New-old horizons: ‘Islander’ at Chicago Shakespeare Theater

Sylvie Stenson and Stephanie MacGaraidh. Photo by Steve Tanner.

I’ve previously mused on the recent proliferation of musicals based on mythic source material: Hadestown, The Ninth Hour, EPIC, et al. Besides the siren call of the public domain (and that’s no small attraction), I think there’s another factor at play.

Being so mythically big, the modern composer or performer—or, increasingly, the composer-performer—is surprisingly not intimidated by the sheer scale of what they seek to tackle, and they are thus free to pursue their takes, told on their terms.

Islander—a Scottish two-hander visiting through Chicago Shakes’s World Stage series—has all the crackle of some such epic-scaled yet intimately staged piece that its composer-performers have scraped together through sheer vim and determination and never letting the piece sprawl as they developed it with other seasoned hands. Get bigger, perhaps; sprawl, no.

But according to the program, these performers are new to Islander. Such is their integrity that it feels like they’ve been telling this tale for years. That they’re making it up right in front of us, even.

And providing all the musical accompaniment, too. Porchlight’s Ernest Shackleton Loves Me last season hinted at the possibilities of live-looping in musical theatre. Here, that theory blooms more fully into viable and vivifying practice.

And to think it all begins with a dying whale calf.

Eilidh (Lois Craig or Sylvie Stenson) comes across the calf strolling the beach on what was to her an otherwise ordinary day. But of course, there was already something extraordinary in the air. She’s by far the youngest woman on a small and craggy Scottish island that for years has been losing its citizenry to the mainland, and the tipping point is in sight enough that they begin to seriously consider the mainland’s proposal to resettle them.

“Stay or go.” If that dilemma doesn’t key up a proper fairy-tale atmosphere, perhaps that’s up to Arran (Julia Murray or Stephanie MacGaraidh), another young woman who appears on the shore soon after the calf, and opens Eilidh’s eyes to a third option: to join her on a free-floating island that no mainlander has ever seen and shepherd whales.

“Robert Eggers meets Moana” was the only way I could think to condense it all. And, indeed, Finn Anderson’s briny a capella score is perhaps—in form, content, and what it may yet inspire—as casually adventurous as one by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Stewart Melton’s book meanwhile answers just as many questions as a show like this should answer. (With no small assistance, presumably, from conceiver / original director Amy Draper.)

I saw Craig and Murray and they’re enchanting in their main roles as well as the many bit parts they cycle through. I’ve no doubt Stenson and MacGaraidh are, too. This gig is so bold and demands so much that they can’t do anything but conquer the seas.

Islander, by rights, should conquer in its U.S. tour. It travels lightly, yet the terms with which it’s told are as demanding as any ancient yarn. Deriving surprise from an old tale is magic in its own right.

Islander runs through Dec. 17 at 800 E. Grand Avenue. For tickets or more information, please call (312) 595-5600 or visit either chicagoshakes.com or islandermusical.com.

For more reviews on this or other shows, please visit theatreinchicago.com.