To twist an old ad slogan, you don't have to be Jamaican to love The Harder They Come. But truth be told, in order to absorb all the cultural resonances in the stage version of Perry Henzell's famous 1972 movie, you almost have to be Jamaican.

In Miami, where the exuberant British production of The Harder They Come has just opened at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, finding an audience that really gets the show is no problem. The city's Jamaican community is turning out: You can hear it in the pockets of laughter that follow lines delivered in a lilting patois.

Those without that cultural connection can check out the ``Jamaican patois'' glossary in the program, but who wants to cram before a night out? Better to surrender to the considerable power of this musical's score, an amalgam of reggae, gospel and folk tunes artfully chosen to underline the emotional journey of the story's doomed ``hero,'' Ivan O. Martin.

In adapting the movie-with-music for the stage, Henzell faced numerous challenges, not the least of which was transforming a gritty neo-realistic film with multiple locations into something that could work on a single set. The solution: Start where the movie ends, with Martin (inspired by real Jamaican outlaw Ivanhoe ``Rhygin'' Martin) already gunned down by the police. Then make The Harder They Come a wake celebrating the life of a country boy-turned-outlaw, a man whose ambition and frustration proved a fatal combination. To a degree, the choice works. Directors Dawn Reid and Kerry Michael keep their large cast and six fine musicians constantly onstage, as if everyone had crowded into a church hall colored Rastafarian green, yellow and red. Then Ivan -- played by the handsome, charismatic Rolan Bell -- appears, conjured by multiple memories, and his story is fluidly played out.

That story may be tougher to decipher for those not familiar with Henzell's movie, which starred a magnetic Jimmy Cliff. One of the few purely musical scenes in the film shows Cliff's Ivan in a studio, recording the title song, holding a cigarette and sweating as he jabs at the air in time to the music. Otherwise, the movie's music (with four of its 10 songs written by Cliff) underscores visual imagery or gives way to extended dialogue.

Onstage, that verbal and visual exposition is limited by the need to make room for songs. Watching The Harder They Come in the theater, you may wonder just why the innocent, church-going Elsa (Joanna Francis) falls so fast and so hard for Ivan. Or why Elsa winds up taking care of a motherless baby whose father, Pedro (Lain Gray), gets Ivan into the ganja trade. The shorthand storytelling can be confusing.

What is undeniable is how powerfully the cast delivers the show's music. Many of the performers have been with The Harder They Come since it was created in 2006, and that makes for a polished ensemble. Although some of the characters have become caricatures, the songs (in the words of a borrowed Jackie Wilson tune) keep lifting the show Higher and Higher. Particularly memorable are Gray's haunting version of Cliff's Many Rivers To Cross, Bell's striving You Can Get It If You Really Want and his re-creation of that star-is-born moment in the studio. It's then that The Harder They Come connects with everyone.

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