Off-Broadway: “Islander”
A mythic, expansive, crackling best new musical
Transferring to the U.S. following a 2019 Best New Musical–winning debut at Edinburgh Fringe, the new musical “Islander” lands at Off-Broadway’s Playhouse 46 at St. Lukes to thunderous applause and ground-shaking euphoria, a puff of fresh air and rejuvenation clamoring to be seen by the world.
“Islander” follows a girl staring out at sea as she dreams of a life beyond the shores of her island when a mysterious stranger washes up on the shore with the tide. Featuring an elegant, deceptively simple book by Stewart Melton and conceived and directed by Amy Draper, the show is a masterclass in pacing, audio-environmental immersion, and knockout performances. The toe-tapping, goose-bumping, Scottish folk-inspired score by Finn Anderson features looping technology for a sound mix created live during the performance that will live in your head for weeks to come (and thankfully the original cast recording is available to stream so you can immediately send to everyone you know).
There is a pulsing urgency in “Islander” that reads like a morphable Rorschach test of modern anxieties you can “a-ha” with each subsequent listen depending on what’s on your mind; the show’s themes overlap in kaleidoscope layers of environmentalism, community, family, teenage-hood, and female autonomy wrapped in an infectious, approachable musical earnestness impossible to resist. Both female-presenting characters, one familiar and one mythic, are searching for safe harbors. What does it mean to fit in? To be heard? To have stability?
There is an underlying circumstance of the show’s setting, the titular island, succumbing to dwindling resources and population, dividing the community on how to preserve their way of life moving forward. While much has been said of the piece’s exceptional reading on environmental preservation themes, an example of my proposed “Islander” Rorschach test came in viewing shortly after watching AppleTV+’s new workplace dystopia “Severance.” With surface-level nothing in common, both feature a covert fear-stroking of life not continuing the way it always has, utilizing a guise of birth rate declines and birth vs. death circular plot points to incite political and communal action. While neither are trying to take this theme to “Handmaid’s Tale” proportions, rather I found the question of the circle of life a slow faucet drip in the background of these pieces that piqued dramaturgical trending interest, perhaps also on the mind given current American politics (despite “Islander” being non-American and written years ago, I might add).
Regardless of which theme you latch onto most, “Islander” utilizes simplistic elegance in its storytelling choices to propel you through a smooth-sailing ninety minutes. Hahnji Jang’s costume and environmental design is superb, comprised of a small roadcase, sound equipment, and a jumpsuit versus oversized cardigan to delineate outsiders neither quite fitting yet both grounded in earthy blends. Roadcase, sound board, and two humans stand tall and glide and swirl around the blackbox as if one with the ground. The atmosphere of the show is one of enhanced magic and suspended disbelief in the magic of human connection; Twi McCallum’s sound design and Simon Wilkinson’s lighting design ignite a piece of fantastical circumstances grounded so strongly in the authenticity of the outcast-community story that we ebb and flow with each seamless cue, coasting along the sonic prowess of “Islander”’s two stars as the story unfolds.
Those two stars, deserving of every accolade on all continents this show may be so blessed to hopefully inhabit, are the incomparable Kirsty Findlay and Bethany Tennick. There’s a pulsing urgency to their looping, stomping, cascading in and out of stanzas and postures with metamorphic fluidity impossible to forget. As they inhabit a few different characters and personas, their transformations are never kitschy but direct, a simple change of posture or accent or manner achieving a rapid suspension of disbelief. Their performances are airy yet airtight — we float on the sonic waves of their exhilarating journey with a certain level of peaceful relaxation, knowing we’re in fully capable steering hands. The two steer us with effortless and mesmerizing expertise, flipping through the ripples and rapids of their roles and refrains with soaring, imaginative, and expansive capabilities. Without equivocation, “Islander” is the mythic, expansive, crackling best new musical in New York right now.
“Islander” Photo of Kirsty Findlay, Bethany Tennick
Production credits
Running at PLAYHOUSE 46 AT ST. LUKE'S (308 W 46TH ST, NEW YORK, NY). Run time is approximately 90 minutes (0 intermissions). For more information visit https://playhouse46.org/
Conceived and Directed by Amy Draper
BOOK: STEWART MELTON
MUSIC: FINN ANDERSON
LYRICS: FINN ANDERSON
Lighting Design by Simon Wilkinson
Costume Design and Environmental Consultant by Hahnji Jang
Sound Design by Twi McCallum
Featuring Kirsty Findlay, Bethany Tennick