Reviews 2014
Reviews 2014
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music by Stephen Flaherty, book & lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, directed by Nigel Shawn Williams
Acting Up Stage with Obsidian Theatre Company, Daniels Spectrum, Toronto
January 24-February 9, 2014
Chorus: “Our lives become the stories that we weave”
Acting Up Stage and Obsidian Theatre Company, who joined forces in 2012 to bring us the powerful musical Caroline, Or Change, have joined again to present a vibrant production of Once on This Island. The 1990 musical by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, a Caribbean fairy-tale infused with the rhythms of salsa and calypso is colourful, imaginative and moving all at once.
Ahrens and Flaherty, who would later go on to write Ragtime (1998), Seussical (2000) and A Man of No Importance (2002), based Island on the novel My Love, My Love; or, The Peasant Girl (1985) by Trinidad-born author Rosa Guy. Set on an island in the French Antilles (most likely Haiti), the novel and musical move beyond the realm of magic realism associated with Caribbean and Latin American writing to the creation of a modern myth, albeit with social commentary on race and class.
When a young girl (Kaya Joubert Johnson) opens a book to read to comfort her on a stormy night, the whole village comes alive to tell her the story of Ti Moune (whose name means “little child”), a peasant girl like herself. The work is thus a choral musical where the chorus tells its story to help the younger generation understand the past and present of the world they live in.
The world of the island where the young girl lives is characterized by division. On one side are the upper class, lighter-skinned grands hommes, who own all the island’s wealth and land. On the other side, live the darker-skinned peasants who work for the grands hommes and make it possible for the grands hommes to live in comfort and leisure. As shown late in the musical, the grands hommes are descended from a child born of Armand (Charles Azulay), a French colonial master, and a female black slave. When an uprising drove out the French, the descendants of this child ruled over the peasants just as the French had done.
The world of the island is ruled over by four gods – Asaka or Earth (Nicola Lawrence), Agwé or Water (Jivaro Smith), Erzulie or Love (Alana Hibbert) and Papa Ge or Death (Daren A. Herbert). One day Agwé causes a massive storm that devastates the island and washes away whole villages. The gods, however, save the young Ti Moune (Kaya Joubert Johnson) because it is her fate to heal the social and racial divisions of the island.
Following a pattern familiar to readers of Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), the orphaned Ti Moune is raised by foster parents, the kind Mama Euralie (Arlene Duncan) and the stalwart Tonton Julian (Tom Pickett). When she is older Ti Moune (Jewelle Blackman) prays to the gods to learn her purpose in life. Erzulie and Papa Ge decide that she should prove which is stronger, love or death, whereupon a grand homme Daniel Beauxhomme (Chris Sams) crashes his car and is injured and Ti Moune takes this as a sign that she is to nurse him back to health. Of course, she also falls in love with him and when he is well enough to leave, she goes on a hero’s quest across the island to find him and tell him of her love.
There she does find him, continues to care for him because he is not yet well and imagines their future life together after he marries her. The story, however, is not so simple and Ti Moune finds that a host of further trials await her.
The cast all give lively performances. Standouts include Arlene Duncan as a big-voiced, big hearted Mama Euralie. Duncan exudes such warmth you would never know her as the embittered Caroline of Caroline, Or Change. Jewelle Blackman gives one of her best-ever performances as Ti Moune. Her combination of strength cloaked in external fragility holds our empathy from her first appearance until the end. Alana Hibbert is well cast as the goddess of love Erzulie and she gives a beautiful and impassioned account of the show’s best-known song “The Human Heart”. Daren A. Herbert makes the greatest distinction among his roles, one moment joyful and loose-limbed as a villager, the next rigid and seething with power as Papa Ge. Kaya Joubert Johnson is delightful both as the young village girl and as a young Ti Moune.
Nigel Shawn Williams banishes the orchestra to backstage. On the one hand, this keeps our focus on the story unfolding before us. On the other, the calypso-influenced score is so energetic that is seems a shame not to see the band perform it. If the village is singing the story of their heritage, why can’t we see the village musicians who accompany them?
While the story may seem like a fairy-tale and Stephen Flaherty’s music may seem light-hearted, the themes of the musical – shadeism, oppression, sacrifice and fate – are not light at all and should give families much to discuss. The one pity is that the show does not run until Valentine’s Day. It’s story of undying love would make it the perfect show for young couples.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: (from top) The cast of Once on This Island; Jewelle Blackman as Ti Moune. ©2014 Joanna Akyol.
For tickets, visit http://actingupstage.com.
2014-01-26
Once on This Island