Once on This Island actor packet by Maegan Clearwood

Once on This Island

Actor Packet Compiled by Maegan Clearwood Dramaturgy Apprentice, 2014

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ............................................................................................................ 3 Part I: About the Play Sources .............................................................................................................. 4 Rosa Guy…………………………………………………………………………5 Hans Christian Andersen……………………………………………………….6 The Musical Creation and Production History……………………………………………….6 The Creators……………………………………………………………………..7 Part II: The World of the Play Haiti .................................................................................................................... 9 Storytelling………………………………………..…………………………………………11 Vodou .............................................................................................................. .12 The Gods.......................................................................................................... 13 Part III: Natural Disaster A Paradise Built in Hell ..................................................................................... 16 Case Studies………………………………………..………………………………..17 Part V: Glossary of Terms.................................................................................... 21 Part VI: Bibliography, Additional Reading ............................................................ 23

INTRODUCTION A Message from Your Dramaturg Greetings from the Olney Theatre Center Education Office! As dramaturg for this production, I am your resource for any and everything you need to know going into this exciting artistic process. A dramaturg’s responsibilities vary depending on each production and director’s needs, but the following is a broad definition of the role, courtesy of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas: “Dramaturgs contextualize the world of a play; establish connections among the text, actors, and audience; offer opportunities for playwrights; generate projects and programs; and create conversations about plays in their communities….They work with their other artistic collaborators to hone their vision, focus their goals and find outlets for their creative work on new and classical plays and dance pieces. [They] serve the field as experts on our dramatic past and as advocates for writers of today and the important work of the future.” Along with determining how to best contextualize this story and introduce the audience into its world, I am an advocate for the artists throughout the rehearsal process. I aim to facilitate conversation among the performers and production team and challenge them with the ever-important question, “Why this play now?” Hopefully, this packet will be the start of this dialogue. It is not meant to overwhelm you with facts; rather, it should inspire you to look at the musical through a fresh, nuanced lens. I intend to continue the conversations sparked from this packet throughout the rehearsal process, through an image and idea board in the Actors Hall, as well as individual discussions and notes. If you have any questions throughout this process—about the world the play, the musical itself, or a particular word or phrase you find in the text—please do not hesitate to contact me, or stop by the Education Office in Crawford during the weekday to see me in person. I also encourage you to follow my dramaturgical blog, which will be made available to interested audience members as well. Any comments or suggestions for further exploration are welcome: http://olneyonceonthisisland.wordpress.com.

– Maegan Clearwood OTC Dramaturgy Associate education@olneytheatre.org 240-529-7855

PART I: ABOUT THE PLAY Sources My Love, My Love; or, The Peasant Girl, by Rosa Guy (1922-2012) “On that island where rivers run deep, where the sea sparkling in the sun earns it the name Jewel of the Antilles, the tops of the mountains are bare. Ugly scrub brush clings to the sides of their gray stones, giving the peaks a grim aspect that angers the gods and keeps them forever fighting.” Synopsis: Like her briny sister, Rosa Guy's heroine, Desiree Dieu-Donne, rescues a dying prince, falls in love, is loved in return, and then betrayed. Rosa Guy's mermaid, however, is not a princess of the deep but a mud-cloaked young Creole peasant, and her prince the son of a rich landowning family on a Caribbean island. But the central metaphor of Andersen's tale resonates through this modern transposition: the gulf of poverty and racism that separates Desiree from her aristocratic lover seems no less enormous than the physical distance between man and mermaid. While Rosa Guy's strange fairy tale is a moving evocation of the political realities of the Caribbean, her depiction of the Creole peasants tells us a great deal more about the complex culture that reinforces those political realities. The peasants blame the loas (gods) as much as the landowners for their poverty. Untrustworthy and querulous, the loas withhold their favors for trivial reasons and must be appeased with offerings the peasants can hardly afford to spare. Desiree Dieu-Donne has defied the loas in order to rescue her rich landowner, but is finally unable to free herself of their influence. When a motherly woman warns Desiree that her only chance of happiness lies in leaving the Antilles, ''the peasant girl'' replies that she belongs to the island—the gods have willed it so. ''Then the gods did curse you,'' the woman cries. Unlike Hans Christian Andersen’s story in which the mermaid earns a chance at immortality upon her death, or Once on This Island in which Ti Moune is transformed into a tree, the gods in Guy’s story are distant and unforgiving at the end of the heroine’s tale. After being shunned by her lover and abandoned by her new upper-class friends, Desiree is thrown into the streets, where, following Daniel’s wedding, she starves to death, and her corpse is unceremoniously thrown away. Bio, Rosa Guy: From The New York Times Ms. Guy’s own childhood was like something from a fairy tale, though not the kind suffused with light. Rosa Cuthbert was born in Diego Martin, Trinidad, on Sept. 1, 1922. (News accounts have erroneously given the year as 1925 and 1928.) At 7, Rosa arrived in Harlem with her 10year-old sister, Ameze, to join their parents, who had moved to New York to seek a better life. Their mother died two years later, “leaving us,” Ms. Guy said in a 1965 interview, “with a tyrant of a father, who was terrified at the prospect of raising two girls in the corrupting influence of the big-city life.” He soon married a well-to-do woman, and for a brief halcyon period, Ms. Guy recounted, the girls “were swept from abject poverty to a situation where we were being taken to picnics on the weekend in a chauffeur-driven car.”

