Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Mar­lon De Bique, the star the­atri­cal per­former, who breathed life in­to the char­ac­ters he played on stage, died on Tues­day at the age of 45.

Many who woke up to the news yes­ter­day morn­ing took to so­cial me­dia to pay trib­ute to the award-win­ning ac­tor and singer whose per­for­mances spanned stages from T&T to grand halls in the Unit­ed States, Aus­tralia, New Zealand, Rus­sia, Eng­land and Poland.

De Bique’s fam­i­ly con­firmed that he died on Tues­day night at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal af­ter a brief ill­ness. In a state­ment yes­ter­day, they thanked the doc­tors, nurs­es, staff, and the High De­pen­den­cy Unit of the hos­pi­tal for their “ded­i­cat­ed care, treat­ment, and sen­si­tiv­i­ty” af­ter De Bique was ad­mit­ted on Fri­day.

The Mar­i­onettes Chorale, where De Bique flour­ished as a tenor from age 20 go­ing on to star in the roles of Don Jose in Car­men and Val­jean in Les Mis, hailed the “tremen­dous­ly tal­ent­ed young man.

The group post­ed on its Face­book page: “It is dif­fi­cult to imag­ine the lo­cal arts and cul­ture land­scape with­out him.”

De Bique’s jour­ney in the arts start­ed with the mu­si­cal Blos­som Time in 1995 with the Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege Mixed Choir un­der the lead­er­ship of Cyn­thia Lee Mack. He took on sev­er­al roles, in­clud­ing chore­o­g­ra­ph­er and cos­tume de­sign­er, for many of the choir’s pro­duc­tions.

His rise in the lo­cal per­form­ing arts did not sur­prise any­one as his tal­ent was un­de­ni­able. He would go on to star in pro­duc­tions by The Mar­i­onettes Chorale, The UWI Arts Chorale, 3Canal and The Trin­i­ty Tenors.

In 2008, De Bique gained glob­al recog­ni­tion when the pres­ti­gious in­sti­tu­tion, Liv­ing Arts Inc. of New York, ac­knowl­edged his ex­cep­tion­al tal­ent as a singer and ac­tor. He was cast in the roles of Sportin’ Life and Rob­bins in the Gersh­win opera Por­gy and Bess.

Over the next two years, De Bique toured the world with the com­pa­ny per­form­ing in more than 70 shows across Aus­tralia, New Zealand, the Unit­ed King­dom, Rus­sia and Poland.

He won sev­er­al ti­tles at the Bi-An­nu­al Mu­sic Fes­ti­val and cap­tured two Cacique Awards for his roles as Ju­das in An­drew Lloyd Web­ber’s Je­sus Christ Su­per­star and Gas­ton in Beau­ty and the Beast.

His reper­toire in­cludes a wide range of char­ac­ters and showed his ver­sa­til­i­ty on stage. He played the icon­ic Jean Val­jean in Les Mis­er­ables, the re­bel­lious Roger in the mu­si­cal Rent, the pas­sion­ate Don Jose in the opera Car­men, and Madea in Ray­mond Choo Kong’s stag­ing of Di­ary of a Mad Black Woman.

De Bique grad­u­at­ed from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) with a Bach­e­lor of Arts de­gree in Car­ni­val Stud­ies and a mi­nor in Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies and was study­ing for a post-grad­u­ate diplo­ma in In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions at UWI at the time of his pass­ing.

He spent eight years as a cul­tur­al of­fi­cer with the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and the Arts be­fore tak­ing up the post of Na­pari­ma Bowl CEO in March 2020. Ac­cord­ing to a state­ment from the fam­i­ly, he de­scribed it as a “full-cir­cle mo­ment – be­ing at the helm of an in­sti­tu­tion on which stage he set foot many years pri­or.”

Min­is­ter of Cul­ture, Tourism and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell said De Bique was not sim­ply a cul­tur­al and art en­thu­si­ast but some­one who em­bod­ied it.

“De Bique’s tire­less ef­forts and no­table achieve­ments have cre­at­ed a last­ing im­pact on the cul­tur­al fra­ter­ni­ty,” the min­is­ter said in a state­ment yes­ter­day.

In 2021, De Bique spear­head­ed the stag­ing of A Bowl Face Parang and in April last year, the Na­pari­ma Bowl Jazz and Cul­ture Fes­ti­val with a two-in-one con­cert ti­tled Fu­sion IV – The Jazz Ex­pe­ri­ence.

“His fore­sight and cre­ative en­er­gy in­ject­ed new life in­to Na­pari­ma Bowl, rais­ing its pro­file once again as the cul­tur­al soul of the south. As COVID-19 re­stric­tions on the cul­tur­al sec­tor were be­ing lift­ed, De Bique re­vi­talised the use of the fa­cil­i­ty’s am­phithe­atre,” the state­ment from the fam­i­ly added.

Bri­an Mac Far­lane, who di­rect­ed sev­er­al pro­duc­tions with De Bique as its star, said he was “shocked, numb and lost” af­ter get­ting the news of his pass­ing.

He said De Bique’s at­ten­tion to de­tail is what he re­mem­bers most.

“Any role I sug­gest­ed, which would not have on­ly been singing, he nev­er ques­tioned it. He would al­ways put so much em­pha­sis on get­ting it right. He would come back say, ‘Are you hap­py with what I’m do­ing?’ And we would al­ways sit and chat about those things. He was al­ways con­cerned about mak­ing it his very best. he un­der­stood the arts and he un­der­stood the im­por­tance of them,” Mac Far­lane re­called.

De Bique’s friend and pro­duc­er at the Prosce­ni­um The­atre Com­pa­ny, An­drew Seep­er­sad, said: “Mar­lon did what few of us on this plan­et were able to do, and that’s live a life of cre­ation. Whether in mu­sic, the­atre, or food, his life was a se­ries of cre­ative acts. I will miss my friend deeply, but I’m com­fort­ed by the fact that he lived with pur­pose and im­pact.”

The Na­tion­al Dra­ma As­so­ci­a­tion wrote on X: “He used his knowl­edge as a prac­ti­tion­er to ad­vo­cate for the arts.”

Fu­ner­al arrange­ments have not yet been fi­nalised.