Love in the shadows, in the light & other thoughts

When Resorts World Manila opens the gates of Newport Performing Arts Theater on Sept. 15, it continues its vision of exposing superb Filipino talent to the world, after the multinational production Kaos. 

The Sound of Music and The King and I, with an all-Filipino cast and crew, are both Rodgers and Hammerstein (R&H) productions, both have taken the book-theater-cinema route, are West End and Broadway successes, have provided family entertainment, and speak of adult and young love. However, their similarities end there.

At the helm of The King and I, director Freddie Santos calls it Rodgers and Hammerstein’s best work. To most everyone, it is a musical where the children are the supreme attractions, more than the King, more than the lovers Tuptim and LunTha who need to hide in the shadows.

Story-wise, its journey started in 1862 trekking a path marked by criticism and outright fakery, until it grew to be the sensational multi-media hit it has become. From the memoirs of English travel writer Anna Leonowens who, for six years was teacher to 39 wives and 82 children of King Mongkut of Siam, to American novelist Margaret Landon a century later, who wrote a book on Anna in 1944 and sold the musical rights to R&H, criticism has dogged its every step. We confess to often being tempted to take a detour into its intriguing recesses.

 Anna wrote two volumes of memoirs from 1862 to 1868, beginning with The English Governess at the Siamese Court (1870), which earned her immediate fame, and Romance of the Harem (1873), adjudged more of palace gossip than what actually occurred within the royal harem.

Bo Cerrudo (left) with Leo Valdez as the King

 Meantime, whatever the criticisms, the adaptations have caught the imagination of the public. Originally intended as Gertrude Lawrence’s return to the musical stage, The King and I was rejected by Cole Porter until R&H agreed to write and produce it. The role of the King was turned down by everyone, until a virtual unknown Yul Brynner through sheer force of his personality managed to switch the focus of the play from Anna to the King. Brynner’s name has since become synonymous with the role of King Mongkut. The King and I opened at St. James Theatre on Broadway in 1951 and ran for 1,246 performances. In 1956, Brynner starred in the film version with Deborah Kerr which was pronounced a major hit.

Leo Tavarro Valdez welcomes his role as King Mongkut, after his reputation as The Engineer in Miss Saigon had continued from the original London version to many other Engineers worldwide. The other King, Bo Cerrudo, known as a classical balladeer, told us he had three dream roles to perform — Walang Sugat, Tony in West Side Story and the King in King and I. He is happy to have achieved them all with his performance at the Resorts World.   

When the Romance memoirs pictured Tuptim as a concubine caught for infidelity, tortured and sentenced to death by the King, it was contested by the King’s great granddaughter, Princess Vudhijaya who stated that King Mongkut would never have ordered an execution which is not the Buddhist way, and that Tuptim became her grandmother and had married Chulalongkorn. Perhaps because of many facts that could no longer be checked, it became safer to create a completely fictional love story for Tuptim and LunTha.

Tanya Manalang as Tuptim and Floyd Tena as LunTha

More interesting data present correspondence that continued between King Chulalongkorn and the Leonowens family; that Anna’s son Louis returned to Siam, became an officer in the Siamese Royal Cavalry, and under Chulalongkorn’s patronage founded the Louis T. Leonowens trading company still in existence in Thailand.  

In one of the Resorts World previews we watched, Tuptim is played by Tanya Manalang who was Liezl von Trapp in The Sound of Music and relative newcomer Floyd Tena is LunTha. We ask them of the hurdles in developing their story and Tanya explains, “We don’t have much dialogue together. We tell our story through our duets We Kiss in the Shadow and I have Dreamed.” 

Tanya adds that she also has a difficult solo number My Lord and Master at the start that introduces her character. Floyd has no such luck but, nevertheless, welcomes all difficulties as a challenge.

Tanya started performing at the age of eight via The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, then Kaos, In the Heights and The Sound of Music. Floyd has done Pinoy classics El Fili and Noli, sang with Bagong Harana and performs with Primo in Bar 360 in the casino. The King and I is his first major production.  

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Some of the King’s children in the musical