Once On This Island

Photos

Produced By: The Groton School

Directed By: Laurie Sales

Scenic Design By; Sarah Sullivan

Performed at: The Marion D. Campbell Performing Arts Center

Framed as a story being told to a young girl on a dark and stormy night, Once On This Island is the story of a poor village girl, Ti' Moune, who falls in love with a dying rich boy, Daniel. She gives her soul to Papa Ge, the sly demon of death, in exchange for his life and journeys to the city, guided by the gods, to be with her new found love.  Once there, however, both discover that she will never be accepted by his society. This production focused on the ideas of life being a journey that compells you onward, and how storytelling can preserve those journeys across generations.  I set out to create vastly different locations on the island to show the true expanse of her journey, and how far she had come culterally from her own home.  I also wanted to show how the influence of the gods on the island compels her forward in her journey from one small girl, tossed by sea, to a caracter of myth and legend.  In order to acomplish these things, I used tribal patterns and colors to represent each god and show how they influence the island, their auras spreading over it as they bend and break the world to their will.  I infused these tribal patterns associated with the gods into the amber toned world of the island villagers, in this way I was able to show her journey away from her home not only via location change but in the shifting from the warm tones and tribal patterns of her village, to the crisp light blues and light lavender tones of the city and the once royal descendants of the french.