Why I Love Once on This Island
May. 4th, 2022 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goseawardSpent some time crying about the song Why We Tell the Story again, so I thought it might be time to write up the essay about why I love Once on This Island quite so much. :)
Spoilers herein, but I don't think it hurts the experience of the musical to know the plot!
Quick overview for those who don't know the show: It's a retelling of the Little Mermaid, based on a novel by Rosa Guy, an American writer born in Trinidad, and set in an unnamed island in the Caribbean. The show is not strongly placed in time, but it's probably the first half of the 20th century (there are cars, but only the wealthy have them). Instead of being about mermaids and humans, it's about the divide between the rich and the poor, specifically the very dark-skinned poor and the wealthier lighter-skinned people on this particular island. The poor pray to four gods: Mother Earth (Asaka), Father Water (Agwe), Love (Erzulie), and Death (Papa Ge). The gods appear throughout the show, playing games with the mortals--and loving and helping them, too.
Our mermaid character is Ti Moune, a young girl orphaned by a severe storm. She's found hiding in a tree by a childless elderly couple, Mama Euralie and Tonton Julian, who take her in. When Ti Moune is a young woman, she sees a handsome young man drive by in a fancy car and decides that's what she wants. She prays to the gods and says, you saved me from the storm, I must be special, when does my special life begin? The gods make fun of her for wanting their attention, but eventually decide to use her in a bet between Erzulie and Papa Ge: what is stronger, love or death? They cause a rich and beautiful young man, Daniel, to crash his car while driving on the road near Ti Moune's home. She saves him, tends him, and makes a deal with Papa Ge to trade her life for his. Eventually his family takes him back to his wealthy life in the city, and Ti Moune follows him. She finishes nursing him back to health and becomes his lover. But then he introduces her to his rich, beautiful fiancee, and says he won't marry Ti Moune but she can be his mistress. Papa Ge returns, promising Ti Moune that she can take her choice back and live, if she kills Daniel. Ti Moune considers it, but refuses. She wastes away at the gates of the fancy hotel owned by Daniel's family and eventually dies. The gods transform her into a tree, and everyone celebrates, and that's the end of the play.
Okay. Depressing shit. But when I said I cried at Why We Tell the Story--that celebration at the end--it's not actually because it's sad. The rest of this essay is about why it isn't sad for me, and why this version of this story doesn't bother me the way it usually bothers me when female characters nobly sacrifice themselves to save someone else's life.
Fundamentally, the difference is choice. Despite the gods' meddling, Ti Moune is never actually forced into anything. This isn't a case of a society so thoroughly arrayed against women that sometimes the only power they have is their death. There's no hand of the author here setting up an impossible choice. There's just Ti Moune, wanting what she wants and going after it--and there's the people around Ti Moune, who acknowledge her right to do that, who support her, and who honor her after she passes away.
Ti Moune wants something exciting to happen to her. She doesn't find Daniel injured by chance--she specifically asked for something special.
And when she makes a deal with the god of death to save Daniel's life, it's her idea:
In fact, she keeps insisting on it even as Papa Ge describes how final death is! And she keeps insisting on it even though the lead in to this scene involves at least some of her fellow villagers being like, LEAVE THIS BOY ALONE, THIS IS BAD NEWS. (The song, "Pray", is really cool. If you were to, for example, look up a slime tutorial on YouTube.)
Ti Moune's choices are respected by the people around her, too. Mama Euralie helps Ti Moune tend Daniel--even though she thinks it's a bad idea. Tonton Julian also helps by traveling on foot to the big city to tell Daniel's family where he is. And he was one of the strongest voices arguing for leaving Daniel alone! And then when Ti Moune wants to go to the city...she's no Ariel, sneaking away, going to Ursula, making a bad bargain she doesn't understand with someone who means her harm. Ti Moune sits down with her parents and says, I think I have to do this. They argue with her, of course, they want her to stay home and safe. But when she insists, they agree, with great sadness, that she should go. And then they remind her they're still at home to support her whenever she needs it.
For me, this is the point where Once on This Island really starts to diverge from other Little Mermaid tellings. To me, they tend to be, fundamentally, about a person making foolish, rash choices for love, and getting condemned for foolishness by the narrative. This story isn't doing quite the same thing to Ti Moune. Her choices are still kind of rash, but she's willing to defend them, and other characters bow to her right to make those choices for herself even if they wish she'd do something different.
(Also, instead of having Ursula help her, Ti Moune gets the absolutely delightful Asaka, Mother Earth, to joyfully aid her on her way, in one of the best songs in the show.)
And the other major difference from, say, the Disney version, is that Daniel is just an asshole! Like, canonically! It's not a Fifty Shades situation here, the authors make him The Worst on purpose and make sure you know it. He has this song called "Some Girls" that sounds like a love song but is actually just Daniel repeatedly negging Ti Moune. The last line is "some girls you marry, some you love," and he thinks she's going to feel GOOD about that! Absolutely no one who watches this show thinks the world is better off with Ti Moune dead and Daniel alive. But Ti Moune thinks so, and it's her thoughts and feelings and choices that matter.