The marriage foundered, and the girls resumed life with their father, whose behavior was increasingly erratic. By the time Rosa was 14, he too had died. To support herself and her sister—Ameze was too frail for the task—Rosa left school for factory work in the garment district. The sisters were eventually shunted through a series of orphanages and foster homes. Hearing the personal narratives of the children she met there, Ms. Guy said, made her realize that her vocation lay in storytelling. Before turning to writing, she studied acting at the American Negro Theater, a Harlembased group of the 1940s where Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte received early training. With John Oliver Killens and others, Ms. Guy founded the Harlem Writers Guild in 1950. Ms. Guy was a passionate participant in midcentury black nationalist organizations, and in more traditional civil rights groups. Her first book, Bird at My Window, a critically praised novel for adults published in 1966, told the story of a gifted young black man crushed by systemic poverty and violence. An early marriage ended in divorce; their son, Warner Jr., died in 1995. Ms. Guy’s survivors include five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. Among her other books are Children of Longing (1971), a nonfiction volume of interviews with African-American youth she compiled after the assassinations of Malcolm X and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; a trilogy of young-adult novels featuring Imamu Jones, an inquisitive adolescent boy; several picture books; and the adult novel A Measure of Time (1983), about a self-made woman’s rise amid the Harlem Renaissance. For all their surface bleakness, Ms. Guy’s books were far from hopeless. Characters often transcended their circumstances through newfound self-awareness and, in particular, through the capacity to forge durable bonds with others. “She loved to write about love,” Ms. Angelou said on Wednesday. “If you thought a situation called for a kind of mournfulness, she was the one to laugh and turn music on and dance.”

The Little Mermaid Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) “Far out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower, and as clear as crystal, it is very, very deep; so deep, indeed, that no cable could fathom it: many church steeples, piled one upon another, would not reach from the ground beneath to the surface of the water above. There dwell the Sea King and his subjects.” All of Andersen’s fairy tales are autobiographical in one way or another. However, “The Little Mermaid” reflects the author’s inner life as well as his life in the world. It was inspired by Andersen’s obsession with Louise Collin and her brother Edvard—the daughter and son of Jonas Collin, Andersen’s most influential patron. In the tale, Andersen transforms himself into the mermaid hopelessly devoted to the prince, who stands in for both Louise and Edvard. The mermaid’s amphibious nature reflects the author’s own uncertain sexuality: both are alienated creatures living below the surface of their worlds, pining for acceptance.

Andersen documented his affections for the Collins in numerous letters and diary entries. In 1830, Andersen was smitten by Edvard, a 21-year-old law student at the time. The two became great friends and Andersen confided his affections for the lad solely to his private journal. Then, in the autumn of 1832, the author became infatuated with Louise and articulated his devotion in letters. Unfortunately, she was already in love with someone else, whom she eventually married. So, Andersen returned to his most enduring passion for Edvard. However, in the spring of 1833, Edvard’s engagement was also announced. In response, Andersen wrote him an emotional goodbye, saying, “I have been able to deceive myself into believing that intimate friends can exist in this world… Illustration by Vilhelm Pedersen in one of the Everyday you distance yourself more and original publications of Andersen’s story. more from me…[M]y pride gives in to my love for you! I do care for you so much, and despair that you cannot, do not want to, be the friend I would be to you, if our positions were reversed… I wish you well! In your new position you will acquire many friends but none who will love you as I do.” Confused and emotionally shattered, Andersen reached a dead end in his writing. Jonas Collin prescribed a tour of Europe and secured a stipend for Andersen’s trip. Abroad, Andersen encountered the 1811 fairytale “Undine” by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, in which the water sprite Undine marries a human knight in order to gain a soul. Andersen wholly transformed “Undine” and used it to represent his thwarted relations with the Collins. In particular, Andersen changed the ending, making the mermaid—himself—the victor. In de la Motte Fouqué’s version, immortality comes through love and procreation; in Andersen’s, the mermaid is given the chance to acquire immortality through works— which we can take to mean Andersen’s literary work. In a letter to a friend, Andersen once wrote of “The Little Mermaid” that “it is… the only one of my works that has affected me while I was writing it.” He went on to say, “I don’t know how other writers feel! I suffer with my characters, I share their moods, whether good or bad, and I can be nice or nasty according to the scene on which I happen to be working.”

The Musical Creation and Production History 1985: Rosa Guy publishes My Love, My Love; or, The Peasant Girl. May 6, 1990: Inspired by Guy’s novel, Lynn Ahrens writes the book and lyrics for a oneact musical entitled Once on This Island, with music by Stephen Flaherty. It premieres Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons where it runs through May 27, 1990. October 18, 1990: Once on This Island premieres at the Booth Theatre on Broadway. It closes on December 1, 1991, after 469 performances and 19 previews. Directed and choreographed by Graciela Daniele; featuring LaChanze (Ti Moune), Jerry Nixon (Daniel), Andrea Frierson (Erzule), Sheila Gibbs (Mama Euralie).

1991: The musical is nominated for eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Direction, and Best Musical Score. 1994: The musical has its European premiere at Birmingham Rep. September 1994: It transfers from Birmingham rep to the West End Royalty Theatre. 1995: It wins the Olivier Award for Best New Musical. 2002: The original Broadway cast reunites with Lillias White to perform for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund. 2009: The musical is revived at Birmingham Rep, Nottingham Playhouse, and the Hackney Empire Theatre in London. 2009: Writer and actor James Lecesne stages a performance of Once on This Island at a 100-year-old community center in New Orleans. Featuring a group of local children and teenagers, the musical becomes the subject of a documentary entitled After the Storm, which in turn showcases not only the artistic process, but the healing power that music and art can have on a traumatized community. 2012: The Paper Mill Playhouse stages a production directed by Thomas Kail.

