Return to ‘Once on This Island’
There’s probably a joke to be made about a musical called “Once on This Island” being staged multiple times, especially in a country that happens to be an archipelago made up of several thousand islands. High school and college troupes have staged it, and several theater companies have put up their own notable productions in the past (Actors’ Actors Inc. in 2005 leaps to mind).
The latest iteration by 9 Works Theatrical further cements what we already know about “Once on This Island”’s staying power: This Tony- and Olivier Award winner is a crowd-pleaser.
In partnership with Ticket2Me, 9 Works has assembled a dynamic cast: For the central couple, Thea Astley (alternating with Angela Ken) is Ti Moune, with Sam Concepcion (alternating with Jef Flores) as Daniel. Ti Moune’s parents, Mama Euralie and Tonton Julian, are played by Lani Ligot and Noel Rayos (alternating with Raul Montesa), respectively. The four gods are brought to earthly life by Lorenz Martinez as Papa Ge, Radha as Asaka, Garrett Bolden as Agwe and Shiela Valderrama-Martinez (alternating with Jasmine Fitzgerald) as Erzulie.
PJ Rebullida is Armand, Daniel’s colonizer ancestor. Shanaia Gomez (alternating with Krystal Kane) plays Andrea/Storyteller, and the other Storytellers played by Fay Castro, Jordan Andrews, Sam Libao and Jonjon Martin. Finally, there is Bianca Estacio (alternating with Reese Iso) as Little Ti Moune.
Fairy tale
An adaptation of Rosa Guy’s 1985 novel, “My Love, My Love: or, The Peasant Girl,” this redo of the classic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Little Mermaid” is itself a tale told by a community of storytellers to a young girl scared out of her wits by a powerful storm. They tell the tale of another young girl, Ti Moune, an orphan who was saved by the gods from a similar storm. She is discovered and adopted by her parents, Mama Euralie and Tonton Julian, and grows up to be a young woman, whereupon she encounters a young man who’s just been in a car crash.
But the man is not like her, a peasant, but a grand homme, one of the ruling class that lives on the other side of her island. Nursing the unconscious Daniel, Ti Moune falls in love, and believes it to be mutual. But when Pape Ge, the demon of Death, comes to take Daniel to the afterlife, Ti Moune offers a misguided deal, and things get complicated.
The story reads a little differently today, and if you’re familiar with the actual ending of Andersen’s fairy tale, you know things don’t bode well for the perhaps naive, perhaps delusional Ti Moune. The transposition of a race of underwater beings into indigenous peasants can be a little tricky. Ti Moune claims to fall in love with someone she hasn’t spoken to, and the story doesn’t give much reason for us to fall in love with him (though a history lesson about his ancestor Armand really comes alive).
Fun watch
Such are the simple niceties of a fairy tale, if one were to nitpick. But the themes of familial love, sacrifice, the search for autonomy and purpose still animate the tale.
9 Works’ artistic director Robbie Guevara directs “Once on This Island” with aplomb; the performers all seem to be enjoying themselves in their occasionally dual guises. Some of the fun is watching the same performers snap into very different roles, as when Storytellers become catty, gossipy bitches (here, special kudos goes to Martinez, Martin, Andrews and Gomez).
The opening number “We Dance” sets the stage for a rousing tale that nonetheless has a bitter taste at the end, with the cast striking first impressions.
Astley is luminous as Ti Moune, and has at least two opportunities to dazzle the audience into combustive applause. Her shining purity makes it all the more difficult as we watch Ti Moune make bad decision after bad decision out of a romanticized notion of, well, romance.
The only real drawback is an aspect of the stage design: a circular walkway resembling a wharf, but set at an angle. It must’ve been conceptually attractive, but for many of the supporting cast it means they’re often standing or moving on an uneven surface. Its worst crime is that it wraps around the entire front of the stage, thus robbing the audience of seeing the performers below the knees. The effect of the cast’s dancing and choreography gets muzzled as a result.
That aside, it’s a pleasure to revisit the Jewel of the Antilles and see a familiar tale given new spark by new faces (and voices!). It seems inevitable that we will see another staging soon enough, but for now 9 Works reminds us why “Once on This Island” is a keeper.
