'Once on This Island' review: Sensory delights foreshadow cast's ...

Birds twitter. Waves crash against the shore. The light on the sea changes. "Once on this Island," a 90-minute musical offered by Stumptown Stages at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts, is surrounded by stage elements that invite your senses to participate, even before the show begins.

Set designer Michael McGiveney has created a painted backdrop of the ocean somewhere in the French Antilles, framing it with dangling nets and foliage, and lighting design by Phil McBeth adds ever-changing complexity to the visuals. Sound designers David Cole and John Gallegos have thrown in enough natural sound effects to create a sense of place before the music even begins.

Touching on themes from "Romeo and Juliet" and "The Little Mermaid," the show works well in the intimate Brunish Hall at PCPA. Based on the novel "My Love, My Love" by Trinidad-born Rosa Guy, the 1990 musical was composed by Stephen Flaherty, with book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. A very able band performs offstage, and with at least four entrances and exits for the actors, there's plenty of room for the cast of 11 to keep the action flowing.

'Once On This Island'

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays, through Oct. 8

Where: Brunish Theatre, Portland Center for the Performing Arts, 1111 S.W. Broadway

Tickets: $10 to $30, PCPA box office, 503-248-4335 or ticketmaster.com

Website: stumptownstages.com

The story unfolds around a campfire, as actors tell it and then quickly move into acting it out. We learn of an orphaned peasant girl, Ti Moune (Jalena Montrond), who as a child is found in a tree and raised by native islanders. As a young woman one night she discovers Daniel Beauxhomme (Quincy Hickson) who is dying from a car accident. He's a handsome, light-skinned aristocrat from the other side of the island, the posh side where the descendants of the original French planters lived with their slaves.

Ti Moune can't help falling hopelessly in love with him as she nurses him back to life, and when Death comes, she offers herself if he will save Daniel. In the wrenching song "Ti Moune," her foster parents tell her not to follow him to his side of the divided isle, but love draws her. On her journey, the gods of the natural world sing the rousing number "Mama Will Provide," giving her support and protection along the way in a flurry of wonderful, high-powered ritual dancing. Later, the music moves into waltz-time during "The Ball," presented by the aristocratic folk who see Ti Moune as a curiosity.

The cast works its magic with a variety of shapes, sizes and voices. The actors who play the four gods also move in and out of other roles. Tyler Andrew Jones is nimble-footed as Papa Ge, the wily god of death. Gospel recording artist and composer Eugene Blackmon uses his bulk and height to create a fitting Agwe, the looming, storm-producing god of the sea swathed in silvery blue. As Mama Euralie, Stumptown associate artistic director Julianne R. Johnson-Weiss fills the stage with her magnificent vocals. And Laila Murphy provides a radiant presence as Erzulie, the goddess of love, who affirms that love is stronger than death in this sobering, yet uplifting tale of renewal.

As the young Ti Moune, Malaika Murphy (Laila Murphy's daughter) is charming, and her talented real-life dad Yohannes Murphy submerges himself into a variety of parts, from aristocrat to frog. It takes all kinds to populate an island.

-- Holly Johnson

Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/performance/index.ssf/2011/10/once_on_this_island_review_sen.html

joe mcginniss joan crawford joan crawford kat dennings listeriosis sarah palin bonobos