"Once on This Island" is basically a perfect musical--so perfect that, at times, it almost seems facile. Anything you want is here. A big, classic I WANT song ("Waiting for Life"). A smashing Act One finale that shifts the action into a new gear ("Ti Moune"--more on that later). A serious tonal shift for the barnstorming Act Two opener ("Mama Will Provide"). Conflict--external--between the gods of Love and Death, between Daniel and his lady loves, between Ti Moune and her parents. Conflict--internal--between Loyal Hometown Girl Ti Moune and World-Devouring Cosmopolitan Ti Moune. (You might think of the central internal conflict in "Moana.") Curses and reverses (the god of Water wraps the corpse of Ti Moune "in a wave," Ti Moune decomposes and becomes a tree, a unifying symbol, Daniel the starry-eyed lover proves to be a trickster). There's a great eleven-o-clock number enfolding a climax: Ti Moune stands with a knife, prepared to kill her former lover, as threads of earlier numbers swirl around her. (You might think of the climax of "Evita": "On this night...O, what a circus...the choice was mine and no one else's....I could have any prize that I desired....")
I've written before about the role "Once on This Island" played in my early life. I remember seeing a production at Studio Arena, in Buffalo, and feeling so enchanted by the car; the theater didn't have a ton of money, so they had Daniel race around the stage with two flashlights to suggest headlights. That was dazzling to me. I listened again and again to the recording, and I would actually sob when Ti Moune would die. ("O, Ti Moune: You will always be a part of us.") I loved the textbook classic Act One opener--and this, too, belongs in a Musical Theater Hall of Fame--where the scene is set, the parameters of the Ordinary World are established. ("Our hearts hear the song; our feet move along; and, to the music of the gods, we dance.") It was important to me--and to any gay man--to note whether the actress playing Asaka jumped an octave at the end of "Mama Will Provide"; if she didn't, then you weren't really seeing something first-rate. I was always entranced when the parents would adopt Ti Moune: "And their huts were crowded and food was scarce, but somehow their lives held more. One small girl to live for." The writers seemed to know they had a jackpot story on their hands, and they seemed to announce this at the end: "Hope is why we tell the story, faith is why we tell the story, love is why, grief is why, joy is why--YOU are why we tell the story." Indeed, the story had all of those things; it was an unassailable piece of mythic cliff-hanger goodness. (And that bulletproof line: "You are why we tell the story"--to teach you, presumably, but also to get you to start telling stories of your own.) Also, the show had some meta-commentary; early in Act Two, various chorus members point out that the details of Ti Moune's trip to the city are not really known, and so diverging traditions have created diverging scenarios. ("Some say her feet were bare and the road was long and cruel. Some say she got a ride from the vendor and his mule. Some say the gods just lifted her up and placed her where he lay. Well, no one knows how the real truth goes. It all depends what you hear from friends. Her shoes were tight but she said, ALL RIGHT. Well, that's what some say." The song both advances the plot and provides some insight into the nature of storytelling. Very clever.)
OK: "Fiddler on the Roof" has its fabulous Divided Self moment, "Far from the Home I Love." "Once on This Island" has a comparable moment: "Ti Moune." It's Ti Moune arguing with her parents. Her mother both recognizes that she--Ti Moune--is wrong *and* recognizes that Ti Moune needs to go off and make her own errors. ("What can I say to stop you now? Now that you've heard your drums and seen your dancer?") Papa points out that the journey is foolish: "I won't be there to guide your way." And couldn't Ti Moune meet someone closer to home? But Ti Moune has a killer response. "I recognize that I'm doing something heart-wrenching, but I have to go, because *he* is there." Passion is a thing that sort of defies explanation; it's there because it's there. The parents recognize this, and, heartbroken, they assure their daughter that they'll be around, at her side, even as they remain at home. "You will always be a part of us." (Of course the parents are right to worry--and very quickly Ti Moune ends up dead--and having this knowledge makes the show so much more painful to watch.)
And: Done. I had to sing the praises of this show because it's returning to Broadway, soon, with Lea Salonga. You can now find some clips on "Playbill"; I can't watch them at work, and that's excruciating for me. I'm grateful to this show for having suggested some kind of path to me, when I was maybe ten and too little to understand what I was experiencing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ8448PLS_g
I've written before about the role "Once on This Island" played in my early life. I remember seeing a production at Studio Arena, in Buffalo, and feeling so enchanted by the car; the theater didn't have a ton of money, so they had Daniel race around the stage with two flashlights to suggest headlights. That was dazzling to me. I listened again and again to the recording, and I would actually sob when Ti Moune would die. ("O, Ti Moune: You will always be a part of us.") I loved the textbook classic Act One opener--and this, too, belongs in a Musical Theater Hall of Fame--where the scene is set, the parameters of the Ordinary World are established. ("Our hearts hear the song; our feet move along; and, to the music of the gods, we dance.") It was important to me--and to any gay man--to note whether the actress playing Asaka jumped an octave at the end of "Mama Will Provide"; if she didn't, then you weren't really seeing something first-rate. I was always entranced when the parents would adopt Ti Moune: "And their huts were crowded and food was scarce, but somehow their lives held more. One small girl to live for." The writers seemed to know they had a jackpot story on their hands, and they seemed to announce this at the end: "Hope is why we tell the story, faith is why we tell the story, love is why, grief is why, joy is why--YOU are why we tell the story." Indeed, the story had all of those things; it was an unassailable piece of mythic cliff-hanger goodness. (And that bulletproof line: "You are why we tell the story"--to teach you, presumably, but also to get you to start telling stories of your own.) Also, the show had some meta-commentary; early in Act Two, various chorus members point out that the details of Ti Moune's trip to the city are not really known, and so diverging traditions have created diverging scenarios. ("Some say her feet were bare and the road was long and cruel. Some say she got a ride from the vendor and his mule. Some say the gods just lifted her up and placed her where he lay. Well, no one knows how the real truth goes. It all depends what you hear from friends. Her shoes were tight but she said, ALL RIGHT. Well, that's what some say." The song both advances the plot and provides some insight into the nature of storytelling. Very clever.)
OK: "Fiddler on the Roof" has its fabulous Divided Self moment, "Far from the Home I Love." "Once on This Island" has a comparable moment: "Ti Moune." It's Ti Moune arguing with her parents. Her mother both recognizes that she--Ti Moune--is wrong *and* recognizes that Ti Moune needs to go off and make her own errors. ("What can I say to stop you now? Now that you've heard your drums and seen your dancer?") Papa points out that the journey is foolish: "I won't be there to guide your way." And couldn't Ti Moune meet someone closer to home? But Ti Moune has a killer response. "I recognize that I'm doing something heart-wrenching, but I have to go, because *he* is there." Passion is a thing that sort of defies explanation; it's there because it's there. The parents recognize this, and, heartbroken, they assure their daughter that they'll be around, at her side, even as they remain at home. "You will always be a part of us." (Of course the parents are right to worry--and very quickly Ti Moune ends up dead--and having this knowledge makes the show so much more painful to watch.)
And: Done. I had to sing the praises of this show because it's returning to Broadway, soon, with Lea Salonga. You can now find some clips on "Playbill"; I can't watch them at work, and that's excruciating for me. I'm grateful to this show for having suggested some kind of path to me, when I was maybe ten and too little to understand what I was experiencing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ8448PLS_g
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