The Harder They Come, a new musical based on the 1972 film, has a second-act problem, and not in the usual sense. Onstage, it rolls along magnificently, in terms of presentation and performance. However, the plot, as transposed and expanded upon by Suzan-Lori Parks, retains a corrosive moral flaw at its core. Even in this era of warranted public animus toward over-aggressive, corrupt policing, this might not be an optimal time to champion an egomaniacal, self-beatifying, guns-ablazing Robin Hood.
As Ivan, the initially naive “country boy” plunked into the bustling capital city of Kingston (Jimmy Cliff inaugurated the role), Natey Jones starts out winningly: he has goofy, loose-limbed charm from the get-go, and wow, can he ever sing. The opening number – indeed, the whole first act – may leave you wondering which Broadway theater the Public Theater has targeted for a transplant. Choreographer Edgar Godineaux, set designers Clint Ramos & Diggle, costumer Emilio Sosa, and a skilled corps of performers all deliver a stirring start.
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
The script tracks Ivan’s gradual radicalization, via romance. His growing love for the devout orphan Elsa (played with lambent innocence and knock-out vocal finesse by Meecah, in her first starring role) is sweetness incarnate. Penniless and adrift in the big city of Kingston, Ivan seeks shelter in Elsa’s church just as she’s coming to a crisis with her over-fond guardian (J. Bernard Calloway, in fulsome preacher mode). Shades of Judge Turpin, with a sprinkling of fresh dialogue: “He’s been tending that little cherry tree for a long time,” warns an underhanded rival (Andrew Clarke), “and when the fruit is ripe, he’ll pick it. And if Preacher don’t pick it, then I will.”
The minister has legal recourse to dissuade any suitor caught making the slightest misstep. In 1970s Jamaica (and in fact right up until the turn of the century), corporal punishment — in this instance, whipping — was sanctioned and practiced, a carry-over from colonialism. Undaunted, Ivan manages to pry Elsa loose, and then their shared challenge is to find some means to support themselves. Ivan’s protective instinct kicks in, fierce to the point that it backfires: Insisting on the primacy of his hitting-the-bigtime dreams, he starts to turn on Elsa (sacrificing some audience sympathy).
If you’ve seen the 1972 film (and you should), you’ll know that Ivan is just getting started. He gets a miraculous leg up in the music biz: One chance visit to Kingston’s reigning recording studio as an errand boy, and he scores an appointment to record or a demo the very next day. His blazing talent is duly recognized — as an opportunity for exploitation. (We’ve seen this script before: In recent years on Broadway, it has become something of a broken record.)
Humiliation doesn’t sit well with Ivan: he feels pressured to embark on what his new city friends euphemize — his trusting wife swallows the cover story — as “the fishing trade” (cultivating and distributing marijuana). This cutesy furbelow is where Parks’ adaptation starts to go awry. “You never smell of fish,” Elsa remarks innocently to Ivan’s mentor, Pedro (much older in this version, and played hammily by Jacob Ming-Trent). Surely the actual merch might leave an olfactory trace of its own? Though pleased with his improved pay grade, Ivan is shocked — shocked! — to learn that the ganja supply chain contains some bad actors blithely skimming the bulk of the profits.
Wary of this upstart, the powers that be — on both sides of the law — decide to decommission Ivan. A small fish, he makes an easy target: one routine arrest should do the job. What Ivan doesn’t realize, and the script elides, is the fact that the mildly corrupt beat cop whom he shoots in a panic is probably just as poorly remunerated as the runners (the real rot stays up top) and also has a family to support (we get a glimpse of his grieving widow). Any trace of culpability or common cause evaporates as Ivan revels in his new role as public enemy-slash-hero number one. In redacting the film script, greatly condensing the way it plays out, Parks has also chosen to omit the cinematic Ivan’s subsequent shooting sprees.
So much top-drawer talent has been poured into this production, it’s dispiriting to see it put in service to such a simplistic scenario. At best, the stage version may inspire you to re-watch the movie, which unfolds in gritty detail like a semi-documentary. Musical theatre is simply the wrong vehicle for transposing what began as a ground-breaking exercise in partial cinema verité.
This production even manages to under-utilize one of its star players: Jeanette Bayardelle, whose soaring vocals uplifted Girl from the North Country. You’ll have to wait nearly to the end, when Ivan’s mother falls to her knees and — all too briefly — wails.
