Once On This Island
Oct. 31st, 2025 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meteordustI'd never come across this musical before, but the promo material said it was inspired by the Little Mermaid. I'm always interested in fairytales and adaptations, so I went along to the Hayes Theatre to check it out.
Plot
* On an island in the Caribbean, a peasant girl saves an aristocrat boy, and the gods make a bet about whether love is stronger than death.
* The girl is Ti Moune, an orphan taken in by a kindly couple, all of them darker-skinned peasants who live in the villages. The boy is Daniel, one of the lighter-skinned upper class descended from the French colonists and their slaves.
* The gods are Asaka (mother of earth), Agwe (god of water), Erzulie (goddess of Love), and Papa Ge (demon of death).
Production
* While the story is set in the Caribbean, this production mingles in elements from Indigenous, Pacific, and Asian cultures. It was very cool to see that kind of fusion, like the Filipino traditional clothing, or the brief glimpse of a Māori haka.
* The set was simple but atmospheric, with wooden walls decorated with bamboo leaves to evoke the island.
* I loved how the car was mostly a steering wheel with lights and a hint of framework.
Favourite songs
* "Rain" - Dramatic and cool. The god Agwe sending a storm to make Daniel crash his car off the road, and setting in motion the test of love versus death. (The actor for Agwe reminded me a lot of Ares from Xena.)
* "Mama Will Provide" - Energetic and upbeat. The goddess Asaka looking after Ti Moune on her journey to find Daniel again, by showering her with the natural bounty of the island.
* "Some Say" - I love that this is a telling by the villagers of Ti Moune's journey, that has become legend, and no one actually knows the truth of what happened. It makes it feel mythic and epic. (I love the bit about Ti Moune having to wear shoes in the city, and how they're so tight they hurt her feet. A nifty bit of adaptation.)
Ending
* The little mermaid always gets a raw deal. She deserves far better than the prince! And at least in the original, he doesn't know that she's the one who saved him from drowning, and he thinks he was rescued by the girl who found him on the beach. Here, he knows very well who saved him! And breaks her heart by offering to keep her as his mistress after he marries his fiancée. ("Some girls you marry, some you love." Gutting. You bastard.)
* I guess Ti Moune has the moral victory, in that when Papa Ge shows up to claim her life as part of their bargain, but offers her reprieve if she kills Daniel instead, Ti Moune refuses.
* So anyway, Ti Moune turns into a tree! I was not sold on that being a happy ending, even though it was framed that way. I mean, I get that as a tree she broke down the gates between the estate and the town, so all the people could freely go back and forth and become one. But the reason she died as a human is from waiting at the gates for Daniel, until she was weak from starvation and exposure! And the gods took her away to die at sea, and then gave her new life as a tree.
* What I liked a lot though was the framing story - how this is all a story told to another girl on a stormy night, and how Ti Moune is remembered as a legend whose love was stronger than death. Stories about the importance of stories, like Hadestown, like Hamilton.
Apparently Disney has the rights to do a movie version.
Plot
* On an island in the Caribbean, a peasant girl saves an aristocrat boy, and the gods make a bet about whether love is stronger than death.
* The girl is Ti Moune, an orphan taken in by a kindly couple, all of them darker-skinned peasants who live in the villages. The boy is Daniel, one of the lighter-skinned upper class descended from the French colonists and their slaves.
* The gods are Asaka (mother of earth), Agwe (god of water), Erzulie (goddess of Love), and Papa Ge (demon of death).
Production
* While the story is set in the Caribbean, this production mingles in elements from Indigenous, Pacific, and Asian cultures. It was very cool to see that kind of fusion, like the Filipino traditional clothing, or the brief glimpse of a Māori haka.
* The set was simple but atmospheric, with wooden walls decorated with bamboo leaves to evoke the island.
* I loved how the car was mostly a steering wheel with lights and a hint of framework.
Favourite songs
* "Rain" - Dramatic and cool. The god Agwe sending a storm to make Daniel crash his car off the road, and setting in motion the test of love versus death. (The actor for Agwe reminded me a lot of Ares from Xena.)
* "Mama Will Provide" - Energetic and upbeat. The goddess Asaka looking after Ti Moune on her journey to find Daniel again, by showering her with the natural bounty of the island.
* "Some Say" - I love that this is a telling by the villagers of Ti Moune's journey, that has become legend, and no one actually knows the truth of what happened. It makes it feel mythic and epic. (I love the bit about Ti Moune having to wear shoes in the city, and how they're so tight they hurt her feet. A nifty bit of adaptation.)
Ending
* The little mermaid always gets a raw deal. She deserves far better than the prince! And at least in the original, he doesn't know that she's the one who saved him from drowning, and he thinks he was rescued by the girl who found him on the beach. Here, he knows very well who saved him! And breaks her heart by offering to keep her as his mistress after he marries his fiancée. ("Some girls you marry, some you love." Gutting. You bastard.)
* I guess Ti Moune has the moral victory, in that when Papa Ge shows up to claim her life as part of their bargain, but offers her reprieve if she kills Daniel instead, Ti Moune refuses.
* So anyway, Ti Moune turns into a tree! I was not sold on that being a happy ending, even though it was framed that way. I mean, I get that as a tree she broke down the gates between the estate and the town, so all the people could freely go back and forth and become one. But the reason she died as a human is from waiting at the gates for Daniel, until she was weak from starvation and exposure! And the gods took her away to die at sea, and then gave her new life as a tree.
* What I liked a lot though was the framing story - how this is all a story told to another girl on a stormy night, and how Ti Moune is remembered as a legend whose love was stronger than death. Stories about the importance of stories, like Hadestown, like Hamilton.
Apparently Disney has the rights to do a movie version.
