Once On This Island - Was 1991 A Slow Year?

[FOAnatic]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 6:08pm

I came across a copy of this cast recording years ago and saw a high school production a few years back...and what I can't help but stop wondering is how on earth this made it to Broadway. Not only that...how on earth it picked up the slew of Tony noms it recieved.

The lyrics to most of the songs are so incredibly cheesy. I like some of Ahrens and Flaherty's work but this score sounds like it was written in high school project.

The accents in this show are HORRIBLE based on the cast recording. So completely over the top.

This would be a wonderful children's touring show but, in all honesty, I don't know how this ever got produced.

I don't mean to be dismissive. I always try to keep a positive attitude about shows. But, this one I will just never get.

Updated On: 4/4/07 at 06:08 PM

[LoringsGuy]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 6:10pm

I don't think ONCE ON THIS ISLAND is that old...is it?

UPDATE: Just checked. Yeah....try 1990.

Updated On: 4/4/07 at 06:10 PM

[FOAnatic]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 6:12pm

Woops! 1991.

[withoutlovewithoutU]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 6:23pm

I actually love this show, but it was the first musical I was ever in, so maybe I'm a bit biased!
I haven't listened to it in a long time, but I love Why We Tell The Story and Human Heart even now 7 years later.

[LoringsGuy]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 6:28pm

I've never seen the show, so I can only comment on the score. While I don't think it's F&A's best, there are some beautiful melodies and lyrics in this show.

[singtopher]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 6:31pm

I just did a production of this. I used to agree with you, FOA, but now having done the show and knowing what it is about, I understand it much more and find it to be quite beautiful. Its not a traditional musica. Lynn Ahrens wanted to write a whole piece about storytelling and how the stories we learned a children have effected our day to day lives.

[purpleprince101]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 6:35pm

its by far not perfect but i like it.

[alliez92092]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 6:41pm

I adore the music, but think the plot is awful. I mean, the girl turns into a tree!

[James885]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 6:50pm

I've never seen the show, but I think the score is quite catchy and accessible. There are some very nice songs like "The Human Heart", "We Dance", and "Why We Tell the Story". I definatly don't think it's Ahrens and Flaherty's best work, but it's still a pretty good score.

[Ourtime992]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 7:23pm

It was a bit of a slow year. The only other new musicals that were eligible but not nominated were Shogun and Buddy.

Posted: 4/4/07 at 7:42pm

singtopher....i agree.

I think the music is beautiful! the story is simple, but amazing. it is actually one of my all time favs....

at the end when she waits at the gate...and she hears all the voices in her head? "he will not want you timoune"....ah! so sweet.

It actually ended with her dying at first...the whole tree thing was not in first drafts of the show.

FOAnatic....which lyrics did you find trite? just wondering. It is the one of the only opera (no speaking) style musicals that I think really work.
Updated On: 4/4/07 at 07:42 PM

[Jon]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 7:45pm

This high school production you saw - was it cast with performers of the correct ethnicity, or was it the typical high school OOTI with a bunch of blue-eyed, blonde-haired white kids?

[keen on kean]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 7:49pm

In high school you kind of have to go with what exists in the student body. If students of the "correct ethnicity" don't audition, what are you supposed to do, draft them?

[BroadwayNick]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 7:50pm

How could have it been a slow year? If I'm not mistaken, Once On This Island lost the Best Musical Tony to Will Rogers Follies in a category which also contained The Secret Garden and Miss Saigon. Hardly a slow year in my opinion.

Also, "I adore the music, but think the plot is awful. I mean, the girl turns into a tree!" You kinda need to see the show to understand that it isn't really based in reality. It's all about the magic of storytelling...I mean how many fairy tales have you been told where something completely unbelievable happens and you just go along with it because it's part of the story?

[LuPonatic]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 7:51pm

The performance the show did for the Tony telecast is spectacular! What a great song, and Lillias White is MAGNIFICENT! (TheSiteThatMustNotBeNamed!) I just used this song for an elementary music texture lesson (the different nature sounds / singers seperately then together)! Music Education Through Musical Theatre...I'm all about it!

Posted: 4/4/07 at 7:52pm

i agree lupone and bwaynick....

I think anyone who sees it...is enchanted.

[LuPonatic]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 7:55pm

I don't think the CD represents the show well, at least for the song Mama Will Provide. The tempo is too slow on the CD.

[sondheimboy2]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 8:16pm

I think that this is one of their better shows. I first heard about it on Morning Edition on NPR and bought a recording of the show and loved it, without ever having seen it.

Flaherty's melodies are infectuous and Ahren's work is excellent. If it seems like "a children's show", you have to remember that the characters singing the songs are not educated people. I think that they work perfectly. In fact when she has the mother rhyme "dancers" with "answers", I feel it comes across as too clever.

I didn't get to see the show in New York, but I saw the national tour.

And I did see a college production of it with a virtually all white cast (The show starts with a bunch of white, clean cut college kids wearing raggedy clothes huddled by a "fire." My first thought was, "This looks like it could be the musical version of "I Know What You Did Last Summer"...), and the show still worked!

I still teared up when she died.

The show got cheated at the Tony Awards. It should have gotten Best Score, at least. ("Will Rogers Follies" won because Betty Comden and Adolph Green survived "A Doll's Life")

[alliez92092]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 8:25pm

It's not that I found it unbelievable, it's that I found it incredibly cheesy. But hey, just my opinion.

[rgaywrites]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 8:25pm

Once On This Island is one of my favorite shows. I was assistant director for a community theatre production of the show a few years ago, and that's when I became more familiar with it. The ending makes me crazy. I think it was a really bad writing choice, but as a whole, it makes for a very entertaining show and I find the music quite moving. I also have to say that the cast recording doesn't do the show justice. When its staged, with the choreography, brightly colored sets and costumes, puppetry, the "Rain" scene... its spectacular.

With a strong cast, this show works really really well. With a weaker cast, this show can be a disaster. Of course, that can be said for most any show.

Posted: 4/4/07 at 8:25pm

Wow- I saw the show and loved it! I remember a spectacular reaction from the audience with people crying at the end. Maybe you just had to be there. I love the score and the CD.

[son_of_a_gunn_25]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 8:31pm

The only song I've heard from the show is "Waitig for Life" Someone in my theatre department performed it at a workshop while I was in New York for Spring Break and her performance makes me want to get the cd to hear the rest of it. She really did a great job with it.

[LuPonatic]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 8:49pm

A couple years ago, one of the girls in our dance department did a solo lyric dance to "Human Heart" while another friend of mine sang the song, with me on piano and back up vocals. It was one of my favorite performance moments.

Posted: 4/4/07 at 8:55pm

It's actually my second fave Flaherty/Ahrens score and show after Ragtime (With Man of No Importance a close third--such an underated score and show)

That said it took me a long time ot get into.... I *loved* Ragtime and so bought this as my next show by them way back in 98 or so and was really disappointed--at first the only song that really caught me was Some Girls--but after a whiel it really connected to me. I dunno I think it's a really sweet, simple and moving show--I don't find it cheasy at all (and I have a low tolerance of chease--usually...)


I hear the Broadway transfer was a mistake--it made the show too big... Don't Disney own the rights to this?
Updated On: 4/4/07 at 08:55 PM

[LuPonatic]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 9:11pm

This is my third favorite, after Seussical and Ragtime