By Adam Bloodworth
Once on this Island review and star rating: ★★★
There’s nothing that signals the start of summer so brightly as the Regent’s Park Open Air
Theatre, which has kicked off its 2023 season with an adaptation of the musical Once on this Island. It’s a beautiful production, with some brilliantly catchy songs, but it’s hard to ignore that the story carries an outdated message that numbs the impact of the performances.
Once on this Island is the nineties stage adaptation of Rosa Guy’s 1985 novel My Love, My Love; or, The Peasant Girl. It’s the story of an underprivileged Caribbean girl called Ti Moune, who helps a wealthy man called Daniel, the son of a Colonial French invader who came to the Caribbean in
the 19th century. He takes her into his gated mansion and the two get together, until societal barriers get in their way.
It’s a great night, but I can’t help but feel more progressive stories that centralise the black experience, rather than its place within white colonial history, could be given such important stages.
It’s important to acknowledge that I’m a white critic writing about the black experience of colonised Caribbean islands, but for me, the play ends up stranding Ti Moune narratively, her character becoming a sad symbol of the oppression and injustice of colonialism. She isn’t given a reprieve, and the story ties up her tale of vengeance against the French Caribbean aristocracy in a way that feels like it would instigate trauma for her rather than help her move through
the injustices. I can’t help but feel more progressive stories that centralise the black experience, rather than its place within white colonial history, could be given such important stages. But nevertheless, it’s tremendously done.
The songs slap, including One Small Girl and Waiting for Life, the boldly minimal collection of props leaving the actors to fill the stage, which they do confidently. Gabrielle Brooks is charming and heart-breaking as Ti Moune; Stephenson Ardern-Sodje ripe with a toxic mix of privilege and charisma as Daniel.
It’s a brilliant watch, but one that leaves you pondering.
Once on this Island plays at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre until 10 June
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