James Jones’s best-selling 1951 novel, which won the US National Book Award, drew on his wartime experience in the Hawaiian army base just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941.
From Here to Eternity was turned into a musical and premiered at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 2013. Tim Rice wrote the lyrics. Stuart Brayson wrote the music. It wasn’t a big success.
The subject matter is raw and lurid. Soldiers are physically and mentally abused. A gay young man is beaten to death. The sadistic brutality was bad propaganda for the American army. The publishers bowdlerized the novel before publication.
The Fred Zimmerman film, which followed in 1953, toned down the novel’s testosterone and bad language. The film had big Hollywood names (Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra, Ernest Borgnine) and was nominated for 13 Oscars and won 8. The novel has been adapted twice for a television series.
The one thing everybody remembers about the movie is Lancaster and Kerr having sex on the beach. The attempt to re-stage the iconic scene without the pounding waves, the sand and all the surf in the 2013 premiere was hilariously coy and a big mistake.
Wisely, in this new production, the scene has been dropped. Brett Smock directs on a traverse stage. The cast is well drilled, press-ups and all. The book has been re-jigged by Donald Rice and Bill Oakes; but not sufficiently.
There are two main stories, Prewitt (Jonathon Bentley), the best boxer and best bugler, refuses to box ever again because he blinded his opponent. The Army gives him a bad time. Warden (Adam Rhys-Charles), a sergeant, has an affair with the captain’s wife (Carley Stenson).
Bentley sings Fight the Fight. Rhys-Charles sings Aint Where I Wanna Be Blues. Desmonda Cathabel (who plays the sex worker Prewitt loves) sings Run Along, Joe.
Jonny Amies (who plays a soldier bullied because he is cheeky and Italian) sings I Love the Army. I Hate the Army. Eve Polycarpou (who plays the madam who runs the brothel and gives the most convincing performance) sings I Know What You Came For.
From Here to Eternity doesn’t really work as a musical. The songs add nothing. They aren’t fully integrated. The Boys of ‘41, which is sung and mimed during the bombing of Pearl Harbour, is a strong climax; but the story-lines are never sufficiently emotionally involving to make you care who lives and who dies.
Images: Alex Brenner.
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