‘On This Island’ a documentary with a musical as the message

You wouldn’t want to say director Stephanie Slewka is mailing it in, but there is a postcard glossiness to the lobster boats, summer people, spunky locals and Bean boots of North Haven island, the topic of a one-hour documentary, “On This Island,” which airs at 11 tonight nationally on the PBS series “Independent Lens.”

With the backdrop of the original musical “Islands,” written by the North Haven artistic team of John Wulp and Cindy Bullens, Slewka’s film traces the recent history of the island, its “civil war” over arts education and the healing power of a musical on the community.

To develop the sentiments in the show, Wulp and Bullens interviewed many of the 350 year-round residents of North Haven. Their plan was to perform the show on North Haven in the summer of 2001, and then to take the cast to New York City in the fall for a one-night-only performance on Broadway, where Wulp has professional connections. The events of Sept. 11 threatened the performance and then intensified the company’s determination to provide catharsis for New York, an island – their thesis went – not so unlike their own.

“On This Island” traces the development of the musical, the origins of which are found in Wulp’s professional discouragement with New York and retreat to Maine more than a decade ago. He speaks candidly about his drama-world failure (although he has won nearly every major theater award in New York) and his unexpected late-in-life mission on North Haven: to develop the arts program. “Everything will pass away except what you make,” Wulp tells his young actors, and the film sets about showing Wulp taking his own advice as a theater visionary and as a painter.

As romantically filmed as much of the documentary is, it does not retreat from the politics or pock marks of island life. When students examine the flattened carcass of road kill or deconstruct the waving habits of islanders and tourists, it occasionally makes them look less clever than they really are. Slewka taps into something critical when she records a smiling lobsterman saying of children on the island: “When they get hungry, they’ll come home … kind of like dogs and cats,” but how it fits into her redemptive theater thesis is not so clear.

Slewka does, however, capture the essence of Wulp, his candor, wit and true artistic sensibility. As much as school principal Barney Hallowell, a man with vision in his own right, has the final say on school activities, Wulp is hero. “You must never sell out,” he insists in one of his many directions to the actors. Wulp is not angel. On the contrary, he is controversial. But Slewka sees clearly that his artistic ability is heaven-sent.

Swept by summer sun and winter snow, “On This Island” is a portrait of a small community that grapples with large issues. But as Bullens says when she describes the liberties she takes in songwriting, Slewka takes “some of the specific stuff and stretches it a little bit.” Still, the documentary is evocative, with lovely, tender touches that reflect the heartfelt spirit of the children of North Haven and their powerfully talented leader.