The play Ras Noah and di Hawk, featuring song and dance from some of Jamaica’s top actors, brought plenty of laughter to a large audience gathered at the Lion’s Centre on Sunday, 4 September.
The production was a supreme test of the skills of the performers, requiring most of them to play double roles.
Lead actors, Oliver Samuels and Glen Campbell, sat, deservedly, at the helm of a very impressive cast that virtually had an appreciative audience in stitches.
Playwright Patrick Brown and director Trevor Nairne took many liberties with the famed Noah and the Ark tale.
As the story unfolds was evident that the play had in fact little to do with the Biblical tale of Noah and the Ark.
Ras Noah and di Hawk is set in an inner-city community in Kingston. It opens with shopkeeper, Butcha (Oliver Samuels) waiting for his son Noah (Glen Campbell), whose return from doctoral studies abroad is imminent. Butcha is convinced that Noah’s success as a medical practitioner will be his ticket out of the ghetto.
However, Noah returns from Blue Mountain with his head full of dreadlocks, no medical knowledge; he has no stethoscope and claims to be the ‘chosen one.’
A complex situation is further complicated by a confused ‘Sketel angel’ who keeps misinterpreting divine messages and causes Ras Noah and his father Butcha to take refuge in the Blue Mountains.
Ras Noah is contacted by God and told to build an Ark and to take two of every animal, including a companion for himself, into the ark. But his father Butcha sneaks half of the community on board the Ark – for a small fee of JA$300.
At this juncture, members of the audience were asked to imitate various animals. This level of participation seemed to raise the audience’s enjoyment level.
The sole sponsor of the show, Quik Cash Money Transfer, donated prizes which were presented to those members of the audience who participated.
All things being considered, Ras Noah and di Hawk was definitely an ‘Ark full of laughs’. Anyone who missed it missed a treat.
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