Mainstage Production: “Once on This Island”
“Once on This Island,” the annual winter mainstage production, made its debut this past Saturday at Fisher Theater. The one-act musical depicts a vicious social divide in post-revolutionary Haiti and the power of a girl’s love as the antidote. Embellished with color, excitement and the vivacity of the Caribbean, the musical shone in the dismal February weather.
Lower Audrey Hahn played the protagonist Ti Moune, an orphaned peasant girl who saves the life of wealthy Frenchman Daniel Beauxhomme during a storm. After the rescue, Ti Moune feels a passionate connection with the stranger and is compelled by this love to defy the barriers of the powerful Gods of the island and the deeply-ingrained social structure. She makes the dangerous journey alone across the island to the Beauxhomme mansion. Complications arise when Beauxhomme tells her of his arranged marriage and thus, Ti Moune must prove to the Gods that love is stronger than death. “She’s a great role for me because she’s my age and has a very youthful and naive outlook on life. It’s really easy for me to get into that mindset,” Hahn said.
Ti Moune is a unique and complex character; she is given the opportunity to kill Daniel, her love, to save her own life and nearly goes through with it. “It’s rare as a young actress to get to act out such intense experiences like that, so I had a lot of fun feeling the intensity of the situation and imagining myself actually living it,” Hahn said.
“This is going to sound pretentious, but the play deconstructs a standard love story and infuses it with the other racial elements that we, unfortunately, couldn’t explore.”
The cast began rehearsing and learning the challenging choreography right after their return to campus after winter break. Dance instructor Sarah Duclos took on the role of both director and choreographer. Although the choreography was advanced, Hahn considered “Once on This Island” to be less chaotic than other productions she has participated in. “Every cast blends together differently and this one was one of my favorites so far. Most of us already knew each other, so we pretty much just became a family when we started rehearsing. We had a blast with this play,” Hahn said.
The choreography in “Once on This Island” also played an essential role in conveying important elements of the story. The styles of dance chosen reflected the disparity between the social classes which added meaningful depth to the impact of the execution of the play overall. “The peasants danced with earth-bound and more free movements, while the upper class Beauxhommes were shown dancing in very upright formalized styles,” Duclos said.
Since the production was all about storytelling, Duclos took every opportunity to replace props and set structures with movement that would convey the same message. The playful and whimsical mood of the play served well with the key idea behind the play: the actors are story-tellers telling a story. “I like to think that creating these [props and scenes] with movement, instead of static objects, created a sense of playfulness that supported the storytelling,” Dulcos said.
Upper Moonlan Zhang noticed these creative methods of storytelling and applauded them. “The use of actors as part of the set, like as waves or as the gate, was a unique way to present the events that unfolded,” Zhang said.
Those who came to see the production thought it was a well-structured and entertaining play, and students certainly appreciated it as an upbeat escape from the reality of winter term at boarding school. Upper Alexandra Merullo said, “I thought it was one of the best performances I've seen at Exeter—well-executed and the perfect tropical break in the middle of a cold winter.”
Merullo was particularly fond of the show’s ability to highlight the diversity of the cast and the unique personality of each performer. “Even if I hadn’t known some of the performers, it would have been a great show,” Merullo said. “Seeing kids who I normally see lugging a backpack around campus letting loose, wearing bright clothes, singing and dancing made it that much more relatable and entertaining.”
Zhang agreed that the play helped her discover some hidden talents here at the Academy. “The music varied and was interesting to listen to,” Zhang said. “Some people’s voices surprised me because I didn’t know they were singers.”
Senior Jad Seligman, who played the role of Armand Beauxhomme, appreciated the subtle complexity of the show. He admitted that the show might have seemed a bit cheesy if the storyline were to be taken superficially, but he believes the play was extremely clever. “It oscillates moods very rapidly between fun and happy to scary and even morbid. This is going to sound pretentious, but the play deconstructs a standard love story and infuses it with the other racial elements that we, unfortunately, couldn’t explore,” Seligman said.
Beneath the beauty of the multitudes of color and superb acting, there was an important message in the production. The musical is a testament to the importance of oral tradition and history. One of the fundamental ideas of the production was “story-tellers telling a story.” The cast of “Once on This Island” used many different tactics to show the contrast between the two worlds existing in such close proximity. The power of stories comes from their ability to teach future generations how to learn from past mistakes. In highlighting the consequences of an extreme social caste system, stories like this one hope to bring the world closer and close the gaps in society, making it more harmonious.