Eula takes on the musical challenge

In her 30-year career as an actress — she started at age 13 with a bit role as the friend of Pops Fernandez in the movie Just Say You Love Me — Eula Valdes has starred in only two stage plays: Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah in 2005 and A Streetcar Named Desire in 2009. Although known primarily as a TV and film star, Eula has always looked forward to returning to the stage.

She gets to do this in September, when she takes on the role of Claudia Nardi, film star and muse to Guido Contini in Nine, the Tony award-winning musical based on Italian director Federico Fellini’s comic masterpiece of biographical filmmaking, titled Eight and a Half. The musical won five Tony awards, including one for Best Musical. It revolves around the character of Guido Contini, a filmmaker who is at a standstill creatively. He needs to come up with a script for a film, but can’t — and on top of that, his marriage and relationships with women, including Claudia, are crumbling around him.

Eula will be starring opposite Jett Pangan. Doing a musical like Nine, which is a period piece set in 1960s Italy, has always been one of her dreams. The musical will feature sets by Tony award-winning designer David Gallo (who has designed sets for various Broadway plays) and costumes by New York-based Filipino designer Robin Tomas. It fulfills a dream Eula had when she was a child, when she would play dress-up and pretend to be singing and performing.

“Bata pa ako, mahilig na ako mag-costume-costume, laro ko na ‘yan talaga,” confesses Eula. “Mahilig din kasi ako manood ng mga period films. Gustong-gusto ko ‘yung mga ganyan kasi parang ang glamorous panoorin. Dream ko talaga mag-play ng mga ganyang characters.”

Nine is a musical, and the question begs to be asked: Is Eula up to the vocal demands of the role? Eula is no stranger to singing. She once did a production number in ASAP where she surprised everyone by singing live. Even as a child, she listened to a lot of music, covering everything from Glen Miller, Jim Morrison of The Doors, The Carpenters, to the New Wave trend of the ’80s. She was four years old when she discovered her passion for rock music, in particular, for songs by the iconic rock group Led Zeppelin.

She admits that Nine will be a challenge, but she is up to it. She knows that vocally, it will take a lot of preparation. Eula’s character will be singing one of the loveliest songs from the musical, titled Unusual Way. 

“One of the biggest challenges here, singing-wise is that ang daming ensemble singing. At saka iba ang mga kanta, we’ll be singing in English, not Italian, pero iba yung feel ng mga kanta dito. Kaya yung voice ko, kailangan kong ingatan.”

Eula was so passionate about taking on the role in Nine that she said yes to it despite the demands of her current role in Walang Hanggan. “Dapat nga, after Mundo Man Ay Magunaw, hindi muna ako tatanggap (ng role sa TV) so I could do this musical,” she explains. “But by Aug. 16, tapos na i-tape lahat ng scenes ko, tapos tuloy-tuloy na.” 

(Nine runs from Sept. 21 to Oct. 7 at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Makati).

She is very excited about working opposite Jett, who is fast-becoming a fixture in the local musical theater scene. Jett, who last appeared in the Atlantis production of Rock of Ages, and Eula were supposed to have worked together back in 2005, in Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah. He was to have played the role of Zsa Zsa’s sidekick Didi.

Aside from Jett, Eula will be working with a powerhouse cast that includes Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo (as Guido’s wife Luisa Contini), Cherie Gil (as the film producer Liliane Le Fleur), acclaimed theater performer Carla Guevara-Laforteza (as Carla Albanese, Guido’s mistress who hopes for a more permanent place in Guido’s life), international stage star Ima Castro (as Sarraghina, the prostitute who teaches a young Guido Contini the ways of the world), Bossa Nova siren Sitti Navarro (as Our Lady of the Spa, who narrates Guido’s journey in Europe’s most luxurious spa where he is hiding from the world), Jay Glorioso (as Guido’s mother who visits him from beyond the grave) and Yannah Laurel (as Stephanie Necrophorus, film critic turned assistant to Liliane Le Fleur, who was never a fan of Guido’s films).

It is admittedly a very intimidating line-up of performers, but Eula is optimistic that she’ll be able to hold her own. “Ganyan ako, eh, pag meron akong gustong gawin, gagawin ko talaga ang lahat para mangyari.”

To her mind, there is only one way of succeeding at any endeavor that she takes on: “Mapa-stage o mapa-TV ‘yan, importante ang sincerity,” she says. “I know I won’t be happy if I fake it — and honestly, this is one project I’m really looking forward to doing. Totoo ‘yan.”

Eula’s director Bobby Garcia of Atlantis Productions is also looking forward to welcoming her to the family. He has been wanting to do Nine for a long time, and “now that the time has come, I couldn’t be more thrilled to have assembled what I believe is the definitive cast and creative team. Needless to say, I don’t think it can happen again as it is extremely difficult to get all these people in the same room at the same time, so this will really be a once-in-a-lifetime event.”