Liesl B. lets the light in

MANILA, Philippines - Liesl Batucan — award-winning stage actress, singer (soprano), an assistant director of Repertory Philippines, and a cum laude (business administration) graduate of UP Diliman — begins each day quietly. “I like to center myself, have a cup of coffee with my Bible beside me,” she says. “The Bible is my favorite book. I look at the verses, I read one… I wouldn’t call it meditate but I pray.”

She waxes a bit philosophical: “There’s so much wisdom in the universe that we are blind to because we are so busy. So I just stop and center myself; it’s nice to have clarity also. Otherwise you’re running blind lang, you’re running a fuse… I’m just quiet, talking to God. I just quiet my brain.”

And she asks questions like what is life, what is important? “The key to enjoy life is to be open to new experiences, new learnings,” Liesl believes. “I feel that if you are not enjoying your life maybe you are not letting enough light in.”

With her trophies from Aliw and Philstage (right)

The actress-singer then conjures up a metaphor, the camera and its lens aperture: “If the lens is narrow, you don’t get too much light in. If you widen the lens, then you can allow more light in. I think sometimes when people are not happy, or when they are not content, it’s a matter of their hearts not being open enough to let the light in. That’s my thinking now; just open. If it’s narrow, no light. If you open it, more light, more joy.”

Liesl has won three major acting awards (two from Aliw and one from Phil-Stage) for appearing in plays like Repertory’s A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino and Sweeney Todd. In the Nick Joaquin play, she was pitted against another formidable actress, Irma Adlawan. In Sweeney Todd, in a bravura supporting role, she played an old crone, a beggar woman who, in a flash, would transform herself into a dancing sexpot.

On the set of Emir with director Chito Roño

“I feel very fortunate that I had my training in theater because the discipline in theater is really the best,” she opines. “But at the same time, I’m also very open to learning new things, to discovering new fields and trying my hand at them also.”

Her first movie role was some years ago — Yakapin Mo ang Umaga, directed by Jose Javier Reyes. She played, very briefly, a doctor and she was asked during shooting why she was talking so loudly. To which she replied that in theater you have to project your voice. To which she was told, in turn, by the director that in the movies you don’t have to do that…

She was more fortunate in her next movie, the recent Emir, in which she was one of the singing yayas. Liesl played it natural and low-key and she died at the end, during an assault on the palace by enemies of the emir.

“I thoroughly enjoyed working with direk Chito Roño,” Liesl says. “Direk wanted that scene (her death) to keep the story more poignant, to show that the lives of the OFWs are so different; they sacrifice so much. The whole movie was conceived as a tribute to them.”

She is open to more movie roles and, of course, more stage plays. But a greater priority is living by her worldview: “What I think I have now is a sense of clarity. I have come to the conclusion that the most important things in life are love and relationships.”