The Creators Bio: In a partnership that has lasted more than 30 years, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty have become two of the most admired names in Broadway history. Credits include: Lucky Stiff (1988) Once on This Island (1990): Eight Tony nominations (including Best Musical and Best Original Score); Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical. My Favorite Year (1993): Two Tony Award nominations; three Drama Desk Award nominations Ragtime (1998; Broadway revival 2009): Four Tony Award wins (Best Book of a Musical, Best Original Score, Best Performance by a Featured Actress for Audra McDonald, Best Orchestrations); five Drama Desk Awards (including Outstanding Musical and Outstanding Lyrics). Anastasia (1998): Two Academy Award Nominations, for Best Original Score. Seussical (2000; revival 2007): Nominated for Tony Award, Best Actor in a Musical; Nominated for three Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Music. A Man of No Importance (2002) A Long Gay Book (2003), an early version of Loving Repeating Dessa Rose (2005) Loving Repeating (2005) Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life (2005), music also by others: Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical for Chita Rivera The Glorious Ones (2007): Five Drama Desk Awards nominations, including Outstanding Musical and Outstanding Music. Rocky the Musical (2012) Little Dancer (2014)

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An interview with Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, 2011 Lynn Ahrens, lyricist: I found a little book at a used bookstore for a dollar fifty. I opened it and the first words were, “There is an island where rivers run deep, where the sea, sparkling in the sun, earns it the name ‘Jewel of the Antilles.’” And I went, “It’s a musical!” because the language was so beautiful. And I bought it for a buck fifty, read it in an hour, rushed it over to [Stephen Flaherty's] apartment, and that became Once on This Island. Stephen Flaherty, composer: I was really excited about the notion of creating this fictitious island that was neither Haiti nor Jamaica. It was really a place of its own. So I used a lot of Afro-Caribbean music in that, but I also used a lot of South African beats, beats of the samba, they find their way into the score. So really creating a world that didn’t exist before, using all of these elements, it just became this amazing gumbo of a score, and I loved every minute of it. Actually, of all the shows we’ve written that was the fastest we’ve ever done: we wrote the entire show in six months. So even though it was a very experimental piece for us, I think we were really connected in a deep way with that particular story. LA: There’s something about Once on This Island that’s almost indefinable, that affects everyone who performs that show or sees that show. There’s something life-changing about it. And I don’t take credit for it, I don’t think it’s something that we wrote exactly. There’s something about the idea of a young girl who is ready to leave her parents and go off into the world and find her love, for better or for worse, and her parents must relinquish her to the world, to make her own mistakes–and there’s something so profound in that. And although the ending isn’t happy, nevertheless she changes the world by what happens to her. The world is changed, and people of different persuasions and different skin colors are brought together under this tree which is the ending of this show. It is a fairy tale for our times. It has a healing property that is like a little bag of herbs that you hand over. A school performs it and they come out changed. It’s uncanny. Don’t ask me; it’s part of the story. SF: There’s something about this story that is infused with love. That’s all I can say. I can say I was in love for the first time when I was writing that particular score. I also went through a really difficult thing with a friend of mine, it was a health crisis, and the stakes were high for me personally. I think that’s the first time I was able to put my emotional life into music, and music was a receptacle and not only made the show what it is, but I personally was healed by writing that show. And I think the residue of that experience is right in those notes, and I think everybody that comes into contact with it feels that, and I think it’s because it’s real.

PART II: THE WORLD OF THE PLAY Haiti Once dubbed the “Jewel of the Antilles,” Haiti is now the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Its history has been plagued by tragedy—natural disasters, political turmoil, poverty and famine, racial discord, disastrous power struggles—but its people are resilient and its culture enduring. Despite their harrowing past, Haitians have the distinction of being the first people to execute a successful slave revolt, making theirs the first free black nation in the world. Although more than 90 percent of the population lives in abject poverty (one percent of the population A Haitian could be accurately owns 60 percent of the fertile land and earns 44 described as one who sings percent of the national income), their culture is and suffers, who toils and remarkably festive. They wear colorful clothing, laughs, who dances and decorate shantytowns and rundown buses with resigns himself to his fate. vibrant murals and artwork, and their primary With joy in his heart or tears religion, voodou (an integration of African slave in his eyes he sings. spirituality and enforced Catholocism from French —Haitian politician Jean Price-Mars colonialists) is rooted in music and dance. 1492: Christopher Columbus lands and names the island Hispaniola, or Little Spain. It becomes the first outpost of the Spanish empire and a gateway to the rest of the Caribbean. 1697: The island, which comes to be known as Santo Domingo, loses its place as the preeminent Spanish colony, and Spain cedes western part of Hispaniola to France. 1698-1790: Dubbed “Jewel of the Antilles,” Haiti becomes the most lucrative colony in the world under French rule, producing nearly one-third of the world’s sugar and more than half its coffee—all, of course, with the labor of slaves. And slavery in the Caribbean was particularly harsh: tropical diseases were rife, there was no winter respite from 12hour workdays under the broiling sun, and the planters preferred to replenish their labor force by working their slaves to death over a decade or two and then buying new ones. At the peak of the island’s prosperity, the slave population totaled at least 500,000; by comparison, only 32,000 whites and 28,000 free blacks lived on the island. At the same time, violent conflicts between white colonists and bands of runaway slaves, called Maroons, were common. The Maroons entrenched themselves in the mountains and forests and, as their numbers grew into the thousands, began hit-and-run raids and attacks on the colony. 1791: A group of former slaves, led in part by former slaves Toussaint Louverture, JeanJacques Dessalines, and Henri Christophe, organize a full-fledged uprising that topples the colony — the first successful slave revolt in history. 1801: Toussaint is given the title of “governor-general-for-life.” France’s Napoleon Bonaparte soon regains military control of the island, however, and Toussaint is captured after only a year in power.

