The joyously exuberant 1990 musical Once On This Island is receiving a joyously exuberant production by Northern Kentucky University (NKU). There’s enough enthusiasm to spill beyond the confines of NKU’s intimate Stauss Theatre, the university’s black-box studio. The production lacks some discipline, but this is a thoroughly entertaining rendition of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s tuneful show, a work well on its way to becoming a classic.
Once On This Island’s book is a playful, romantic mishmash of tales and myths. Four gods shape action that’s related by a storyteller to a young girl. Set on a Caribbean island, it’s about an orphan, Ti Moune (Tina Diaz), who cannot understand class boundaries on an island where light-skinned means privilege and dark-skinned designates peasants. She rescues Daniel (Brad Frost) from a car crash and magically nurses him back to health, then is not allowed to love him, despite a fundamental and irrational attraction — aided and abetted by the gods.
Read Rick Pender’s review here.
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2008.
