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HARLINGEN — The passions of life, the flowers dancing, the kisses, the warm embraces, the smells of the beach and the cooking and the fire flickering.
The laughter, the hurting, the loving and the healing …
Ti Moune wants all of this and she expresses her desiring so eloquently in the musical “Once On This Island” which opens Saturday night at the Harlingen Performing Arts Conservatory.
“She wants to find love and she wants to explore and adventure beyond what her family has provided for her,” says Audrey Nguyen, 18, who plays the lead role of Ti Moune.
This musical about the yearning and the embracing of life, and the challenges one must conquer to turn the imagined into the authentic — from the dreaming of love to the reality of that love — is the first production this school year at the PAC.
Eddy Cavazos, director of the musical, immerses himself into every detail of the costume and the dancing and the movements. Being in the middle of it all, speaking to the Goddess of Water played by Nadia Vento, Armand played by Grayson Kindle, and the members of the ensemble, perhaps is reflective of the musical being performed in-the-round.
That means the audience will sit around the performers who will connect with the viewers very well.
Cavazos gestured now to the large “sand box” where the entire performance takes place.
“You’ve got cast members sitting behind the audience, the audience sitting around the stage,” he said. “It’s very different. The audience is in for a real treat.”
The ensemble performers dance to the music with great fanfare, turning, moving and swaying like palm trees with arms outstretched.
“We dance to the earth!” they all sing.
“We dance to the water, the gods awake and we take no chance, our hearts move along and to the music of the gods, we dance!”
Aiden Casarez is a member of the ensemble and he loves the closer connection with the audience and the intimacy of that connection.
“We sort of build the community that’s established within the show,” said Aiden, 16, a junior at Harlingen High School.
“I really love this production,” Aiden continued. “This is my first in-the-round production. I feel more connected. I get to share my thoughts with them with my movements, my facial expressions.”
The players in the ensemble dance and sing and smile at the audience and in so doing they keep viewers involved in the story, says Brooklynn Dunston, 14.
“I feel like me and the other ensemble members do a really good job with that,” says Brooklynn, who attends the Abraham P. Cano Freshman Academy.
“I like it because you’re really like a part of the community,” she said. “As you’re watching them you feel connected to whoever is singing at that moment and it’s really beautiful.”
This musical has taken an intriguing trajectory to the stage of the Harlingen Performing Arts Conservatory.
The story and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens is a retelling of the Hans Christian Anderson classic “The Little Mermaid.” Several members of the “Island” cast performed in that production earlier in their acting careers for Summer On Stage.
The Ahrens story takes place in a Caribbean setting, but Cavazos and other members of the theater team set this production on a beach along the Gulf of Mexico.
“We’re setting it on the Gulf Coast so there is a sandbox,” Cavazos. “So for the Latino people to see themselves represented. We are taking a more bilingual take on it. Enhancing the faith aspect, the Catholicism aspect, but also rooted in the universality of religion and culture.”
There is a sort of sensuality to this celebration of life and Ti Moune’s seeking out those nuances and complexities and the layers of emotion. She embraces emotions and painful endearments which so many people are fearful to embrace or even acknowledge.
Ti Moune is the opposite of this. She leaves the comfort of the familiar and races toward the unknowns and the glories that are the natural results of her courage.
And Audrey has the courage to play it well.