1803: Toussaint’s followers, led by General JeanJacque Dessaline, lead a second revolt against the French, successfully driving Napoleon’s troops out of Haiti. The rebels create their iconic flag by taking the French tricolor, turning it on its side, and removing the white band. The Battle of Vertières marks the ultimate victory of the former slaves over the French. 1804: The hemisphere’s second Republic is declared on January 1 by General Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Haiti, or Ayiti in Creole, is the name given to the land by the former Taino-Arawak peoples, meaning “mountainous country.” Haiti becomes the first free black republic in the world, the first independent state in the Caribbean, and the second independent state in the Western Hemisphere after the United States. 1806-1820: Dessalines is assassinated, leading to a civil war between a black-controlled north and a mulatto-ruled south. 1915: The U.S. invades Haiti following black-mulatto friction, which it thought endangered its property and investments in the country. 1934: The U.S. withdraws troops from Haiti, but maintains fiscal control until 1947. 1956: Voodoo physician Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier seizes power in a military coup and is elected president a year later. He declares himself president-for-life and establishes a dictatorship with the help of the Tontons Macoutes militia. 1971: Papa Doc dies. His son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, takes over and continues his father’s brutal reign. His widespread corruption—which includes drug trafficking, pilferage of development and food aid, illegal resale and export of subsidized oil, and manipulation of government contracts—has extremely detrimental effects on the Haitian economy. 1986: Popular discontent forces Baby Doc out of power in 1986, and Haiti is governed over the next few years by a series of provisional governments. 1990: Former Roman Catholic preist Jean-Bertand Arstide becomes the first freely elected Haitian leader. 1991: Arstide is overthrown in a military coup and forced into excile in the U.S. 1994: The U.S. government leads a multinational force to restore the island’s constitutionally elected government to power. By October, Aristide and other elected officials return. In 1996, Aristide voluntarily steps down and his top aide and former prime minister Rene Preval is elected President, leading to six year of economic growth. 1998: Hurricane Georges destroys 80 percent of Haiti’s crops, killing more than 400 people. 2000: Arstide is elected again, and an economic recession begins. 2003: Voodou is recognized as an official religion, on par with Christianity.

2004: President Arstide is exiled following a violent uprising. Severe floods hit southern Haiti, leaving more than 2,000 dead or missing. 2006: Preval is reelected president. 2008: Food prices in Haiti soar, leading to protests among lower class citizens—many of whom survive on less than $2 a day. In August, nearly 800 people are killed and hundreds are left injured as Haiti is hit by a series of devastating storms and hurricanes. 2010: Up to 300,000 people are killed when a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hits the capital Port-au-Prince and its wider region—the worst in Haiti in 200 years.

Storytelling Although Once on This Island is not explicitly a Haitian folktale, it does retain many elements of traditional storytelling: it is a theatrical performance, with song, dance, and narrative; it is both entertaining and didactic; it contains elements of both magic and realism; and, while both tragic and uplifting, it is used to inspire a community to overcome adversity. The following passage, an exploration of Haitian storytelling, is from The Haitian Creole Language: History, Structure, Use, and Education: Haitians use folklore mainly to entertain one another, on the one hand, and to instill values in children, on the other. [Maximillion] Laroche would argue that this is not at all a contradiction. It is merely a reflection of the paradoxical nature of this folklore, which he calls a double representation system. Laroche expertly and meticulously discusses this paradox in one of his texts, where he observes that every event in a Haitian narrative can serve two opposing purposes. For example, storytelling activities are not only common forms of entertainment, but adults and children also use such events as opportunities for both fostering understanding and teaching. For these reasons, the storyteller, met kont, wears two hats: He/she is both an entertainer and a messenger at the same time.

Telling and singing are inseparable parts of the same communal activity. Henceforth, it is best to say that a story is performed, not just told, in Haitian folklore.

As an entertainer, the storyteller works hard to hold the interest of the audience and engage participants in the communicative act. As a messenger, the storyteller provides his/her listenings with information about ancient times, customs, beliefs, history, and heroic deeds of the Haitian people. Interestingly, the storyteller speaks at the request of the audience, and the latter oftentimes participates in tailoring the shape of the message. All participants are somehow involved in the encoding as well as the decoding of the message. At least, if the audience does not like the message, it has no reason to kill the messenger. Notably, the audience plays a supporting role in the deliver of the message. Moreover, the storyteller is an elusive messenger, a kind of trickster, who often allows the audience to take charge of the narrative and turn it into a theatrical production. …All the more, singing, joking and story swapping make up part of almost every communal activity in Haitian culture: working in groups; peddling one’s goods; mourning the death of a relative; coming together in a religious assembly; in political demonstrations; in school excursions; and more. Telling and singing are inseparable parts of the same communal activity. Henceforth, it is best to say that a story is performed, not just told, in Haitian folklore. …As far as the actual narrative is concerned, storytellers are allowed to embellish their tales with elaborate details, gestures, facial expressions, rhythmic expressions, onomatopoeia, formulaic speech, and various kinds of voice inflections or intonation. They must, however, stay faithful to the plot, sequence of events, and characters’ roles

