Willie Nep gives ‘All of Me’

“When you grow up, you’ll discover that you have defended lies, deceived yourself, or suffered foolishness. If you’re a good warrior you will not blame yourself for this, but neither will you allow your mistakes to repeat themselves.”— Manuel del Guerrero de la Luz, Paolo Coelho

Watching Willie Nepomuceno’s show is always an exercise in reflexivity, especially on how we have journeyed growing up, taken ourselves into deep waters, with the question: Have we been a good warrior of life?

The icons of Willie Nep’s impressions from entertainment and politics, have much to teach those who watched his benefit performance at the Music Museum — sponsored by the UP College of Medicine Class of ’91 for the pediatric cardiology ward of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) — mostly in the timelines awaiting review before the inevitable overtakes their status updates.

Indeed, this time is as good as any, before it is too late, for the 40 and beyond generation to do some soul-searching, and see if the good they have done will far outweigh the bad. Three songs, from the show, dubbed All of Me, rendered by this artist (whose fondest dream was to become a singer), stand out to strike at the activity logs of those who have passed the halfway mark of the biblical lifespan (70, according to Psalm 90:10).

The curtain raiser of the show was the swing time For Once in My Life, popularized by Stevie Wonder the year we entered high school. This was a time of recklessness, when we had all the time in the world to chase our foolish dreams, as in the lines:

For once, unafraid, I can go where life leads me

Somehow I know I’ll be strong.

Marcos, whom Willie could impersonate with such perfection, especially at the juncture of his Paoay-Hawaii mix-up, was the leading figure of this era, and his flickering image declaring 1081 was projected on stage as the virtuoso sang the next milestone marker: I’ve got Rhythm, the Gershwin Broadway jazz standard, which  was the anthem of our early adult years, when we believed that the world was our oyster, and that we can be the kings and queens of the world.

I’ve got starlight, I’ve got sweet dreams…

Who could ask for anything more?

The blockbuster movie of this era when we were in college was Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, which was a marker in the career of former hunk Marlon Brando. Willie, with a drooping chin, ran away with his take on Vito Corleone, his voice scraping with the trademark grit, which sent shivers down the spine of those who crossed the path of the Sicilian kingpin of the New York mafia.

The third song, What Kind of Fool Am I, was for our later years, when we have built our families and careers, on shifting sands mostly, forcing us to ask:

What kind of man is this?

An empty cell

A lonely cell in which

An empty heart must dwell What kind of clown am I?

Willie Nep was dripping rhythm and blues, singing this Sammy Davis gold chart-topper when he was part of the rat pack triumvirate who lorded it over the Las Vegas strip (with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, whom Willie also included in this revue). With the signature grimace of the rebellious black singer, he questions our old age, when we tabulate the scores to know if we had chosen the right fork when we reached the crossroads, as did the King of Comedy, Dolphy, now that he is in the netherworld, and singing Saan Ako Nagkamali?.

Willie has perfected his stunt on the Kevin Cosme and John Puruntong persona of Dolphy, cajoling with the famous chuckle that had stolen the hearts of many showbiz beauties in his time (from A to Z, Willie enumerated). This time, he is recounting his search for his Crazy Corporation buddies in heaven: Panchito, Teroy de Guzman and Ading Fernando and kept calling their cellphones, only to get the recorded message: “The number you dialed is out of the coverage area.” And he looked down, while the audience laughed when he delivered the punch line: “Mainit dun ah.”

The highlight of the evening was the Kris TV spoof, with Frida Nepomuceno as the inimitable presidential sister, and Willie guesting as the inveterate Machiavelli, Juan Ponce Enrile. Willie’s daughter had Kris right down pat from the crisp laughter to the eyeball roll and taglish quips. With her nakakaloka laughter, she materialized in a draped fuschia stunner and rhinestone shoes from the theatre entrance and did impromptu interviews with the audience before putting JPE on the hot seat.

The theme of their dialectics was betrayal, and Kris enumerated the instances when the grizzled lawyer foisted selective amnesia  on people with whom he wrote history: Ferdinand Marcos, Cory Aquino, Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Gigi Reyes. The Manong from Cagayan was a wily monkey dodging Kris’ OMG, every time he would sneak into forgetfulness. Should Kris fall off the wagon (again) from the straight and narrow, she would have a perfect sub in Frida. Willie  has captured the Ilocano speech pattern with such genius, that it was hard to believe it was not JPE or Juanito Furugganan in his past life, on Kris’ mock set. Father and daughter jousting on stage was heartwarming, once more proving that the apple does not fall far from the tree.

The cup runneth over with Willie doing a Mar Roxas and Frida, a Janet Napoles in Who Wants To Be A Billionaire; Willie as Erap in City Hall with a very fidgety Kabayan Noli de Castro Kalukalike (Rod Manansala) and Willie as P-Noy in a Face the Nation monologue. All of these sketches vindicated the title of the show, as the master himself explained: “This is the only way I can do a show, to give everything I can of the myriad personalities you and I love — all of me.”  Indeed, from Kevin Cosme of Home Along Da Riles to Kermit the Frog of Sesame Street (with himself as the muppeteer), Willie gave his heart and soul, and would have given more, if time was not a factor.

With the a cappella One Voice, Willie pleaded for change coming from each one of us, reminding that “everything starts from ourselves,” as the images of our country’s ills — poverty, corruption and strife — faded in and out of the giant screen.

The finale evoked our people’s need for the wisdom of those who can analyze phenomena based on issues and not biases. What will it take for media moguls to give Willie Nep a platform, where he can seamlessly combine the late-night show monologues, gag show insanities and variety show musicals? All of Me will be a fitting title for a sardonically sharp television program that this man of many voices and faces, as well as his faithful warriors of life rightfully deserve.