Review: ONCE ON THIS ISLAND at Spinning Tree Theatre

The Spinning Tree Theatre production of "Once On This Island" at the Off Broadway Theatre is ninety minutes of your life worth devoting to some excellent vocal performances and some great dance. The plotline is a little involved, but the experience is so much fun you don't care.

"Once On This Island" is a musical based on an 1985 novel by Rosa Guy. It originally opened in 1990 on Broadway with music and libretto by the team of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty and ran for a year. The infectious Caribbean rhythms are now revived in New York at Circle In The Square Theatre. It is hard to imagine that the current Broadway experience could be much better than what is offered by this production.

"Island" is a parable told on several levels and that is where it gets a little confusing. The story is about racial differences, how they exist even on a tiny tropical island, and a hope that they may eventually go away. The central conceit is that a small girl is frightened by an oncoming storm and then is comforted by village storytellers.

Following a storm, just like the one they are about to experience, another small girl washes up on a beach. Little Ti Moune (Jahnaya Thomas) is adopted by Mama Euralie (Angela Hagenbach) and Tonton (Granville O'Neal), an older couple who first question their ability to take on the lost little girl. They do and turn out to be excellent parents.

Time passes and a young adult Ti Moune (Allison Jones) has grown into an attractive young woman. She finds an injured boy named Daniel (Mathew A. King), nurses him back to health, and falls madly in love with him.

Tonton and Euralie are concerned. They immediately recognize him as being of mixed race and from a town on the other side of the island. Several generations back, the original colonial masters of this island mixed with their African workers. A revolution made the oppressors go away, but their mixed race descendants have taken their place and are determined to maintain class distinctions in the island society.

The villagers have remained in contact with their ancient Gods. Ti Moune trades her soul with Papa Ge (Darrington Clark) for the recovery of injured Daniel. Tonton repatriates Daniel to his original family, but Ti Moune refuses to recognize their differences. They indeed become lovers, but Daniel has already been promised to Andrea (Morgan Walker), the daughter of another mixed race island family. Ti Moune is crushed and her soul is reclaimed by Papa Ge. In her next life, she becomes a palm tree overlooking Daniel's family business, a hotel.

A generation passes and a peasant girl falls in love with Daniel's son and differences between shades of skin begin to disappear. The little girl from the beginning of the play has regained her courage and ends with a song that explains (Why We Tell The Story).

Other than a scrim hiding an excellent orchestra directed by Pamela Baskin-Watson and a few boxes, the stage is essentially barren. Director Nedra Dixon has done a great job of creating stage pictures and showing her actors how to hold focus and bring the audience along with them into the story. Choreographer Andrew Grayman-Parkhurst has done more than create great steps. He has shown the courage to allow his actors the freedom to breathe character into his designs without taking away from the whole.

These are all accomplished performers. Angela Hagenbach is always vocally excellent. Allison Jones has a real future ahead of her. Darrington Clark made me flash on a young Ben Vereen as the leading player from Pippen. Matthew King holds the stage with tremendous strength. Douglass Walker opens as Agwe and brings us immediately into an engaging and encouraging huge production sequence that hints at what is to come. I apologize to those actors who have not been mentioned. You are all more than worth seeing.

"Once On This Island" continues at the Off Broadway Theatre through May 6. I recommend you see this exceptional production. Tickets are available at www.spinningtreetheatre.com.

Photo credit J. Robert Schraeder/Spinning Tree Theatre.

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