in a story. The best storytellers are those who naturally mimic the behaviors of the characters in their tales. All of these are theatrical techniques which add multiple dimensions to a story. Some Haitian storytellers even use familiar proverbs to arouse participants’ interest as they perform their craft. Others tap the inexhaustible fund of magical realism and myths in the culture to stimulate the imagination of their readers, while also creating a kind of partnership—to avoid saying complicit—with the audience, which is how many of the messages are furtively transmitted. Memory plays a critical role in storytelling. All of this is based on an ancient Euclidean theorem: “You know what you can recall.” Some communication ethnographers view recalling and telling as a form of knowledge. Laroche notes the importance of memory in Haitian culture, and observes that a storyteller recalls the details of a story in order to deliver a message entrusted to him/her in a distant time other than the actual time the story is being told….While the story revolves around the storyteller and the audience, the message is delivered in three time lapses: past, present, and future. This may explain why the concept of time is cyclical rather than being linear in Haitian folk narratives. The circularity of time is also remarkable in the texts of African fiction writers…In communal storytelling, the storyteller and his/her audience journey through their past, present, and future together. They experience agony, strife, death, and victory throughout this collective journey in time.

Voodou The four gods from Once on This Island are inspired by the Haitians are 90 religion and culture of Haitian Voodou. Erzuli, Papa Ge, percent Catholic, 100 Asaka, and Agwe are not identical to the spirits of Voodoo, percent Voodou. and the culture depicted in the musical contrasts from that of –Haitian proverb Haiti in many ways. A monotheistic religion, Haitians believe in one all-powerful god; the gods from the musical are actually based on the lwa, or loa, a pantheon of spirits who serve God. Despite some incongruities, however, learning about the Haitian spirits off of which the gods from Once on This Island are based provides valuable insight into the characters and culture of the musical’s world. “Voodoo is a mixture of Catholicism and traditional African beliefs. There is, at the core, the notion that everything you know—people, trees, rocks, everything—has a spirit and a spiritual reality to it that is just as real and as accessible as physical reality. Now, there are also elements of Catholicism. There’s a supreme creator, called the grand maître, or the grand master, who is the equivalent of God in the Christian faith. There are loa, or spirits, who intercede for people just as Catholic saints intercede for people. Also, voodoo practitioners revere their ancestors, whom they believe are kind of close by and ready to guide them through the medium of voodoo spirits. But I want to mention one other thing about voodoo. There is no single voodoo religion. There is no voodoo pope. There is no voodoo central authority. There’s no scripture, no core doctrine. It varies from region to region, and even priest to priest…They say that voodoo is both is a kind of a religion but a way of life. It’s a culture. It’s music. It’s dance. It’s all sorts of things.” – From a National Public Radio interview with Barbara Bradley-Hagerty, following the 2010 earthquake Voodou, also spelled Voodoo, Vodou, Voudou, Vodun, or French Vaudou, is an official religion of Haiti (together with Roman Catholicism). Vodou is a creolized religion forged by descendants of Dahomean, Kongo, Yoruba, and other African ethnic groups who had been enslaved and brought to colonial Saint-Domingue and Christianized by Roman Catholic missionaries in the 16th and 17th centuries. The word Vodou means “spirit” or

“deity” in the Fon language of the African kingdom of Dahomey (now Benin). Voodou, a traditional Afro-Haitian religion, is a worldview encompassing philosophy, medicine, justice, and religion. Its fundamental principle is that everything is spirit. Humans are spirits who inhabit the visible world. The unseen world is populated by lwa (spirits), mystè (mysteries), anvizib (the invisibles), zanj (angels), and the spirits of ancestors and the recently deceased. All these spirits are believed to live in a mythic land called Ginen, a cosmic “Africa.” The God of the Christian Bible is understood to be the creator of both the universe and the spirits; the spirits were made by God to help him govern humanity and the natural world. The primary goal and activity of Voodou is to sevi lwa (“serve the spirits”)—to offer prayers and perform various devotional rites directed at God and particular spirits in return for health, protection, and favor. Spirit possession plays an important role in AfroHaitian religion, as it does in many other world religions. During religious rites, believers sometimes enter a trancelike state in which the devotee may eat and drink, perform stylized dances, give supernaturally inspired advice to people, or perform medical cures or special physical feats; these acts exhibit the incarnate presence of the lwa within the entranced devotee. Voodou ritual activity (e.g., prayer, song, dance, and gesture) is aimed at refining and restoring balance and energy in relationships between people and between people and the spirits of the unseen world.

The Gods The following profiles are on the four lwa off of which the gods in Once on This Island are based, along with the veve (ritual drawing) for each. For more images, please visit http://olneyonceonthisisland.wordpress.com/context/mythology.

Agwe Name: Often referred to as Admiral Agwe. He is sometimes invoked as “Shell of the Sea” and “Tadpole of the Pond.” Appearance: Visualized as a mulatto with green eyes. Personality: It is said that he can bestow all the riches, gold, and jewels that have been lost at the bottom of the ocean. He likes military uniforms and gunfire. Patronage: Protector of seafaring men. Under his jurisdiction are not only all the flora and fauna of the sea, but all the boats that float upon it as well. Colors: White and blue. Symbols: Boats, small metal fishes, and paddles. Offerings: Champagne, liqueurs, cakes, white sheep, and white hens. Catholic Counterpart: St. Ulrich, usually depicted holding a fish. Song: Alert the angels in the water/ Beneath the mirror/ Oh, he will see, he will see/ Alert the angels down in the water, oh he will see. Erzulie Name: Sometimes called Ezil Freda or Ezili Appearance: Envisioned as a feminine, light-skinned mullattress wearing a crown and surrounded by jewels and finery.

