Scene-setting doesn’t get much better than this. As the band build up the driving reggae skank of Toots and the Maytals’ Funky Kingston, the Jamaican capital awakens. A workman’s hammer and a cleaner’s brush help tap out the tune, the stage bustles with life and in one comic vignette a banana is brandished like a gun.
Later in the show, a tamarind-switch punishment will provide a more brutal percussion and real pistols will be drawn – one in each hand, as in the iconic poster for the 1972 Jamaican movie. Part of the phenomenal achievement of this musical adaptation is how the story is propelled from sun-kissed comedy to elegiac tragedy with the same front-footed energy as that opener, one of several reggae standards bolstering the film’s genre-defining soundtrack featuring Jimmy Cliff, the Melodians and Desmond Dekker.
Suzan-Lori Parks’ book is lighter on patois but otherwise faithful to the screenplay, co-written by the film’s director Perry Henzell and Trevor Rhone. There are new songs, too, by Parks. If you love the movie but are allergic to musical theatre, fear not – they’re sweet and dandy. One of them, Hero Don’t Never Die, augments the irresistible film-within-the-film in which the characters watch Franco Nero’s Django lay waste to his opponents. Henzell’s film itself is a spaghetti western at heart, with the arrival of an outsider, “country boy” Ivan, in a violent town controlled by crooked enforcers, a tyrannical preacher and a powerful businessman (cynical music mogul Hilton).
But Matthew Xia’s production also draws out the film’s galvanising spirit of protest, justice and power-to-the-people kinship, reinforcing just how Ivan could grow from wannabe reggae star to criminal to folk hero modelled on the real-life outlaw Rhyging. It’s a personal journey of self-mythology and self-determination, unfolding in the newly independent Jamaica.
There are only aces in this deck. The cast are uniformly excellent, Simon Kenny has concocted a towering, ramshackle set, costume designer Jessica Cabassa has a sharp eye for unadorned spiritual and natty secular stylings while musical director Ashton Moore’s eight-piece band is as precise as Shelley Maxwell’s stunning choreography. Maxwell brings testifying church ladies across the stage in a parade but also creates blissful, hip-circling, high-stepping party scenes incorporating dance moves like whining and the bogle.
In the film, music is a constant backdrop and often used in a naturalistic fashion to suit the freewheeling tone rather than to power a set piece. This stage version does both and there is a scorching sequence in which the preacher’s congregation shed their robes for an unholy dancehall grind enacting their fantasies, complete with throbbing bass.
Time after time, lyrics deepen characterisation or plot: the play on words in Hitting With Music reflects Hilton’s aggressive campaign for chart-toppers, Pressure Drop serves not as breezy balm but doom-laden prophecy of Ivan’s fate while Rebel in Me comes with projections of lush Jamaican countryside on a shantytown’s makeshift bedsheet screen.
The title song is robust enough to withstand several renditions, bringing out its grit and joy, performed by Natey Jones who returns to the role of Ivan after a different 2023 production at New York’s Public theater. Madeline Charlemagne’s devout Elsa, more defiant than in the film, is given a tender love song for Ivan, “a hymn of him”, by Parks. Jason Pennycooke (Preacher), Thomas Vernal (Hilton) and Danny Bailey (as hustling José) all manage to wring humour and menace from their roles. The spectacular result is every bit a match for the movie.