NO-MADDZ, the quartet of performance poets, has never been conventional. Their unconventional nature shows up in their retro look and sound. It carries over to ther latest production, Breadfruit is The New Bread Baby which opens at the Theatre Place in New Kingston this evening.

The band describes this piece as a ‘dubical’. Group member Oneil Peart explains.

“The production follows the line of a musical, some might event call it a musical revue, but you know we are poets, dub poets, and so we have to do it a little different — a musical with dub… a dubical.”

Breadfruit is The New Bread Baby is co-written by Peart and his bandmates, Sheldon Shepherd, Everaldo Creary and Christopher Gordon. It also features the works of some of the group’s favourite poets including folklorist Miss Lou (Louise Bennett-Coverley).

“It is some of the poets we have all admired for years and we are just bringing their work into a new form of poetry,” says Peart.

Pointing to the symbolic nature of bread as the staff of life, Peart adds that Jamaica is the land of the breadfruit, which is considered the new bread.

Therefore, No-Maddz uses it as a metaphor to present their new performance style and material. Peart adds that another attraction at Breadfruit is The New Bread Baby is the presence of a live band.

He says it is something the group is excited about and hopes patrons will feel the same way.

Peart believes the production has international appeal and reveals the group’s versatility.

“Very few groups in Jamaica have members with theatre and film experience. We are really blessed to have that and this production can really go on the road. There are theatre spaces everywhere and the message is universal so it can go international, not just for the Diaspora market.”

The members of No-Maddz met as students at Kingston College. They have been involved in the performing arts ever since.