Then...we get to Ti Moune's final choice. Here's the offer Papa Ge makes:
So on the one hand, this is about Ti Moune's love for Daniel being stronger than death. But I also want to point out something interesting about this offer. Papa Ge doesn't just say, kill Daniel and you won't die. Instead, Papa Ge says, if you kill Daniel, it will be like this never happened.
It's not just Ti Moune's life at stake. It's really...her soul. What makes her Ti Moune at all. Because if she kills Daniel, she won't just live, she'll become a person who never loved him, never made these choices, never had this experience. Ti Moune is not just choosing Daniel's life over her own; she's also validating that she didn't make the wrong choice in the past, that regardless of how it turned out she did the thing she wanted to do to become the person she wanted to be. She chooses to be this version of herself, instead of a different, maybe more sensible, but less brave one.
So she chooses, and she dies. It's pretty heartbreaking.
And then we get this scene where the gods honor her. In the recent Broadway revival, this takes the form of the gods passing her body around, each blessing her in their own way. Again--this is not the story conveying to the audience, oh what a foolish girl, how sad; it's saying, look at the strength of this woman, how amazing. And at the end, the gods transform her into a tree at the entrance to Daniel's family's hotel:
And then, finally, the lyric that always makes me cry:
Like, I cried as I typed this part up, and then I cried when I got to it on the edit! The power and the wonder of Ti Moune. I mean. This is a Little Mermaid story, usually about a young girl doing some--frankly--pretty ill-advised stuff. And this show ends by going: LOOK HOW AMAZING SHE IS.
And so the rest of the song, and the show, is a celebration.
Every step of this story is a choice Ti Moune makes. Maybe they're not the choices I would make, or the choices you would. But--even in the world of this show, dominated by capricious gods--she controls what happens to her. She decides what she wants and then she does that. And everyone around her recognizes her right to do so, and her rightness in doing so.
Power and wonder.
(Also, the music's fucking great.)
Spoilers herein, but I don't think it hurts the experience of the musical to know the plot!
Quick overview for those who don't know the show: It's a retelling of the Little Mermaid, based on a novel by Rosa Guy, an American writer born in Trinidad, and set in an unnamed island in the Caribbean. The show is not strongly placed in time, but it's probably the first half of the 20th century (there are cars, but only the wealthy have them). Instead of being about mermaids and humans, it's about the divide between the rich and the poor, specifically the very dark-skinned poor and the wealthier lighter-skinned people on this particular island. The poor pray to four gods: Mother Earth (Asaka), Father Water (Agwe), Love (Erzulie), and Death (Papa Ge). The gods appear throughout the show, playing games with the mortals--and loving and helping them, too.
Our mermaid character is Ti Moune, a young girl orphaned by a severe storm. She's found hiding in a tree by a childless elderly couple, Mama Euralie and Tonton Julian, who take her in. When Ti Moune is a young woman, she sees a handsome young man drive by in a fancy car and decides that's what she wants. She prays to the gods and says, you saved me from the storm, I must be special, when does my special life begin? The gods make fun of her for wanting their attention, but eventually decide to use her in a bet between Erzulie and Papa Ge: what is stronger, love or death? They cause a rich and beautiful young man, Daniel, to crash his car while driving on the road near Ti Moune's home. She saves him, tends him, and makes a deal with Papa Ge to trade her life for his. Eventually his family takes him back to his wealthy life in the city, and Ti Moune follows him. She finishes nursing him back to health and becomes his lover. But then he introduces her to his rich, beautiful fiancee, and says he won't marry Ti Moune but she can be his mistress. Papa Ge returns, promising Ti Moune that she can take her choice back and live, if she kills Daniel. Ti Moune considers it, but refuses. She wastes away at the gates of the fancy hotel owned by Daniel's family and eventually dies. The gods transform her into a tree, and everyone celebrates, and that's the end of the play.
Okay. Depressing shit. But when I said I cried at Why We Tell the Story--that celebration at the end--it's not actually because it's sad. The rest of this essay is about why it isn't sad for me, and why this version of this story doesn't bother me the way it usually bothers me when female characters nobly sacrifice themselves to save someone else's life.
Fundamentally, the difference is choice. Despite the gods' meddling, Ti Moune is never actually forced into anything. This isn't a case of a society so thoroughly arrayed against women that sometimes the only power they have is their death. There's no hand of the author here setting up an impossible choice. There's just Ti Moune, wanting what she wants and going after it--and there's the people around Ti Moune, who acknowledge her right to do that, who support her, and who honor her after she passes away.
Ti Moune wants something exciting to happen to her. She doesn't find Daniel injured by chance--she specifically asked for something special.
