Focusing on the femme fatale

After crazed terrorist Osama bin Laden and his cohorts blew up the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC and US President George Bush began to smoke out the perpetrators from under their rocks in Afghanistan we have been existing in a limbo of uncertainty from one day to the next.

Now the terrorists have raised their campaign to another level of horror – germ warfare. The deadly anthrax has reared its ugly head even in high places, like the US Congress. The threat is not as far away as you might think. It might be right in your mailbox. Now its anthrax. Tomorrow it may be smallpox, which can wipe out entire populations before you can say Osama bin Laden.

All the countries of the civilized world, including the Philippines, have pledged their support for the U.S. And yet, our local so-called "cause-oriented" groups, which are in truth closet communists, keep on mounting their anti-American slogan, marching in the streets with their red banners and torching the effigy of Uncle Sam in front of the US Embassy. They would be more useful to the masses whom they profess to love so dearly if they offer themselves as guinea pigs to test a new serum against another microbiological weapon of mass destruction.

In the meantime, life lurches on in our megacity. Our youths, unmindful of the threat of a global war, troop to their favorite haunts, the billiard hall, the disco, the mall. Do they hear the lines of Lord Byron’s "The Eve of Waterloo?" – On, on with the dance. Let joy be unconfined! On the other hand, the old folks see their own world with a more sober eye and, like Wordsworth, with "intimations of immortality."

Hanging above young and old alike everywhere on the planet, like the sword of Damocles, is the threat of instant total annihilation. This is the fear that mad men – these fanatics, these – have sowed all over the world when they blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. These monsters have not only slowed down the progress of civilization; they have brought the species back a million years to the age of the brutes.

Still, life has to go on, time ticks on and every day, every hour, has become more precious. Each sunrise renews our hope that evil will be vanquished and that good will prevail. We Filipinos like the Jews have this gift of being able to laugh even in our misery.

What can make us howl with laughter better than a comedy by Repertory Philippines? The company’s current offering is Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna’s It Had to be You.

What happens when a down-and-out B-movie actress, Theda Brau (Liesl Batucan), while auditioning for a commercial, meets a dashing and debonaire director-producer, Vito Pignoli (Jeremy Domingo) and decides then and there that he is her dream man come true? She lays her not-so-tender trap and, spinning her web, traps him in her apartment on this cold Christmas Eve when, in fact, he has other plans to spend the evening with more delectable females.

You see, Theda is no Marilyn Monroe or a Jane Mansfield. She’s no plain Jane but she’s not a mouse either. She has big dreams of finding love and success in the big city and she sees the realization of her dreams in the person of Vito. Unluckily, Theda is not Vito’s dream girl. She does not have the curves of a high-fashion model to whom Vito is bringing Russian caviar or French perfume or wine on Christmas Eve.

You’d say that no two people could be more mismatched. Wrong! Theda has a homegrown charm and simplicity and a horse sense that a man like Vito would find a surprising change from the common species of bosomy bimbos. Mismatched? Not at all, because ironically, opposites do attract each other as they inevitably do in It Had to be You.

Director Baby Barredo have found the perfect match in Liesl and Jeremy and they’ll make your couple of hours at the Carlos P. Romulo Theater, RCBC Plaza in Makati a blast.

Over at the CCP Little Theater, the attraction is Tanghalang Pilipino’s production Ang Buhay Trahedya ni Carmen of Georges Bizet.

Opera buffs are in for a big surprise. Old timers will find this Carmen very different from the Carmen of their yesteryears. They might have seen the first Carmen in Pilipino with Conching Rosal and Don David at the FEU Auditorium in the 1960s.

Wonderworker Nonon Padilla has applied his alchemy to transform the base metal of the original work into the precious metal of this production. Into the brew in his cauldron, he has thrown the bones of Prosper Mérimée’s novella, the marrow of Bizet’s musical score (or generous bits of it), the flesh of Marius Constant, Jean-Claude Carriere and Peter Brooks’ chamber version, and the skill of low satire – all of these garnished with letters, interviews, phone calls of Filipino overseas workers. Throw in the vocal cords of soprano Josephine Roces-Chavez (alternate: Jay Valencia-Glorioso) as Carmen, tenor Eladio Pamaran (alternate: Nolyn Cabahug) as Jose, baritone Bong Chavez (alternate: Roeder Camañag) as Escamillo, soprano Karina Gay Balajadia (alternate: Elaine Lim Lee) as Micaela and Fides Cuyugan-Asencio as the Lady Traveller. And the tongues of ensemble players Rosanna Ordoñez, McDo Bolaños, Paolo O’Hara and Erwin Flores as the OCWs.

Add some more the condiments of translator Jose B. Capino, the set and costumes of Salvador Bernal, the choreography of Nonoy Froilan, the lighting of Marion Enriquez and the conducting of the TP Chamber Orchestra by Josefino "Chino" Toledo. Spice it up with thin splices from a recording of Rodion Shchedrin’s Carmen Ballet played in full volume. And add Padilla’s secret ingredient which magically allows all of these to congeal into an unlikely boiling potion of high tragedy and low comedy.

Padilla’s concept of the work sums it all up: "an experimental collage juxtaposing the opera Carmen with the lives of Pinoys living abroad, experiencing the gypsy life of total freedom, a freedom and state of mind, placed in the perspective of patriotism, that asks the hard question about being Filipino."

Bizet’s opera was intended as a reaction to the romantic spirit of the time and established realism on the operatic stage. The reception of the audience during its premiere was one of outrage. They were shocked at the sight of a common woman smoking a cigarette in public and flaunting her sexuality. The opera was booed and Bizet passed away not long after. They must have failed to see in Carmen the modern woman, the free spirit who insists on living her life her own way, who dares to defy Fate, who refuses to tie herself to any man, who would free herself from many romantic entanglements even if it means giving up her life. She is in her heart and soul a gypsy.

Since then Carmen has become one of the best loved operas of all time. It has appeared in different guises – among others as a Russian ballet, as a Hollywood film with Rita Hayworth and as a black musical with Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte and Pearl Bailey. And now, this Pinoy version, Ang Buhay Trahedya ni Carmen has stripped the plot of minor details, retaining only the barest essentials of the story but also dumping in a number of subplots that expose the lot of our OCWs in different parts of the world. The subtitle of this chamber opera may well be "Portraits of the Filipinos Abroad as OCWs." They make quite a gallery of characters – the housemaid in Rome who makes telebabad when her masters are at the opera, the seaman, the computer programmer, the gay historian in Paris who wants to be a fashion designer, Bert Tira in Amsterdam who makes money exposing his manhood in a private show. Although they are oceans apart from each other, they are one in their being a stranger in a strange land, in their longing for home and their loved ones, in their dream for a better life. The price they have to pay for material gain is alienation, loss of moral values, lack of appreciation for culture and the arts and plain vulgarity. And all these make their own personal tragedy.

Do you wonder if Bin Laden and his cronies in the Taliban go to the theater, the ballet and the opera? You can bet they get their kicks elsewhere. You know what makes them happy is when they succeed in making you live in fear.

If a mad dog with frothing jaws bites your left leg, do you, like a true Christian, offer the creature your right leg? The quality of mercy, despite what Shakespeare says, is strained.

If you have a loaded gun, you know what to do.

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For comments, write to jessqcruz@hotmail.com.