In one scene, this Macbeth turns from good to gripping

Sydney Morning Herald

5 days ago

MUSICAL THEATRE
ONCE ON THIS ISLAND
Hayes Theatre, August 6
Until August 31
Reviewed by JOHN SHAND
★★
I don't recall attending another show at the Hayes Theatre where the best part was strolling past the El Alamein Fountain. That Once on This Island won an Olivier Award (best new musical) and a Tony Award (best revival of a musical) beggars belief. Even were those productions of a higher standard than this Curveball Creative one, the show itself is irretrievably flawed.
Because it's set in the Caribbean (being based on the novel My Love, My Love, or, The Peasant Girl by Rosa Guy, which, in turn, was based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid), composer Stephen Flaherty has drawn on that region's musical vibrancy. So far, so good. But then he's overlaid those rhythms and textures with some truly loathsome vocal melodies and added hackneyed key changes at every turn.
The cause is not aided by Lynn Ahrens' book and lyrics, which combine lame rhymes with such slushy sentimentality as leaves one gasping for air. Often it's like watching a cross between a crass soap opera and excerpts from a Caribbean Spinal Tap.
Seldom do vocal melodies force vocalists to sing this badly. Nothing wears the ears like screeching, and this was akin to dusk in Katoomba, when the sky turns white with sulphur-crested cockatoos shrieking their excitement at going off to roost.
In fairness, the show duly received a standing ovation with the obligatory whooping. But then try attending a Sydney opening night where that doesn't happen. They're engineered. The only genuine standing ovation I've experienced recently was for Grief Is the Thing with Feathers at Belvoir – and that's theatre of a monumentally different order.
Let's talk about the positives. Thalia Osegueda Santos, who plays Ti Moune, the teen who falls for the wrong boy (obviously having failed to read The Little Mermaid), can dance with abandon and shows flashes of star power. However, she needs to craft high notes that aren't aural daggers.
Zahra Andrews gives the standout performance as Mama Euralie, who adopts Ti Moune. She has a warmth of voice and ease of acting that are conspicuous on a stage where falseness is the norm. This stiltedness can occasionally work in Brittany Shipway's production, when there's a story within the story, for instance. But the performers are caught in a pickle because the characters, including Daniel, Ti Moune's love interest (Alexander Tye), have no more substance than the songs. How do you play a cipher?
There are a few striking scenes, as when the gods (Googoorewon Knox, Paula Parore, Rebecca Verrier and Cypriana Singh) laugh at Ti Moune's prayer to them, when Daniel's backstory is told in silhouette upon a screen, and when the journeying Ti Moune discovers birds, trees and frogs. Then Shipway's staging is a delight. But ultimately, it's putting lipstick on a mortally wounded body.
Perched high in the organ loft, with video relay of his digital dexterity over the console's five keyboards displayed on a large screen below, royal organist James O'Donnell gave a magnificent display of the variety that can be conjured from the 10,244 pipes of the Ronald Sharp-designed grand organ, majestically positioned on the south wall of the Opera House concert hall.
The instrument is neo-baroque in conception but, as O'Donnell demonstrated, can be equally harnessed to the demands of the French and English Romantic traditions as well as to more delicate Impressionist styles.
In O'Donnell's hands, its virtues were clarity across all six divisions both in combination and individually, a judicious mix of warmth and stridency, multiple shades of colour, piquancy and wispiness, and, of course, thrilling power when the full organ is opened up.
In the Prelude and Fugue in E-flat, BWV 552 that frames Part 3 of Bach's Clavierubung ('Keyboard practice'), O'Donnell selected stops that contrasted the full organ sound with quieter episodes, moving phrases agilely between divisions to convey the work's structure and the impression of contrasting instrumental groups. The exhilarating complexity of the fugue combined transparency and richness.
By contrast, Judith Bingham's St Bride, assisted by angels exploited wispy flute sounds, distant trumpets and warm human-like tones. Cesar Franck's Choral No. 1 in E was written for the sort of instrument designed by 19th century French organ-builder Cavaille-Coll, against whose excesses the neo-baroque movement was a reaction.
Yet O'Donnell adapted Sharp's instrument to its demands for quasi-symphonic richness with imagination and discernment, while also maintaining welcome clarity which some of the larger cathedral-based French instruments struggle to attain.
William Walton's Crown Imperial maintained the edges to its swashbuckling rhythmic swagger despite the lashings of tonal richness laid on like dumplings and gravy. O'Donnell exploited quieter voice-like stops in the middle section and gave a cameo role to the organ's cornet and trumpet sounds from the fifth keyboard (the Kronwerk division).
In terms of exploring shaded subtlety, the most rewarding work was Durufle's Suite, Opus 5. Its first movement created rising tension with penetrating held notes, astringent melodies and spidery fleetness while the second moved from gentle rocking sounds into a world rippling evanescence and soft pastels. The final toccata maintained keen rhythmic definition through virtuosic passages of metric irregularity. As an encore, O'Donnell played Louis Vierne's Carillon de Wesminster, an aptly Anglo-French nod to his decades at Westminster Cathedral and Westminster Abbey.