Again, this year as last, I was on the job as one of the choreographers for CCP’s Lagi Kitang Mamahalin, A Musical Tribute to National Artists. The CCP Main Theater stage is an awesome place that can eat one alive. I should know. I danced in it for two decades. People don’t see you up close and personal on that stage. It’s a colossal space that can make a giant puny and a stint pointless if one doesn’t know how to use space to his advantage. And yet again, conquering it might make a midget loom larger than Elijah Wood in The Lord of the Rings.
On stage, the immediacy of a song or dance routine pulsating with life means it is never to be repeated in the same scope ever. For that kind of perfection, one has to rehearse not once, twice, but over and over until he drops dead from exhaustion. Harsh but, hey, no one has to do it. It’s a choice. One can sashay before a camera and deliver his safe takes instead. It’s all a matter of knowing where you belong or what territory you want to penetrate. Managers, please take note.
Last year, I did five numbers in about two weeks for the same show (then titled Lagi Kitang Maaalala). Normally, it would take a month at least to work with non dancers or, more painfully, singers who think they can dance without taking a single dance class. Not even a choreographer like Balanchine can create miracles here. Choreographers end up teaching people how to dance instead of choreographing. So please, performing in the Broadway musical genre means enrolling in the nearest dance studio. You want to sing and dance? Give yourself the skills.
I was appalled that there weren’t more rehearsals for a show of this magnitude because some people were "too busy." Too busy doing what? Making money? But this is their work! Or was this their idea of fun? Director Chris Millado, bless his calm nature, appeased me. These were stars engaged in shooting assignments, he explained. Well if they’re too busy, they shouldn’t be in the show at all, was what I thought.
In theater, we take things very seriously, and we don’t get paid much for it. There are some things you do for money and some things you do for fulfillment. Can’t these film stars show respect for the sanctity of the CCP Main Theater, where international stars, much bigger than they, have performed and rehearsed in? But we managed. It was good that I had mostly theater people in my numbers, people who value, well, one or two rehearsals at least.
This year the show went pretty much the same, given a few changes in the songs and cast members. It was announced that the dress/technical rehearsal will be opened to the audience, guests of the cast mostly. To my dismay, half of the show had stunt men and women standing in place of the bituins. Here was the most important rehearsal of all and, still, they were too busy to attend. True to form, the ones who were there were those who understood theater: Isay Alvarez, Jose Llana, Ayen Munji-Laurel, Calvin Millado, Bituin Escalante, Sheila Francisco, Roselle Nava, and scene-stealers, Carlo Orosa, JM Rodriguez, Noel Rayos, Arnold Reyes and Tonipet Gaba, to name a few. The poor audience had to make do with a supposedly star-studded night that was studded with stand-ins.
When I watched the show itself on opening night, I could only grimace at the way the absentees were eaten up alive. The ones who got away with it were those who were used to performing before big live audiences. But, it could be that their names upheld their performance. To me, they could have done much better with a lot more effort. One star was even late for her own number. She came and conquered but didn’t fool us who knew what a good performance takes… uhmmm, rehearsals?
My five boys who did the "Pipitonggatang na Kalesahan Medley" (Orosa, Rodriguez, Rayos, Reyes and Gaba) were the crowd favorites because they knew what they were doing. They rehearsed over and over what they had already performed last year. Now they were more confident and sure of the steps and it showed.
For art’s sake, I suggest theater contracts include a clause that strictly enforces rehearsal time not only for the "little people," but especially for the big stars. We cannot allow them to haunt our sacred galaxy the way they shoot films at their own fancy. If you take a look at the plight of our film industry, it would not take intelligence to deduce that it has become almost mediocre because of the attitude of our stars and the way producers, directors and fans indulge them. If professionalism is not obligatory, who will become professional?
In theater, the only real stars are the ones who suffer the black hole. It’s a different circus over there where people will have the tendency to ask: Who’s the clown? The answer always comes clear. The clown is the one who makes a fool of himself.