First of all, religion occupies a huge portion of the original play. In Once on This Island, the impression of the gods was outstanding, each goddess had their strong characteristics that were shown by different paintings and props. Agwe had a lot of oceanic patterns on her, which indicated her identity. Erzulie - the goddess of love was dressed in red costume, warming up the whole atmosphere. Asaka fitted exactly in the background, her green and brown costumes seemed to provide her camouflage in the forest. Papage was my favorite one, I could feel smell of death all over her character. Details such as the skulls on her stairs provided audience a strong vision of her. The actors really did great jobs in expressing each god's thoughts. Take another example of Papage, her laugh was definitely one of the highlights in the play, it was so creepy and haunted. Also, light effect played an significant role in the gods' parts. Each goddess had the background lights that fitted their costumes. Agwe was the goddess of ocean so she had blue light around her. Those blue lights were amazing when the scene of storm and rain began. It looked like that the ocean was going to devour the whole stage.
Secondly, the love story between Desiree and Daniel was fully presented in the play. The detailed introduction scenes illustrates the background stories behind Desiree and Daniel. When audience started to understand that Desiree was a poor peasant girl and Daniel was a rich young man, the gap between the young lovers was more obvious. Costumes were also important in presenting their identities. Daniel was in a nice white suit which made a contrary to Desiree's peasant dress. The most unforgettable scene of the lovers was when Daniel betrayed Desiree and started to date Andrea, it was really a touching moment. Their twisted relationship between them really attracted audience's attentions.
I think the performance couldn't be such successful without the "villagers", who had been always standing behind Desiree. They really gave the audience a full view of the "poor" but nature side. Not only Desiree, but all the villagers had "scruffy" clothing, they exist as a family. Characters like Tonton and Mama were outstanding characters too, they made the story more colorful.
As a successful musical, the music crew behind the scenes were the biggest contributors. Their consistent performance supported every moments in the play. The music made the atmosphere vivid and the emotions from characters were strengthened by it. When it's cheerful moment, the music became convivial; when it's sad moment, the music became depressed. My favorite part had been always the main theme, it repeated so many times that it couldn't get out of my head.
In conclusion, the musical was really successful, and gave me a new perspective to the novel. I love it!
No comments:
Post a Comment