Oh gods, oh gods, hear my prayer
I'm here in the field
With my feet on the ground
And my fate in the air
Waiting for life to begin!
And when she makes a deal with the god of death to save Daniel's life, it's her idea:
Papa Ge
Sure as the grave
You must accept what is
Now his life is forever mine--
Ti Moune
Take mine for his!
In fact, she keeps insisting on it even as Papa Ge describes how final death is! And she keeps insisting on it even though the lead in to this scene involves at least some of her fellow villagers being like, LEAVE THIS BOY ALONE, THIS IS BAD NEWS. (The song, "Pray", is really cool. If you were to, for example, look up a slime tutorial on YouTube.)
Ti Moune's choices are respected by the people around her, too. Mama Euralie helps Ti Moune tend Daniel--even though she thinks it's a bad idea. Tonton Julian also helps by traveling on foot to the big city to tell Daniel's family where he is. And he was one of the strongest voices arguing for leaving Daniel alone! And then when Ti Moune wants to go to the city...she's no Ariel, sneaking away, going to Ursula, making a bad bargain she doesn't understand with someone who means her harm. Ti Moune sits down with her parents and says, I think I have to do this. They argue with her, of course, they want her to stay home and safe. But when she insists, they agree, with great sadness, that she should go. And then they remind her they're still at home to support her whenever she needs it.
For me, this is the point where Once on This Island really starts to diverge from other Little Mermaid tellings. To me, they tend to be, fundamentally, about a person making foolish, rash choices for love, and getting condemned for foolishness by the narrative. This story isn't doing quite the same thing to Ti Moune. Her choices are still kind of rash, but she's willing to defend them, and other characters bow to her right to make those choices for herself even if they wish she'd do something different.
(Also, instead of having Ursula help her, Ti Moune gets the absolutely delightful Asaka, Mother Earth, to joyfully aid her on her way, in one of the best songs in the show.)
And the other major difference from, say, the Disney version, is that Daniel is just an asshole! Like, canonically! It's not a Fifty Shades situation here, the authors make him The Worst on purpose and make sure you know it. He has this song called "Some Girls" that sounds like a love song but is actually just Daniel repeatedly negging Ti Moune. The last line is "some girls you marry, some you love," and he thinks she's going to feel GOOD about that! Absolutely no one who watches this show thinks the world is better off with Ti Moune dead and Daniel alive. But Ti Moune thinks so, and it's her thoughts and feelings and choices that matter.
Then...we get to Ti Moune's final choice. Here's the offer Papa Ge makes:
You loved him. You saved him. And he betrayed you. Why should you die for him now? Kill him, Ti Moune. Kill the love you feel. Prove that death is stronger than love and you can have your own life again, just as if you had never loved at all.
So on the one hand, this is about Ti Moune's love for Daniel being stronger than death. But I also want to point out something interesting about this offer. Papa Ge doesn't just say, kill Daniel and you won't die. Instead, Papa Ge says, if you kill Daniel, it will be like this never happened.
It's not just Ti Moune's life at stake. It's really...her soul. What makes her Ti Moune at all. Because if she kills Daniel, she won't just live, she'll become a person who never loved him, never made these choices, never had this experience. Ti Moune is not just choosing Daniel's life over her own; she's also validating that she didn't make the wrong choice in the past, that regardless of how it turned out she did the thing she wanted to do to become the person she wanted to be. She chooses to be this version of herself, instead of a different, maybe more sensible, but less brave one.
So she chooses, and she dies. It's pretty heartbreaking.
And then we get this scene where the gods honor her. In the recent Broadway revival, this takes the form of the gods passing her body around, each blessing her in their own way. Again--this is not the story conveying to the audience, oh what a foolish girl, how sad; it's saying, look at the strength of this woman, how amazing. And at the end, the gods transform her into a tree at the entrance to Daniel's family's hotel:
A tree that sprang up and cracked the walls of the Hotel Beauxhomme so that its gates could never close again
A tree that lived forever, sheltering peasants and grands hommes alike
A tree that watched over Daniel for his lifetime...
And then, finally, the lyric that always makes me cry:
And she stands against the lightning and the thunder
And she shelters and protects us from above
And she fills us with the power and the wonder
Of her love
Like, I cried as I typed this part up, and then I cried when I got to it on the edit! The power and the wonder of Ti Moune. I mean. This is a Little Mermaid story, usually about a young girl doing some--frankly--pretty ill-advised stuff. And this show ends by going: LOOK HOW AMAZING SHE IS.
And so the rest of the song, and the show, is a celebration.
Our lives become
The stories that we weave
Every step of this story is a choice Ti Moune makes. Maybe they're not the choices I would make, or the choices you would. But--even in the world of this show, dominated by capricious gods--she controls what happens to her. She decides what she wants and then she does that. And everyone around her recognizes her right to do so, and her rightness in doing so.
Power and wonder.
(Also, the music's fucking great.)