The Novel

Q: The play is based on the novel My Love, My Love by Rosa Guy. Is the play similar to the book?
A: Yes, very similar. Certain aspects of the book have been cut out of the show so it is a very economically written piece of musical theatre. It is almost all sung through from beginning to end with some dialogue underscored and in order to tell the story in an hour and a half, certain things needed to go. That’s been my challenge; I wanted to bring more of the book to the show. The book’s about the ecological side of Haiti, the fact that it burnt all its forests down and there was deforestation, which is all very ‘now’. Once On This Island is ahead of its time in so many ways; it talks about race, black on black racism and culture but at the same time it talks about the ecology of Haiti and how it was devastated by deforestation both economically and agriculturally. I think that the book does deal with that more. We’ve now added a little bit, just a couple of lines directly from the book into the show, but I hope that it will have resonance. We also have a slightly more upbeat ending. It is a sad ending in the show, but we talk about it within the idea of the tree of life being ever evolving which means there is joy at the end as opposed to sadness.