Tomorrow when the sun goes down over a Jamaican skyline, one of the Caribbean's most celebrated directors will be laid to rest.

Barbadian born director, Earl Warner, died last Monday in Jamaica from leukemia, leaving to mourn not only his wife Karen and his two children, but hundreds of culture mavens around the world.

But while those close to him will grieve, they will also celebrate the rich legacy this skilled director has left behind.

Warner was 46-years-old when, on Monday night, he succumbed to the disease he had been battling for three years. A few months ago, thinking 'the worst was over,' he told several special friends, "I think I have beaten this and I will survive."

He was so certain that he had overcome the disease that he accepted an invitation from his friend Rawle Gibbons, director of the Festival Theatre of the Creative Arts of the St Augustine campus of The University of the West Indies, to be guest director of the Edgar White play, Monsterrat Still.

"This man was my friend of many years," said Gibbons on Wednesday, still visibly pained to learn of Warner's passing. I remember meeting him for the first time when I was a tutor at the Jamaica School of Drama. He came directly from a theatre school in the United States. I taught him and he later became a lecturer at the same school."

The friendship formed between both men led to several collaborations on a variety of productions and specifically on Gibbon's play, I Lawah, which Warner directed.

Warner was instrumental in influencing the work of actors such as Noel Blandin, Errol Jones, Stanley Marshall, Eunice Alleyne, Sonya Moze and numerous others, all of whom have expressed the view that had he lived, he would have achieved much more.

His directing skills were held up to high acclaim with the South African play Woza Albert, Earl Lovelace's Wine of Astonishment and The Dragon Can't Dance, Derek Walcott's A Branch of the Blue Nile, Your Handsome Captain written by Guadeloupean novelist Simone Schwartz and set in Haiti, The Water Bride written by Moroccan playwright Tahar Ben Jalloun and Marcus Garvey.

Memories of him run high in the minds of actresses Sonya Moze and Eunice Alleyne since he guided all their moves in the play The Night Mother. Warner's unique expertise on Walcott's hilarious and satirical play, Beef No Chicken, was a talking point for months after the production was concluded. He also directed Like Them That Dream and Trevor Rhone's stage version of the Jamaican movie, Smile Orange.

Members of MSJ Productions, Nigel Scott, Errol Jones and Stanley Marshall flew to Barbados on Thursday to attend Warner's memorial service at the Queens Park Theatre.

Barbadian-born, Warner worked and lived in Jamaica, which he called his second home since his wife is Jamaican. Blandin said: "There was not a play Earl was directing which I would not make the time to do. The man brought out things in me I never knew existed as an actor. That was his strength. He pulled on your emotions. You could not give him half measures, you gave him your all when you hit that stage." Blandin also recalled the work Warner had done with the Malick Folk performers.

Many also admit that, as a director, Warner was extremely demanding in his quest for perfection on all his projects. He made it clear that he wanted 100 percent professionalism form his actors and would accept nothing less.

But Warner's work was not without controversy. When the production Man Talk was first staged in Jamaica, a Rastafarian intellectual stood up in the audience and said that the play must have been written by a white Jewish feminist, since he found it focused negatively on the Caribbean man.

It was in fact, done by Warner himself. As he would explain in 1996, he undertook the production to address the imbalance in the number of works dealing with feminist issues as opposed to male concerns.

"I did not seek to pat Caribbean men on the back and tell them how wonderful they are," he said. "I could not do that, because it's not true."

He was also concerned that the most violent crimes in the region were committed by young men between the ages of 15-25. He placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the older generation whom he accused of being hypocrites who failed miserably to provide a future for young people.

"They have created religions they don't live by and a morality that they project on society, but everybody else is doing something else," he argued.

Warner believed very strongly that theatre could play a role in helping youths come to terms with many of life's contradictions. He saw the potential of theatre as a teaching tool in schools and as an agent for change in many communities.

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