Personality: Considered the epitome of charm, she is lazy (she spends her whole days painting her nails instead of working) and temperamental. She is polygamous but wears three rings to signify her principal lovers. She can be jealous and vain, hopelessly demanding and never satisfied. Patronage: Patron of love, concerned with all aspects of beauty. Colors: Pink and pale blue. Symbols: Checkered heart and a white lamp with a white bulb. Offerings: Sweet cakes, pink champagne, perfume, makeup, Virginia Slim cigarettes, and white doves. Favored tree: Laurel. Catholic Counterpart: Mater Dolerosa de Monte Cavrio. Song: Haughty Ezili, proud Ezili,/ Preening Ezili thinks she’s something/ Ezili is married, she’s unlucky.

Azaka Name: Also referred to as Papa Zaka, Mazaka, or Kouzen, Azaka’s name is though to be preColumbian, from the indigenous Taino Indian language, either deriving from zada, meaning corn, or maza, meaning maize. Appearance: Azaka (or Papa Zaka) wears the traditional dress of a peasant: straw hat, denim suit, and red neckerchief. He always carries a straw bag on his shoulder and wields a machete. Personality: He is a hard worker and has a large appetite, preferring the simple foods of the Haitian peasant. He functions as a reminder of a shared inheritance: of peasant roots, family links, and a deep relationship with the soil. Patronage: The patron of agriculture, Azaka is responsible for ensuring successful crops and harvests, and is an especially strong spirit for his people, the long-suffering mountain farmers of Haiti. Colors: Blue and red. Symbols: Pipe and machete. Offerings: Cassava bread, sugar cane, rice and beans, and tobacco. Favored tree: Avocado. Patron saint: St. Isidore, a devout farmer. Song: He who is guardian of the farm, and the one who tills the land/ Peasant spirit, who speaks the true language of the mountain/ He who has the secret of the alliance between Arawak and the Africans./ Zaka, you are the true master,/ you show us how to work,/ how to reach the powers.

Papa Ge Name: The name Gede actually encompasses an entire family of spirits, presided over by Bawon Samedi, the lord of all Gede. The family also includes Gran Brigitte, the Baron’s red-eyed wife, Bawon Lakwa, his slow-witted brother and keeper of graves, Gede Fouye, who digs the graves, Gede Loraj, who protects those killed by the bullet, and Gede Janmensou, who is never drunk. Appearance: He delights in an old coat and pants and a torn hat. Vile to behold, he is often depicted with a cigar between his teeth. He also often carries a staff or a cane. His hat varies, sometimes depicted as a fedora, otherwise more traditionally as a top hat with a skull. Personality: A powerful Iwa, Gede bites with sarcasm and mocks the upper classes. Patronage: Patron of the dead, he is also the protector of children and patron of ancestors. Colors: Purple, black, and white. Symbols: Skulls, black crosses, shovels, and hot peppers. Offerings: Black rooster and a black goat. Catholic Counterpart: St. Gerard. Song: Papa Gede is a handsome man/Papa Gede is a handsome man/ He is dressed all in black/ For he is going to the palace.

PART III: NATURAL DISASTER A Paradise Built in Hell The word emergency comes from the word emerge, to rise out of, the opposite of merge, which comes from merger, to be within or under a liquid, immersed, submerged. An emergency is a separation from the familiar, a sudden emergence into a new atmosophere, one that often demands we ourselves rise to the occasion. Catastrophe comes from the Greek kata, or down, and streiphen, or turning over. It means an upset of what is expected and was originally used to mean a plot twist. To emerge into the unexpected is not always terrible, though those words have evolved to imply ill fortune. -- From A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster, by Rebecca Solnit. The following is excerpted from an interview with Solnit about her 2005 book: This is a book about what happens in disasters. Most of us have seen bad TV news, hilarious Hollywood disaster movies that suggest we all become stampeding, marauding hoards, I think of as either sheep that wheel around foolishly and need to be rescued by Charlton Heston or Tom Cruise, or wolves savaging each other, looting, marauding, etcetera. Nobody thinks you get happy when everything falls apart and goes to hell. Most people in fact in disasters are altruistic, generous, brave, improvisational, deeply communitarian, and not only do they behave really well but they sometimes find in disaster that, even though it’s terrible, even though there’s been loss of life and everything’s been disrupted, they find a sense of community and purpose and agency that’s so profound that they also find a great joy in disaster. And that upends not only everything we think of when we think about what happens in disasters, but most of what we think about human nature, who we really are and what’s possible for us collectively as a society. We talk a lot about private love in this society–and that’s erotic love, romantic love, families, private life–but most of us also deeply desire to be part of public life, to have a role, a voice, an agency. It demonstrates the deep desire that people have for democracy, for participation. The mainstream assumption about human nature for the past 150 years or so has been Darwinism, that competition is the law of survival; it’s what justifies marketplace economics, capitalism, the way corporations behave–but what if we’re wrong? When all the ordinary divides and patterns are There have always been shattered, people step up—not all, but the great mavericks, like the preponderance—to become their brothers’ keepers. wonderful anarchist and And that purposefulness and connectedness bring joy geographer even amid death, chaos, fear, and loss…The possibility Peter Kropotkin, who wrote of paradise hovers on the cusp of coming into being, so book called Mutual much so that it takes powerful forces to keep such Aid, who rebuked the social paradise at bay. If paradise now arises in hell, it’s Darwinist by saying because in the suspension of the usual order and the actually that how animals failure of most systems, we are free to act and live survive is by functioning as another way.

