Veeti Heikkinen

English

28.02.2016

Jennifer Guarino

Once On This Island

I went to see the Cheshire Academy play called Once On This Island this Friday. It was a musical played by the students of Cheshire Academy. It took place in the Black Box theater in the Field House.

I usually don’t like musicals, but this one was a pleasant surprise. Time went by really fast and all the actors did a great job. Almost the whole play was singing, except just a few short parts. There was a live band playing music for the entire play.

The musical was about a girl called Ti Moune, who was abandoned in a tree when she was a baby. The peasants found the baby and took her. One peasant couple raised Ti Moune. The peasants were separated from the rich people, and they lived in their own community. There were also four Gods: The God of earth “Asaka”, the God of water “Agwe”, the God of Love “Erzulie” and the God of Death “Papa Ge”. The Gods were standing still in the background for almost the entire play, which must have been hard. The Gods wanted to see who was more powerful, God of Love or God of Death. They sent a rich boy, called Daniel, to the peasants community, who crashed his car and passed out. Ti Moune took care of Daniel and fell in love with the boy. After a few days, the rich people came to get Daniel back. Ti Moune couldn’t be away from Daniel, so she traveled to his house and the Gods helped him to get in. Daniel didn’t remember Ti Moune, but still he fell in love with her. Ti Moune lived with the rich people, until she heard that Daniel was getting married with another girl. Then Ti Moune got to choose that will she kill Daniel or die herself. This is how the Gods got to see which was more powerful, love or death. Ti Moune chose not to kill Daniel, and then she was transformed into a tree somehow.

As I mentioned, the whole play was sang, so the plot was sometimes hard to understand. Anyhow the play was really good and I enjoyed watching it.