‘Once On This Island’: A Delightful, Richly Realised Tale Of Island Life And Love

Even after an already-excellent series of musicals in its 2025 season, Once On This Island is a particular standout in an exceptional program. Refreshing like a cool ocean breeze with the ability to sting like saltwater, it’s a remarkable piece of theatre that swells with life and celebrates its cultural roots in a tangible way.

The show, written by Lynn Ahrens and itself based on Rosa Guy’s Little Mermaid-inspired My Love, My Love, has a mythic quality to it. The fact that its story feels rather familiar to us means that it can twist our expectations in a supremely interesting way, imbuing the narrative of Once On This Island with newly found thematic depth.

Ti Moune (Thalia Osegueda Santos) is an adopted orphan living on an island known as the Jewel of the Antilles who has a chance encounter with the rich descendant of French colonists and islanders alike, Daniel (Alexander Tye). She saves his life after a car crash, not yet knowing that the Gods of the island watch on.

In particular, the goddess of love Erzulie (Cypriana Singh) and the malevolent demon of death Papa Ge (Rebecca Verrier) have chosen the two as a proxy battle to prove whether passion or loss is the more powerful force in the world. Thus follows a tale that feels far more epic in scale than its location or short runtime may imply.

A love story with a backdrop of colonialism and classism

The Caribbean context is what sets Once On This Island apart from other, more familiar versions of this story. By openly tackling the legacy of colonialism and class divide inherent to its Caribbean setting, It makes the usual story of ‘girl meets boy from another world’ feel fresh, thanks to the new thematic weight stemming from its Caribbean roots and the exceptionally talented multi-cultural cast of performers that takes on its own meaning in an Australian context.

It also helps that Once On This Island is absolutely overflowing with talent. The show’s director Brittanie Shipway was the highlight of this year’s The Pirates of Penzance, and she brings a similar amount of life and energy to this show in the director’s chair alongside musical director Dylan Pollard and choreographer Leah Howard.

The cast of the show are spectacular, too. Thalia Osegueda Santos is spectacular as the show’s lead Ti Moune, and shines brightly across the show’s runtime with her brilliant control over her vocals and emotions. It’s a show that needs a great lead performance, and Santos is more than up to the task.

A great source of delight throughout the show also comes from the show’s Gods, portrayed by a supremely talented quartet of actors. Paula Parore as Mother Earth Asaka and Googoorewon Knox as the water god Agwe are delightful throughout, with these two performers effortlessly encapsulating their respective elemental domains in conjunction with brilliant staging.

Once On This Island is richly realised and wickedly creative

Cypriana Singh as goddess of love Erzulie is also superb, injecting the character with a real sense of kindness. The standout among these gods, though, is Rebecca Verrier’s Papa Ge, a character that feels thoughtfully malevolent in the story’s context. Though Verrier’s vocal performance is spectacular, it’s the way she brings the character to life physically that helps to make the character’s diabolical machinations feel truly threatening.

Indeed, although the story is controlled by these deities, the tragedy of the story lies in the very human evils that permeate it. Classism and colonialism dictate the story as much as the gods, which is exceptionally communicated through brilliant tricks of the stage. There’s a flashback sequence that’s particularly beautifully rendered about halfway through the show that displays where the show’s interests lie.

However, those weighty themes certainly don’t prevent Once On This Island from being one of the most richly realised, fun and potent shows that’s graced Sydney this year. A wickedly talented troupe of creatives both on stage and behind the scenes make it a wonderful show that anyone can enjoy, and well worth making the trip to the Hayes Theatre for.

Once On This Island is playing at the Hayes Theatre until August 31st.