The next play, Once On This Island, almost shouldn't be in this list. I have never seen this done professionally; my sister played the role of Andrea Devereaux when she was in 8th grade. The microphones were very old, so there was a lot of static feedback, and one or two of the songs were cut out (most likely because they made a lot of references to how the shades of skin color of the two groups of people on the island is what separated them, and nearly everyone in the show was white). However, for a group of middle school kids, they actually did pretty good, with a special shout-out to the kids playing the gods Agwe and Papa Ge. And the story simply floored me. Not only is the plot excellent, but the way it is told was part of what endeared the play to me; the show is about why stories are important, and the main narrative of the play is being told by narrators, who acknowledge that some of the events they talk about may never have happened, but it is the feelings they convey that matter.
Of the four plays on my list, this is definitely the least known. I think that the only person I know who has heard of it is a friend of mine from college; I was going to reference the show, and said that I was going to bring up a play he'd probably not heard of, but when I mentioned the name, his face lit up, and he exclaimed that he also loved the show. I have yet to come across anyone else outside my community in the suburbs of Chicago who know about it (but then again, I don't bring it up often). The show opened off-Broadway in 1990, and ran for about 400 performances (thanks, Wikipedia), and while I'm sure that there have been some revivals, I've never heard stories of it coming back. The show was nominated for the Tony for Best Musical, but didn't win (like Wicked), and then sort of faded away. I would love to see a professional version, but I think it will be unlikely.
The story is adapted from a book called My Love, My Love by Rosa Guy, which is a retelling of Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid. About halfway through the show, I thought to myself that it did resemble Mermaid, but since I am only familiar with the Disney version of the story, the ending caught me completely off guard. Let's just say that Once On This Island is much more faithful to Anderson's ending than Disney's, and Anderson had a knack for not ending his stories as happily as today's audiences are used to with "children's" entertainment. However, the unexpected ending is part of what makes the show so great; not only is it unpredictable, from darkness comes light, and despite what is initially sad, goodness sprouts from the ashes (I think I mixed a few metaphors there).
I remember most of the story and have listened to the soundtrack numerous times, and most of the show is sung. There is almost no spoken dialogue (similar to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat), so listening to the soundtrack will give you nearly the entire story. However, there may have been a few spoken lines at the beginning that I don't remember (and for some reason, there are a few lines of dialogue that I DO remember from the production I saw, but now I think that I only imagined them).
The story begins with a storm on a small island in the French Antilles. The loud thunder frightens a young peasant girl, and in order to calm her down a group of storytellers begin to tell the story of Ti Moune. In the story, four gods rule over the island: Agwe, the god of water, Asaka, goddess of the earth, Erzulie, goddess of love, and Papa Ge, god of death. On one side of the island are the peasants, who have very dark skin and must work all day, and are "eternally at the mercy of the wind and the sea". They put their complete faith in the gods, believing that everything that happens is their will. Meanwhile, the other side of the island is home to the Grand Hommes (French for "Big Men"), the wealthy landowners who don't believe in the gods, and can do nearly anything they want (or so we're led to believe). The opening song, "We Dance" explains the meanings of some of the customs on the island in both camps; the peasants dance in rituals to the gods, while the Grand Hommes try to be European. One of my favorite lines in the show is in this song; the Grand Hommes boast that they dance at parties, while the peasants must dance because they believe it keeps them alive (it keeps the gods happy).
One stormy night (similar to the one the little girl is experiencing), Agwe's angry waves were responsible for the deaths of many peasants. But one small girl was spared, and ended up in a tree. She lost her family (I think that one can interpret her as a creation of the gods right then and there; she never mentions her family and the gods have a purpose for her, but she also may not remember them), and is adopted by an elderly couple who find her the next day. The name her Desiree (the name from the book), but give her the pet name of "Ti Moune", meaning "little orphan saved by the gods for something special". The song "One Small Girl" details her life from when her adoptive parents find her until her teenage years. She is a handful, with her head in the clouds and an adventurous spirit, but she loves her parents and despite limited resources and space, they somehow get by.
One day, the teen-aged Ti Moune is hanging around by the road, and sees one of the Grand Hommes driving around in an expensive sports car. His good looks cause her to fall for him without ever actually meeting him, and she prays to the gods to allow them to meet. This amuses them; even though the two groups inhabit the same island, they are of two different worlds. Asaka, Agwe, and Papa Ge mock her, but Erzulie says that maybe they should grant her wish. She defends her choice by saying that love is the most powerful force on Earth, assuming it is true love. According to her, love is strong enough to compel a person to cross the sea, the earth, and even triumph in the face of death. Agwe and Asaka aren't exactly pleased with this declaration, but Papa Ge is the most offended, and challenges Erzulie to a bet. The four of them will work together to put the boy together with Ti Moune, and give her a choice between love and death. Agwe does his part by creating a storm, causing the boy to crash his car. Ti Moune finds him and tries to nurse him back to health.
She believes that she has finally found her raison d'etre, the reason the gods spared her life as a child; she is meant to save the boy and marry him. This is kind of where I think that line of dialogue was that may or may not exist. For some reason, I remember Ti Moune telling her mother that there is a prophecy about a peasant girl and a Grand Homme falling in love and bringing the two worlds together, and she believes that the was spared because she is the
peasant girl in the prophecy (interestingly, this adds a new dimension to the ending and her purpose; she is not the girl, but she is what allows the girl and boy to come together, thus fulfilling the prophecy).
The boy, named Daniel, is on the edge of death, and Papa Ge visits Ti Moune in a dream, telling her that he's come for Daniel. Ti Moune offers herself in Daniel's place, which upsets Papa Ge. He agrees though, but warns that one day, he'll be back for her. In an interlude, we see the history of the Grand Hommes, in the song, "The Sad Tale of the Beauxhommes" (this was the song cut from the production I saw). The Grand Hommes are descendants of a French explorer. Even though he was married to a woman who was white (just like him), he had affairs with the various island slave girls who worked at the mansion he built. One of them gave birth to a son of mixed race. Described as being the color of coffee with cream, the boy was named Beauxhomme (which is incorrect grammar; beaux is plural, but homme is singular, but it means beautiful man/men). Despite being lighter skinned and much more privileged than the poor inhabitants of the island, he participated in a coup against the French. When his father was forced to flee, Beauxhomme took over his father's fortunes that were left behind. However, his father left behind a curse; Beauxhomme and all his ancestors would forever stay on the island due to their "black blood", but they would desire to be European. The storytellers say that the Grand Hommes hate the peasants because their dark skin "reminds them where they're from". Powerful stuff.
I wanted to include a video of "We Dance", but everything I found was middle school and high school performances. Oh well.
Up next: Why we tell the story...
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