A recent Burnaby South graduate is making his professional theatre debut in a leading role with a new Fabulist Theatre production.
Michael Gnansounou will be playing Daniel in Once On This Island, on now at Redgate Revue Stage in Vancouver until April 14. The one-act musical based on the 1985 novel My Love, My Love; or The Peasant Girl by Rosa Guy, with story elements ofRomeo and Juliet and The Little Mermaid woven throughout, and is set on an island in the French Antilles in the Caribbean Sea.
Ti Moune (Brianna Clark), a peasant girl living on a small island, falls in love with Daniel (Gnansounou), a young aristocrat of mixed ethnicity living on the other side of the island. Four gods rule the island, and send Ti Moune on a quest to prove that love can bring different social classes together.
Burnaby-based director Damon Bradley Jang said including a diverse cast is an important part of the production.
“We wanted to cast based on the culturally diverse community of performers who make up Greater Vancouver and might otherwise be underrepresented in the city,” he said in a release.
While the story is set in Haiti, the topics it addresses are universal.
“We wanted to use the story as a platform to address the more universal themes of love, death and fighting against the class system,” Jang said.
The musical is currently a New York Times critic’s top pick, and is being revived on Broadway after the original production ran from 1990 to 1991.
The play is on now until April 14 at the Redgate Revue Stage, 1601 Johnson Street in Vancouver. There are showings Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. General admission tickets are $25 (or “pay what you can” $15 and $20), and $23 for students or seniors. Buy tickets at ootivan.brownpapertickets.com .
