From left: Bob Marley; Kwame Kwei-Armah
Jammin’ in Baltimore
A NEW MUSICAL TELLS THE STORY OF BoB MArley
ON HIS JOURNEY TO INTERNATIONAL STARDOM
When Kwame Kwei-Armah was a little boy of just 10 or 11, he was an extra in a bob marley video.
As it turns out, he didn’t make the cut.
Kwei-Armah makes up for that this
spring, which marks the premiere of
Marley, the first original musical based
on the life and music of marley, at center stage in baltimore. Kwei-Armah, the
artistic director of center stage, is both
writer and director.
the play focuses on a pivotal point
in marley’s life. In 1976, during a time of
political upheaval in his native Jamaica,
there was an assassination attempt on
marley. but days later, he performed smile
Jamaica, a concert meant to quell tensions
between the two warring parties.
Afterward, he spent almost two
years in self-imposed exile in london.
He returned, knowing his life was still
in danger, and performed again. Marley
chronicles these events, telling the story
of how marley emerged from this time
as a musical icon.
“I think this period of history really
crystallized the kind of hero bob really
was,” says Kwei-Armah. “He was pre-
pared to sacrifice his life for his country,
in this time of great strife in his country.
this typified who the man is. He was a
hero in the true sense of the word.”
And so, says Kwei-Armah, don’t
expect a typical jukebox musical.
“the book is not a light book,” says
Kwei-Armah, referring to the script of the
play. “It’s not ‘Here’s a bob song,’ and then
let’s have a few words before we go into
another bob song. It’s a substantial book,
and it’s telling us the story about how bob
is being caught in the middle of the cold
War as it arrives in Jamaica.”
Instead of actors singing to one
another, the character of bob
marley performs the songs to the
audience, either in a concert set-
ting or another realistic way, like a
rehearsal.
“It has all the weight of a full
play, but is interspersed (with)—
almost led by—bob, showing us in
concert, but looking at the context
of what leads to each song.”
“oskar is the best dramaturge
in the country,” says Kwei-Armah,
“and that means I have the best
brains on this show, looking at the
script and helping me develop it
into something so that it can be
the best it can possibly be.”
As for being edited out of
that video, Kwei-Armah doesn’t
harbor resentment. In fact, he recently
uncovered a special memento of the day.
After the video aired, he was “profoundly
disappointed” that he hadn’t appeared
on-screen with marley. And as the years
went on, he began to question whether
he’d even been there in the first place. “I
thought maybe I made it up!”
Kwei-Armah’s own son found evi-
dence in a photo. there was Kwei-Armah,
standing behind bob marley, clapping.
“Dad! this is you,” Kwei-Armah
recalls his son saying. “you’ve not lost
your mind!”
“It was kind of wonderful,” he says.
“And an omen for the development of
the production.” —Liz Johnson
Marley runs may 6–June 14 at center
stage, 700 n. calvert st., baltimore.
410-332-0033; centerstage.org
MEET THE
PLAYWRIGHT
Kwame Kwei-Armah, the artistic director of Center Stage
in Baltimore, is also the playwright of A Bitter Herb, Seize
the Day, Let There Be Love
and Beneatha’s Place, which
was written as a response to
Clybourne Park for Center
Stage’s The Raisin Cycle, the
subject of a PBS documentary,
A Raisin in the Sun Revisited:
The Raisin Cycle at Center
Stage. He is chancellor of the
University of the Arts london
and was named an officer of
the Most excellent order of
the British empire in 2012. He
also directed two shows at The
Public Theatre in New york in
2013: the Mobile Shakespeare
lab production of Much Ado
About Nothing and the Public
lab production of Dominique
Morisseau’s Detroit ’ 67.
