In a month when rivers of tulle and truckloads of glitter snow engulf seasonally minded stages, “Islander” offers a minimalist musical that glimmers with a far more subtle kind of magic.
The Scottish import conceived and originally directed by Amy Draper plays out on a virtually empty set, with no costume changes and nary a fluttering flake to be found. With a pair of actors portraying dozens of roles, the 75-minute production (part of Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s WorldStage Series) vacillates between serene and tumultuous, its structure and sounds evoking the mighty ocean currents integral to its story.
The myth-misted production took root in 2017 on the Isle of Mull, a speck of land off the west coast of Scotland. There, Draper and composer-lyricist Finn Anderson began devising the show, with book writer Stewart Melton. The group created a haunting story that blurs the line between fantasy and reality, myth and memory, with the flickering grace of shifting waves.
The tale begins on the tiny, barely populated (fictional) Scottish island of Kinnan. Fifteen-year-old Eilidh (pronounced Ee-lee and played by Lois Craig, who alternates performances with Sylvie Stenson) is the only child left on Kinnan. When she finds a dying whale calf washed up on a rugged pocket of shore, her attempts to save it lead to another unheard-of discovery: A stranger has also washed up on Kinnan’s beach.
Said stranger — Arran (Julia Murray, who alternates in the role with Stephanie MacGaraidh) — says she’s an apprentice whale keeper banished from her community on the isle of Setasea. But there’s something unearthly about Arran and her description of an itinerant Setasea community that follows whale migrations, laboring to protect the massive beasts as they go.
Drowning sorrow arrives, too, like a rogue wave as a devastating death alters Eilidh’s already lonely existence, her fragile sense of community and her yearning for connection shattered with the howling brutality of a lethal storm. Arran, meanwhile, has been exiled from her home for reasons she claims are unforgivable.
Divisive bitterness and an impending sense of dread divide Kinnan’s residents as the deadline looms when they must decide whether to abandon the island, which no longer has so much as a functioning school or a store. The Scottish government has offered financial incentives for Kinnan residents to resettle on the mainland, but the deal’s only good if everyone on the island agrees to it.
Those are the salt-polished, sea-tumbled bones of “Islander.”
Craig and Murray spin the story with enchanting range, their vocals delivering richly emotional ballads as well as giving voice to the ebb and flow of an all-devouring sea and the aching beauty of whalesong. (In addition to their primary roles as Arran and Eilidh, Craig and Murray play multiple Islanders and mainlanders, making each distinct with a rapid-fire array of shifting postures and accents.)
Anderson’s onstage mobile looping contraption is about the size of a music stand, and the actors manipulate it to create a shimmering mosaic of evocative sounds, layering vocals upon vocals, the sound swelling like a storm surge one moment, whispering like rivulets over a sandbar at others. Close your eyes for just a moment, and you’d swear you were at the edge of a deserted beach, pounding surf at your toes.
Anderson didn’t pen songs with hooks and choruses you’ll walk out humming. With sound design by Sam Kusnetz, the music is mood as much as melody, slipstreams of joy consumed by rip currents of grief, screaming squalls that ebb into halcyon harmonies.
The playing space (scenic design by Emma Bailey) is a bare white curve that resembles part of an eggshell, not a wall or a prop or a curtain in sight. That minimalism helps throw the relationships and events unfolding on stage into stark, sharp relief, the images taking on cinematic clarity under Simon Wilkinson’s lighting design.
Draper’s ending is abrupt albeit joyous. There’s no need to tie everything up with a tidy bow, but “Islander” leaves you wanting more information about how Arran and Eilidh move through their joint crises.
Still, as it explores themes of loss, loneliness and the almighty need for human connection, “Islander” merges sophisticated recording/sound technology with human vocals and cascading emotions. The result is an exquisite rendering of the ocean’s ever-awesome powers and profound fragility, and its indelible impact on two young women poised on its brink, looking toward a wider world they look to with both hope and fear.