herds, as hives, as teams, as communities. Disaster often unfolds like a revolution or a carnival where people live in public together. These moments where things crack open or fall apart are moments when maybe we can make something better. Even though a disaster is terrible, people often have this deeply meaningful experience. For a lot of them, it’s fleeting, as if they’ve woken up from a deep sleep. When people seize on those moments of opening, they stay awake, they keep them open–then remarkable things become possible. I think patriotism is an abstraction; it’s about love for a country, which is often an idea. But the love people have for a place, for a community, for a city for a neighborhood, for the people around them, for the sense of being a member of civil society–which can be global when you feel part of the Arab Spring and the uprising in Cairo–or it can be local, when you see your neighbors come together in response to a crisis, that’s a really important part of who we are. And it’s something that sometimes disaster gives us, which is why disaster became the frame to explore this really important part of our lives. For me this is really a book very much about democracy, because democracy is a utopian concept. Democracy says that people are adequate–adequate in intelligence, adequate in values, adequate in capacity for engagement to govern themselves–and that’s a very radical proposition. The things I’ve been talking about–the social darwinist beliefs, the Hobbsian beliefs, the beliefs that we’re selfish, competitive, chaotic people and that we behave badly in disasters, are things that authorities believe more than anybody. So they often assume that without them, in a disaster, all hell has broken lose– and actually we do really well without them. For images of natural disasters and voices of their survivors—specifically Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy and the Haitian earthquake—visit the dramaturgy blog or bulletin board in the rehearsal room.

Case Studies The landscape in which Once on This Island is broadly set has certainly has had more than its share of natural disasters, and although the musical is being told far from its Caribbean setting, the Americans by and for whom it is being told can certainly relate to the story’s themes. Recent natural disasters, particularly Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, serve as examples of how enormous the effects of a storm can be; the economic, geographic, and social impacts of these American case studies last much longer than the Red Cross shelters that set up camp after the initial storm hits. These three natural disaster zones—Haiti, New Orleans, and the U.S. Northeast—are serving as case studies for our interpretation of Once on This Island. The three communities have vastly different stories to tell, but themes of resilience, humanitarianism, and rebirth reverberate in each. For more photos, videos, and stories about these three communities, please visit the dramaturgy blog. Haiti In the past decade alone, Haiti has endured four hurricanes, a cholera outbreak, and a 7.0 magnitude earthquake–not to mention the flooding, landslides, and health crises that followed.

2010: A 7.0-magnitude earthquake hits Haiti, destroying its capital of Port-au-Prince and killing more than 200,000 people. Today, more than 150,000 Haitians remain displaced in “temporary” camps. Despite immense international support following the disaster, the 271 official camps are still not enough to bring the country back to normalcy. 2008: Four separate hurricanes—Fay, Gustav, Hanna, and Ike—in the space of 30 days lead to the deaths of more than 800 people. About 60 percent of the country’s harvest is destroyed and entire cities are rendered desolate and uninhabitable. 2004: Tropical Storm Jeanne deluges the tiny Caribbean country, resulting in flooding and landslides that kill up to 2,500 people and displace thousands more. 1998: Hurricane George kills more than 400 people while destroying 80 per cent of all the crops in the country. 1994: Hurricane Gordon kills over 1,000 Haitians. 1963: Hurricane Flora kills over 8,000 people, making it the sixth most deadly hurricane ever. 1954: Hurricane Hazel kills more than 100 people and destroyed several towns. The storm also wipes out 40 percent of the coffee trees and 50 percent of the cacao crop.

Hurricane Katrina

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall as a Category 3 storm with 127 mph winds between Grand Isle, Louisiana, and the mouth of the Mississippi River at about 6 a.m. Severe flooding damage to Gulfport, Mississippi, New Orleans, Louisiana, and areas in between. Some levees are overtopped in New Orleans and there is extensive damage to the Superdome roof, where 10,000+ people sought shelter from the storm. According to FEMA, Katrina is, ” the single most catastrophic natural disaster in U.S. history.” The total estimate damage for Katrina is $108 billion. This makes it the “costliest hurricane in U.S. history.” Fatalities are estimated to be 1,833. For more Voices of Katrina, visit the Hurricane Digital Memory bank, which archives photos, videos, and oral histories from hurricanes Katrina and Rita: “On my first trip through Treme, I burst into tears. I find the horrors the hurricane left behind around every corner. But slowly, it’s coming back. The spirit of the people hasn’t changed. The fearless love of living life and celebration of being alive in this city has not left. Some things cannot be wiped out by floods, or hurricanes, or even death. The houses are so sad. Monuments of something someone once loved now sit abandoned. “Blighted” they’re called. The “blight” isn’t the unsightliness of the abandoned property . The blight is that there wasn’t enough love to resurrect the place someone once called home.”

Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy caused $65 billion in damage in the U.S., making it the second-costliest weather disaster in American history behind only Hurricane Katrina. The largest Atlantic system on record, Sandy killed 159 people and damaged or destroyed at least 650,000 homes. Despite the immense devastation, Sandy inspired a remarkable outpouring of support. The responses were overwhelmingly positive, and as Katy Waldman noted in an article following the disaster, the looting, anarchy, and turmoil that people anticipated were largely absent: On Thursday, three days after Hurricane Sandy swept across the Eastern Seaboard, darkening power grids, flooding neighborhoods, and killing at least 74 people, former Star Trek actor and social-media dynamo George Takei posted a lovely photo to his Facebook timeline. It showed two power strips draped over the gratework of a fence, phone cords tendrilling from each one. A sign said, “We have power. Please feel free to charge your phone!” Elsewhere on Facebook, a user from New York described what happened a few hours before the storm hit on Monday when a man attempted to steal a woman’s pocketbook: Immediately, people were at their windows yelling “Stop that guy!” and then, it was as if all the people on the sidewalk immediately conspired to do just that. A couple with a stroller blocked the guy from running east, a man appeared and chased him across the street where a woman with a dog forced him to stop so the man in pursuit could tackle the guy in the middle of the street. The purse was wrested from the thief, who got up and ran away again, only to be caught by an older guy on the opposite sidewalk who pulled him out to the street where the woman … could identify him. And the roll call of small mitzvahs and impromptu cooperation surrounding Sandy keeps expanding. Asked about conditions in post-hurricane New York, a Quora contributor mentioned the restaurants handing out free bread and coffee; the taxi drivers accepting whatever passengers have in the way of cash; the motorists

