(no subject)

[rivka]

Sunday night, Michael and I saw Once on this Island, a 1990 musical I had never even heard of before.

The story is a loose retelling of The Little Mermaid, set on a Caribbean island divided between the wealthy, privileged, light-skinned grands hommes and the poor, dark-skinned peasants. A peasant girl of mysterious origins (her adoptive parents found her perched in a tree after a hurricane) falls fatally in love with a young grand homme. Her situation catches the attention of four Vodoun gods, who decide to use her to settle the question of whether love is stronger than death.

It was marvelous.

The music, the singing, dancing, the costumes... it was overpowering. A hurricane, just for example, was depicted by a wild balletic dance, the dancers wielding deep turquoise umbrellas trailing long glittering streamers. I was swept far enough away from rational analysis that I completely suspended any disbelief in the love story - and Michael and I both got a little teary when it ended.

This is why we have season theater tickets. I'd never heard of this show. It's not something that it would've occurred to us to buy tickets for. Before we had season tickets, even when we did hear of a play we wanted to see, we usually didn't get around to buying tickets before it went away. Being season ticket holders has exposed us to the occasional awful, awful play, but the good theater we see - especially the good theater we never would've seen otherwise - more than makes up for it.

Yay.

Comments

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

i am pretty sure i saw that years ago. it was quite good. :)

n.

[tikva.livejournal.com]

I saw it on Broadawy, and I have the soundtrack, which was written by a friend of my aunt's. :) (the same composer did "Seussical" and "Ragtime")

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

My high school put on that play when I was a freshman, fall of '92. I am usually not a stickler for traditionalist ethnic casting -- the best Lear I've ever seen had a black Cordelia -- but having a Ti Moune with shining golden curls was a little odd. On the other hand, doing it in blackface would definitely have been worse, and not doing it at all very well might have been. And I don't believe any non-white students actually tried out -- heaven knows we didn't have many available. So.