ain’t so.” That’s the spirit that animates South
Pacific. And O’Hara, who was nominated for Tony awards for her roles in The
Light in the Piazza and The Pajama Game, and this year for South Pacific, is an
actress who can thrill us with her voice, astonish us with her dancing, amuse us
with her clowning and still reveal a woman who comes to question all her
unconscious beliefs.
I met up with O’Hara one evening in early August. She talked about her family
history and heritage when I sat down with her in her dressing room prior to
another sold-out Friday night performance.
 “I’m
proud to be Irish,” she said, though she grew up far from the usual
Irish-American centers. “I was born and raised in Oklahoma. Both sides of my
family came there during the time of the land run in 1889. [The land run started
at high noon on April 22, 1889, with 50,000 people dashing for their piece of
the two million acres opened for settlement.] My great-grandfather, Peter
O’Hara, was born in Ireland, I believe in County Clare. His father, my
great-great-grandfather, had actually come to America a generation before when
times were very bad in Ireland. He worked in the Pennsylvania area and did well
with horses and farming. My great-aunt, who is in her nineties, told me the
story. She said that he went back to Ireland, either to get his family or to
live there with his newfound wealth, but he was actually forced to leave.
Something happened and he had to take his family and nothing else and escape at
night. This would be at the end of the 19th century. Three of his sons, my
great-grandfather Peter and his brothers James and Michael, split off from the
rest of the family to go find land. They landed in western Oklahoma and
participated in the land rush. We still farm the land that they found. My dad’s
brother Robert lives on the original farm. My father and brother are both
Patrick O’Haras. Our family has a long wonderful history of Irish lineage that
I’ve enjoyed learning about, though I don’t know enough.
 “It’s
sad how the stories get lost. I want to write down my great-aunt’s memories. We
do have one precious possession that’s been handed down. It’s an Irish cookbook
that we use all the time. On the cover, written in Irish, is O’hEaghra :
O’Hara.”
A cookbook. That’s different. More often it’s Irish music.
By my time, we had only a song or two, and every once in a while an aunt would
pull out an Irish blessing and read it. But the biggest thing for us is food.
Corned beef and cabbage—that’s our favorite holiday meal when all the O’Haras
gather around the table.
So it was a way for everyone to remain connected to Ireland.
Yes. My father named me Kelli because “Kelli O’Hara” just sounded so Irish. Even
growing up in the middle of America, I felt grounded because I had such strong
roots. We were living in the town where my grandfather had grown up. There were
a lot of O’Haras from those three sons, James and Peter and Michael–many, many
cousins.
Tell me about your hometown.
Elk City is in western Oklahoma near the Texas panhandle and both my parents
grew up there. We’ve had our land since 1889. We just celebrated the centennial
of our statehood in 2007, an event that Rodgers & Hammerstein celebrated in
Oklahoma. Life is a strange bit of circles, isn’t it? We didn’t have much formal
theater. My dad was a farmer. He went back to school and he’s now an attorney.
My mom is a teacher. There was singing in church and at weddings. We were
Catholics in the Baptist Bible Belt. Our church, St. Matthew’s Catholic, was
central to our lives. I grew up singing in church and I loved it. I went to
Oklahoma City University where my teacher, Florence Birdwell, helped me think
outside the box. When I graduated, I could have gone on to grad school or
studied more music, but I eventually found myself packing two suitcases with no
clue and moving to New York City ten years ago. I think it scared my parents a
lot, but they put me on that plane. I just had a feeling that if I didn’t try I
would never forgive myself. Somehow I wasn’t even afraid. But then, look at my
great-great-grandfather and all the Irish who headed out into the unknown. When
I read Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, I thought, I know these people. I
understand their humor, their endurance, their strength.
And now after your great successes in The Light in the Piazza and The Pajama
Game, you have made Ensign Nellie Forbush come to life. Could you talk about
that process?
I find everything through personal connections. I have pictures in my dressing
room of my grandmother on my mom’s side, who was English. She was from right
outside Little Rock, Arkansas. She was blond. She was feisty. She grew up in the
time before civil rights, when children were “carefully taught,” as the song
says. She was the person in my head when I started thinking about Nellie. When
you go to acting school, everyone wants you to say what your big problems are so
you can weep. But I’m not going to lie about the fact that I had a good
childhood. I had two sets of grandparents in my little tiny town and I walked
barefoot down the street and everyone knew whose daughter I was. I’m proud of
that and I’m using it. I suppose there are a lot of reasons to be jaded or
sarcastic or bitter in life. But I hang on to the reasons why life is beautiful.
