Islander – Playhouse 46 At St. Luke’s, New York

Kirsty Findlay and Bethany Tennick in Islander  at Playhouse 46 At St. Luke’s, New York. Picture: Maria Baranova

Islander continues at Playhouse 46 At St. Luke’s, New York.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Winner of Musical Theatre Review’s Best Musical Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2019, Islander is an a cappella musical for two voices looping live to create exquisite multi-harmony arias and evoking the natural and human world within which the story rests.

First conceived and directed by Amy Draper for Mull Theatre supported by Creative Scotland, then on to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with a book by Stewart Melton and music and lyrics by Finn Anderson, this extraordinarily delicate weave of storytelling has been brought to Broadway with the original two actors Kirsty Findlay and Bethany Tennick.

When first presented it had a production/creative team of five including Helen Milne as producer and Simon Wilkinson as lighting designer. The production was spotted by Molly Morris who brought it to the attention of the Broadway producer and general manager Martin Platt.

Together they have steered this piece through the potential overwhelm of needing a further nine producing names above the title and a further 14 credited design/creatives to comply with the Broadway way of doing things. But what Draper, Melton, Anderson, Findlay, Tennick and Wilkinson created has adjusted only so much as to help the understanding by a New York audience – a little of the accents have been flattened, the Doric language has been reduced, and some of the witty word play has been changed to gain the laughs which the work deserves from a city audience.

To those who saw it in Edinburgh and then at the transfer to Southwark Playhouse, you will remain delighted by the ebb and flow of this tale of an island community split on giving up their life caused by the need for economic migration, and a past when the island was divided between the beauty of the land and the magic of the sea.

It is a tale of myth and legend, ecology and despair, hope and kinship. We sat in this Off-Broadway theatre island of the newly reimagined Playhouse 46 in the round at St Luke’s beside the Biglands of Broadway where 17 blockbuster musicals and plays are opening/reopening. It is wonderful to hope that this tiny island of creative storytelling will survive and root itself deep into the hearts of New York audiences.

Congratulations to the bravery of those who have made this journey. Here’s hoping reviews like “a transfixing new musical” (Theatermania) and “One of the best musicals in New York right now that no one (yet) knows about” (Daily Beast) will attract the largest voices in the critical firmament to bask in the glow of Islander. Please take time to share news of Islander with New York friends and visitors.

Chris Grady

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Musical Theatre Award winner Islander makes New York premiere Off-Broadway