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'Once on This Island' makes for terrific evening
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Updated: Apr. 9, 2012 | 11:17 p.m.
It often takes a while to respond to even a good show, but Signature Productions/Super Summer Theatre's "Once on This Island" is the kind of musical you're likely to fall in love with within minutes.
Composers Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty ("Ragtime) begin their adaptation of Rosa Guy's "My Love, My Love" with a group of Caribbean peasants explaining to the audience in song why "We Dance."
The plot has an irresistible "Little Mermaid" hook: a black underclass girl (played by Casondra Davis-Brett) falls in love with a mixed-race aristocratic boy (Keith Dotson) and never the twain shall meet. But the script is really about the magic of folklore. You can see immediately that director Steve Huntsman understands that.
The "We Dance" number is typical of the production's spirit: exuberant, effortless (in appearance, anyway) affectionate, creatively staged. Huntsman's set and costumes are so rich in visual surprise -- Kabuki flavors, screens breathtakingly lit (by Jay LeDane), Julie Taymor-worthy puppets -- that we never forget this is a story about the wonder of stories.
Choreographer Shannon Winkel has fun with the calypso-inspired score. She inspires a unity of spirit in her dancers.
The 12-member cast is so in sync that my guess is you'll have trouble picking out favorites. Like so many Signature musicals, the show-stopping performers always seem to be topping one another.
Huntsman loses his sureness of touch on the rare occasions when the music segues into dialogue. (I have a hunch he'd gain a lot by spending more time with dramas.)
While Davis-Brett and Dotson are exemplary singers, they aren't able to create much dramatic tension as lovers, so the story's heart is sometimes lost. Dotson in particular comes across more as an actor than a character.
And it's unfortunate that this "live" show features "dead" music. The (by necessity) highly amped sound combined with the taped tracks at times undermine the improvisatory feel of the score.
But these flaws stand out only because the production's quality is so consistently high and unexpected. This is a terrific evening of theater; the kind you're likely to show-off to your out-of-town friends.
Anthony Del Valle can be reached at DelValle@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.
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I don't believe Mr. Del Valle criticized the music, but the choice of of the directors to use pre-recorded music over actual musicians playing real instruments, the much improved sound system that SST can't stop raving about, and probably the, "New", sound operator. Why go see live musical theater when the music isn't live? Also the music is not being criticized, rather the lack of it being produced on location and the inability of the sound operator to simply mix a pre-recorded track of music and sound effects with the action on stage. And the words Mr. Del Valle used were, "Highly amped", which I take to mean to loud.
Curious that he should criticize the music...I would have rather listened to the "canned" but high quality Once On This Island music over and over than suffer through the ridiculously poor sounds of the West Side Story "orchestra" for one more minute.