waving walkers across the roads. In addition to rainwater, cities struck hard by Monday’s gale seem to be awash in the milk of human kindness.

Part IV: GLOSSARY “Jewel of the Antilles” (page 1): Although Once on This Island can be set on virtually any tropical island, this reference to the Jewel of the Antilles indicates that it is meant to be set on the island of Haiti. The Antilles is an archipelago (group of islands) bordered by the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic Ocean. The Antillean islands are further divided into two groups: the Lesser Antilles, which consists of the Leeward Islands, the Windward Islands, and the Leeward Antilles; and the Greater Antilles, which includes Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the Cayman Islands, and Hispaniola, which is subdivided into the Dominican Republic and, finally, Haiti. The island earned the nickname “Jewel of the Antilles” when it was under French rule in the 17th century. Then the most prosperous colony in the world, it provided 80 percent of the world’s sugar, as well as coffee, rum, molasses, indigo, and more. It is an intriguing choice on the Lynn Ahrens’ and Stephen Flaherty’s part that they immediately identify their story’s island with this antiquated nickname. It emphasizes how the world of the play is very much tied to its past; it is an island of both great beauty and devastating poverty, still proud of its past, but cognizant of how it grew out of slavery and oppression. The geography of Once on This Island is ambiguous, a fantastical place inhabited by both gods and humans. Within this same mythical world, however, there lies a brazen historical and political reality. Grands homes (page 1): In French, “Great Men.” Most likely taken from Grand Blancs, the top tier of the social structure established during the French colonial period; at the height of colonialism, 87 percent of the population were slaves, 8 percent white, and 5 percent freedmen. Haiti still retains a strict social hierarchy, despite many attempts to restructure the political system post-revolution. The social structure is still based on class, with whites and mulattos at the very top of the ladder; in the 1980s, the Haitian upper class constituted only 2 percent of the population, but controlled nearly half of the national income. A small middle class has emerged over the past few decades, but peasants still make up the majority of the country’s population. (Library of Congress Country Studies) Plantain (page 2): A low-growing plant, the fruit of which is a close cousin of the banana. A staple food in many tropical regions, plantains are large and firmer than bananas. In Haiti, they are commonly fried. Pictured right. BEAUXHOMME: A French surname, literally “handsome men” in French. Pronounced

Bows-Hom. DEVEROUX: A French surname, pronounced d-EH v-er-oh.

Plant the seed (page 4): The majority of the laboring population in Haiti—66 percent— relies on farming to survive. Chop the cane (page 4): Referring to chopping sugar cane. The most lucrative crop when Haiti was a French colony, sugar production has significantly declined since the early 19th century revolution. It remains the second major cash crop in the country. Eucalyptus (page 11): A tall straight tree with leaves that produce an oil with a strong smell. Pictured left. Vigil (page 22): a period of keeping awake during the time usually spent asleep, esp. to keep watch or pray. Mulatto (page 29): A person of mixed white and black ancestry. In Haiti, descendants of Mulatto freedmen comprise the top rung of the social and economic ladder. Napoleon (page 30): an Emperor of France from 1804 to 1815. He is famous for engaging in a series of conflicts now referred to as the Napoleonic Wars. During his rule, France had conquered a large portion of Europe including Spain, Poland, Italy, Switzerland, Croatia, and the Netherlands. When the Haitian population rebelled from French rule, Napoleon was in power and dispatched a large force of soldiers to quell the uprising. The Haitians overcame the French soldiers and gained their independence. Trousseou (page 63): Pronounced True-So. The clothes, household linen, and other belongings collected by a bride for her marriage.

Part V: BIBLIOGRAPHY AND FURTHER READING Books Andersen, Hans Christian. The Little Mermaid. Cheong-Lum, Roseline Ng and Jermyn, Leslie. Cultures of the World: Haiti Dubois, Laurent. Haiti: The Aftershocks of History. Galembo, Phyllis. Vodou: Visions and Voices of Haiti. Guy, Rosa. My Love, My Love, or, The Peasant Girl. Hurston, Zora Neal. Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica. Sonlit, Rebecca. A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster. Web American Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org/ Astier, Henri. Voodoo religion's role in helping Haiti's quake victims. BBC Profile, Haiti:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/country_profiles/1202772.stm Haiti Assistance Program: http://www.redcross.org/what-we-do/internationalservices/haiti-assistance-program Hurricane Digital Memory Bank: http://hurricanearchive.org/ Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty: http://www.ahrensandflaherty.com/ Nations Online History, Haiti: http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/History/Haitihistory.htm NPR: In Earthquake Aftermath, Haitians Cling To Voodoo, Faith: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122851808 Remembering Katrina: http://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/poetry/crossroads/remembering_katrina/ Sandy Storyline: http://www.sandystoryline.com/stories