Larger than life:
Oliver Samuels’ role in theatre development
The role of Oliver Samuels in Jamaican theatre and his influence on Caribbean theatre are worth noting. “Oliver” is acclaimed throughout the Caribbean as a comedian, stage personality, and for his hilarious plays, TV shows and even a record “Oliver Yu Large”. His work has been very significant in key trends and developments over the past three decades. His own growth to his present stature advanced along with the most dynamic period in the progress of contemporary Caribbean theatre.
After 1970, several defining factors were responsible for the rise of drama. One was the establishment of the Jamaica School of Drama, which was a catalyst for extending the frontiers of the art and providing advanced training for the entire region. At the same time there was the emergence of the professional theatre in the Caribbean. As a logical follow-up was the escalation of drama as popular entertainment, commercial prospects and an explosion of comedy, low farce, and comic performance. Local plays and creole language accompanied social realism, while the influence of folk forms drove formal diversification, and modernist experimentation. But one of the dominant factors was the rise of roots theatre.
Samuels grew up as a practitioner at an extremely rich period. He was an accounts clerk in the Domestic Bursary of the University of the West Indies at Mona when his talents were discovered in very quick time on stage as an actor. His most substantial rise to prominence was in the annual Jamaica Pantomime, at the time the grandest production on the local stage. His appearances in it further catapulted him to fame.
They also shaped most of the characteristics of his later work. A few of these practices influenced trends in the popular drama, which in turn, became important elements in the theatre as a whole. In that way, he did not only achieve status as a foremost personality on the popular stage but earned a place in the formal development of Caribbean drama.
Samuels came along at the right time and emerged as heir apparent to Ranny Williams, the greatest personality in the history of the pantomime. Williams, the unforgettable “Mas Ran” had marked his immortality as a legend, with a long career in popular performance ranging from vaudeville to the hallowed halls of the mainstream stage, which even included Shakespeare. His most renowned act as a comedian, was the “Lou and Ranny” partnership with another legend, Louise Bennett. This partnership also assumed significant magnitude in the Jamaica Pantomime, where they were the greatest male and female leads in the history of that annual production.
Williams was an intimate part of the evolution of the pantomime as a Jamaican theatrical form, carving out his indelible place in the role of the villain. The villain was a stock character in the original English pantomime, as was the dame – a principal funny character who provided much of the laughter. When the dame faded out, Williams combined the roles by infusing comedy into the villain, making him the most popular comic attraction in the show. Additionally, and of extreme importance, Williams, who played Anansi in several of the old pantomimes, crafted the villain as an Anansi figure, a trickster and a “samfie man” – a favourite with audiences.
Samuels joined the pantomime when Williams was about to retire, and virtually understudied the role. His rise to prominence then, was as this character type in successive pantomimes, in comic, creole performance as a funny rogue, an Anansi trickster figure. He made the best of that, and then took it with him when he left the pantomime and began solo performances. While as an actor he was versatile and played a number of classical/tragic roles in different plays, it was comedy that was to drive his major advancement in the theatre and define the significant contributions that he has made to it.
While acclaimed as a comedian, it was these more subtle contributions that helped to deepen his importance and cement him as a factor in the way the theatre has developed. Some of these, of course, are closely joined with the comic acclamation. But his performances influenced by the comic rogue or the trickster are worth noting. These may be found in some of his most influential plays, in which they are important parts of the fabric.
River Bottom (2008) is foremost in this group of plays. It exhibits many of the influential factors, including those learnt from the pantomime. Like a pantomime, it has grand intentions, large themes of the healing qualities of a community spirit, retribution, villainy, reformation, and resolution. It is set in a rural community in which the village people are an important backdrop and chorus, it has the usual romantic leads, and the villain.
Samuels himself played the hero, who is also the villain. It is the type of role for which he is famous. It combines roguishness with humour – an Anansi trickster figure in the person of a village pastor, revered leader of his flock. But he is a scheming lecher in an unending quest to lure the heroine (one of the romantic leads) into his bed. But this roguery is not seriously malevolent, his lustful antics are hilarious, and he is capable of reform. Like the classical comedy, his reformation in the end is a part of, and helps in the play’s closing resolution.
This character recurs in Samuels’ performances, with a great deal of variety. The lustful preacher with his lecherous schemes, played by Samuels, appears in the film The Harder They Come, and a slightly similar character reappears in Samuels’ latest play, 56 East Avenue (2019). This is one of his excursions into social realism and the hero is a landlord of similar ilk. His target is one of his tenants, a young lady, who, it turns out in the drama’s humorous denouement, is of a dubious past and of an ignoble secret present, which is revealed at the end in the play’s comic purposes.
In River Bottom, we also see the Oliver Samuels who is most popular, and who took from the pantomime an act that he made his own, and with which he has influenced Jamaican drama. This involves audience participation. Integration of the audience, breaking down the fourth wall and making the audience actors in the performance is a dramatist’s dream. It is naturally achieved in folk performance and it is the ambition of directors and playwrights to imitate it. It became a particular practice in the Jamaica Pantomime, in which certain characters engage the audience directly with banter.
Samuels developed this in plays in which he, as actor, invades the audience’s space to provoke them in cross talk, banter and exchanges, a high point in the entertainment value. Sometimes this is interwoven with satirical, topical social comments and references that will, predictably, bring laughter and rejoinders; sometimes encouraging the audience to comment on the plot of the play.
This act is not unknown in roots theatre, which is highly audience driven, and it has been an old tradition in popular folk theatre for the audience to talk back to the actors or to comment on the performance. Actually, this practice was known in Shakespeare, and it is also described by Charles Dickens. However, to bring it on the formal stage deliberately in contemporary drama is something advanced by Samuels, which has influenced other dramatists. Patrick Brown, for instance, adopts it in Love Games (2008), one of those plays that crosses over from popular to serious with its outright appeal to the popular, but with its satire and commentary on the ironic theme of love. During a lengthy sequence in Love Games, the protagonist walks through the audience appealing to them with complaints about his love affair.
There is even drama that Samuels himself might consider to be of greater importance to him than his role as comedian. An example of this is 56 East Avenue. It is not among his most popular plays, although it exhibits many of the characteristics. This can be seen in the style of acting and his engagement of performers well known for their command of comic acting. It is social realism in which Samuels was actually influenced by topical social and political events in Kingston.
Yet, he is much better known for his popular image as a comedian. Clearly, he was cast as Williams’s successor, because of their association with comic acting and the pantomime. At one time, he held the position now claimed by Shebada as monarch of the roots and of comedy on stage. Shebada is a selling card and the most popular actor in roots and comedies, as Samuels once was.
Samuels managed to create a whole industry around his comic role, including the way the name and identity “Oliver” became a brand. It was this creation that led to his foray into music recording with the song “Oliver Yu Large”. The song was two-fold. It was a take-off and extension of his TV comedy “Oliver At Large”, but also a means of promoting it. Moreover, it was part of the industry created and the enlargement of income while reinforcing the identity and the brand.
This obvious and popular role did much to engrave his name in history as contributing to the development of popular trends and their influence on the region’s drama.