It helps to have a history to think about, to remember those who came before
you, to help you be in this place. I feel very fortunate. I don’t feel held
down, or that I need to create angst in order to be a good artist. I feel like
my artistry comes from the things I do believe in. I’m very happy. The longer I
play Nellie Forbush, this cock-eyed optimist person, the better I feel about
that.
And Nellie was also a professional woman, a nurse, liberated for her time.
 But
liberated doesn’t mean that you don’t fall in love and that you don’t lose
control of all sense of anything. It’s something I’ve struggled with before, to
find that openness. But once you allow it to happen and you really believe in
it, then, gosh, nothing feels better. When you actually allow yourself to just
be grateful. I feel that way especially since I married my husband, Greg
Naughton, a year ago. He’s an actor and a singer and has a wonderful theatrical
heritage from his father, James Naughton. And he’s Irish. My father-in-law’s
mother had passed on before I came into the picture, but Greg said, “She would
have loved you just because of your name.” We met through a mutual friend and
just kind of immediately hit it off. I felt like I knew him somewhere before.
Maybe somewhere back in Ireland, something aligned. He’s a great person. We’re
happy. He’s been very encouraging to me and was instrumental in helping me with
my new CD Wonder in the World that I did with Harry Connick, Jr.
Our kids will need a lot of sunscreen, though.
Are there other new things you are working on?
I’ve been working on a new musical, just in workshop, called Writing Arthur
[composer-lyricist-librettist David Austin’s musical – about an agoraphobic
bookshop clerk/novelist] which is set in Dublin but in a dream. It’s about an
American man who is writing a story about this tiny village, kind of like
Brigadoon. It’s modern-day, but in his story everything is magical in this
little place. I play Alanna, which comes from the Irish, “my dear child.”
Have you ever traveled in Ireland?
It’s my biggest goal to visit there, especially with Greg. I did spend a night
in Ireland one time. It was the most surreal experience, because I’ve always
wanted to see the countryside of Ireland. I was coming from London and it was
winter and there was a storm here in New York City that kept the plane from
crossing the Atlantic. We were diverted to Shannon Airport. It was kind of a
scary moment – they took us to this hotel in the middle of nowhere. It was dark,
late at night. It was about two years ago. I sat with several Irish couples and
they told me about Ireland and how they grew up. They were about my own age. I
had a pint and went to bed. And when I woke up, I looked out the window and I
was in the middle of the Irish countryside. There were rock walls and sheep and
rolling green hills. It seemed unreal because it was so what I’ve imagined. You
know, when you go to a country and imagine what it will be but it’s not, it’s
just like New York City? Well, this was as I’d imagined. Then they took us back
on a bus and I flew away. It was almost like I’d been magically transported to
an essential version of Ireland. Later I found out that I’d been looking out at
the hills of County Clare where the O’Haras are from. I couldn’t wait to tell my
parents, my brother Patrick, and my sister Anne Marie. I’m very proud of my
family.
I’m sure they’re proud of you.
Well, they’ve been up here four times to see the show! I’m just so grateful to
be involved with something that says something about this world.
Leonard Jacobs writing in Backstage:
“Besides possessing outer and inner beauty . . . [O’Hara] brings an often
breathtaking intelligence to her acting. Watch her sit, disturbingly motionless,
as her take on “A Wonderful Guy" unfolds. It is just one example of O’Hara's
meticulous, unforgettable work in a mesmerizing revival.”
 Bartlett
Sher, 2008 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for South Pacific:
“Kelli is one of our finest artists, and I don't think she even knows how
good she is.
I can always tell the great ones because in some strange way they start to
understand what I do so well. Often she would say, 'I don't want to cross over
there, I think it would be better here' and usually she was right. Kelli sees
the whole field, as they say in sports. At the same time, she is a truly good
person who deeply understands and cares about people. It's remarkable, that much
talent and that much goodheartedness in one person!”
Ben Brantley Writing in the New York Times:
“. . . I’m talking partly about the chemistry between the production’s
revelatory stars, Kelli O’Hara and Paulo Szot, in the opening scene of this tale
from 1949 of men and women unmoored by war. But I’m also talking about the
chemistry between a show and its audience. I could feel the people around me
leaning in toward the stage, as if it were a source of warmth on a raw, damp
day. And that warmth isn’t the synthetic fire of can-do cheer and wholesomeness
associated (not always correctly) with Rodgers and Hammerstein. It’s the fire of
daily life, with all its crosscurrents and ambiguities, underscored and
clarified by music.”
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