One last fling… maybe!

I can just hear my husband muttering into his coffee as he reads this, "I’ve heard that before." How many times have I vowed not to accept roles and then been irresistibly drawn into taking one?

Admittedly it doesn’t take much. "They need me… the play deserves a good support actress… the play needs an older actress… just this once… just one a season… it’s such a good role… I love playing comedy…."

I can come up with all kinds of excuses but the real reason is that I just love being on stage. I didn’t always find such absolute enjoyment at rehearsals and performances, but now, no matter what, every minute is pure fun. It must be age.

Age was the issue when the part of Anne in Forty Carats came up. I had successfully played the romantic 40-or-so year-old lead in Cactus Flower. But my leading man was Miguel Faustmann, who had played my husband, lover, friend, whatever, in dozens of plays.

This time, I would really have to pass as a 40-year-old divorcee, and my leading man would be Arnel Carrion, who was five years old when he first started coming to Rep with his father and my old friend, Tony Carrion, when his half-sister Terry was a Rep actress. Terry died in a car accident on the way home from a performance some years ago. Arnel is all grown up now and maybe it was one scene in Cactus Flower where he was supposed to come on to me that convinced director Baby Barredo that it would work.

How many years could Ely Maalat of Avon and I take off? Well, I was confident Ely could work her magic. I would need to shed a few pounds. I figured a 40-year-old in the 1960s (which was when the play was written) looked 10 years older then a 40-year-old today. Caucasian women generally look older then their age, and Asian women generally look younger. So, maybe I wouldn’t be too far off. (A line in the play: "I don’t think we look too ridiculous together.")

With the help of costume designer Rem Zamora, we could choose clothes that would accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. The rest would depend on my "being" 40. (We don’t like to use the word "acting" at Rep.) I had to believe I was 40. That was no problem. I can never remember how old I am anyway.

All that, of course, is pure rationalization. I was going to take that role. And who wouldn’t? I was going to play a 40-year-old woman with whom a handsome, intelligent, rich, 22-year-old boy falls madly in love with. Dozens of women would give their eye-teeth to be in that situation. It would be fun to be in it for two hours.

So, no problem for me.

But what about poor Arnel? I had been his Tita Joy forever. Could we overcome that? Well, that was a problem and so we went to work.

Fortunately, since coming back to Rep as an adult for Kiss of the Spider Woman, Arnel has made tremendous progress as an actor and has become a true professional. Besides his being talented, he is completely open and soaks in direction like a sponge. He eagerly accepted help from fellow, more experienced, actors – such as Michael Williams and Liesl Batucan (who also was assistant director) and myself. Since he had to play the dominant person in the play, and I the more unsure, I had to be careful not to force him to exert that dominance until he found it naturally. And he did. Slowly he overcame our real life personal relationship and became the strong-willed Peter who falls madly in love with hesitant Anne.

Have we both succeeded? Is the play working?

I cannot, of course, evaluate my own play. I can only go by what the audience’s reaction has been – the laughter, the sighs, the warm applause, the smiles on the audiences’ faces when we take our bows and my own daughter’s statement: "Believable" – to believe that it has succeeded. It’s up to the public to judge, and I hope many will.

So, will this be my last fling?

Maybe. Except that I’ve accepted a small role in the coming A Christmas Carol or Scrooge: The Musical, because I can sing the lovely songs of the chorus and after all it will be the last Rep play at the William J. Shaw Theater (I was in the first). I have also accepted a role in the first play of next season, Lend Me A Tenor, because it will be the first play at the Insular Life Theater in Alabang.

The Rep season is moving to the Carlos P. Romulo Theater in Makati with move-over performances at the Insular Life Theater in Alabang. Being in Lend Me A Tenor will be momentous because it will be a sort-of nostalgic homecoming to Insular Life where Rep began its life 36 years ago.

After that who knows what the next excuse will be? My husband is certain there will be one.

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"Forty Carats" will run at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Buendia corner Ayala Aves., Makati City, from Oct. 24 to 27 and 31 and Nov. 2 and 3, with evening performances at 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday matinees at 3:30 p.m. For inquiries and ticket reservations, call 633-4822.