Jonathan Tadioan: Waiting for the big time

MANILA, Philippines - A threat from his high school teacher led to a successful career as a character actor in the theater for Jonathan Tadioan. And when last year Jonathan  Tad to friends  appeared in a brief but memorable role in an indie film (Ang Babae sa Septic Tank), he became the toast of Cinemalaya audiences.

Tad was a student at Caloocan City High School when the school decided to stage — no less — the musical Miss Saigon. Tad was tapped to play the role of Tuy, the jealous boyfriend of the heroine, but he refused. He was very shy, and he wasn’t even interested in acting.

So his English teacher threatened him: “Pag di ka sumali, di tataas ang grade mo.” Thus, Tad had no choice but to accept, and so began his career as an actor.

As a student at Far Eastern University, Tad was one of the players in Kumbensyon ng mga Halimaw, which competed at the University of the Philippines theater fest Curtain Call in 2004. It was an experimental production. They were all dressed in black, with masks behind them.

“Ang umaarte ang mga likod namin, hindi yung mukha,” he recalls. “So ang nangyayri parang puppetry.” The play was adjudged among the three best in the festival.

Tad, now 28, graduated from FEU with a degree in Mass Communication, joined Tanghalang Pilipino (TP), the resident drama company of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and eventually became a regular member of TP’s vaunted Actors’ Company. And he went on to give notable performances in many plays.

In Pamantansan Hiram sa Diliman, he played a congressman who meets an old buddy and they rekindle memories of school days. “The theme of the play is hindi nagtatapos ang pagkakaibigan kahit hindi kayo nagkikita,” Tad notes. He was nominated Best Actor (Gawad Buhay) by PhilStage.

A second Best Actor nomination came with Flores Para los Muertos, the Tagalog adaptation of Tennesse Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, in which he played the suitor of Blanche Dubois, played by the formidable Eula Valdez.

For his role as an embittered man living in coastal slums (Doc Resurrecion: Gagamutin ang Bayan), he stayed for a while with a marginalized family living along Coastal Road. He observed that they were happy although they didn’t have enough to eat, so he bought rice for them.

“Ito ang hindi nakikita ng maraming Pinoy,” Tad says.

It was in the hit movie Ang Babae sa Septic Tank, however, that Tad made a splash. In a brilliant satirical sequence written by Chris Martinez and directed by Marlon Rivera, he played a posturing indie film director, pumapapel ba, who had won awards in film festivals abroad. His mannerisms, gestures and wrong replies kept the Cinemalaya audiences (mostly students) in stitches.

He next plays a fiscal in this year’s Cinemalaya (July), in the film Posas directed by Lawrence Fajardo.

His seven years in theater have left the character actor with a philosophy of patience: “Tinuruan ako ng theater maging pasensyoso, maghintay ng tamang panahon. Maghintay ka lang, ’wag kang magmadali. Lahat may proseso. Lahat dumadaan sa tamang paghihintay.”

He knows his time will come.