Audie Gemora, Trumpets president and artistic director, after seeing Gonzales’ set and costume designs for Spoliarium: Juan Luna at the Cultural Center of the Philippines recently, refused to take no for an answer when he asked Gonzales to do the sets and the costumes for his outfit’s latest production, Honk!, a musical based on the fable of "The Ugly Duckling." With book and lyrics by Anthony Drewe, Honk! was adjudged winner of the 2000 Laurence Olivier Award in London for best musical beating the crowd favorite The Lion King.
"If you don’t accept the job, I’ll never speak to you again," Gemora told him.
Whether in jest or for real, Gemora’s threat placed Gonzales in a dilemma. He had to choose between doing the set and costume designs for Darna and Honk! The crux lay in the fact that his sensibilities ran contrary to the feel-good theme of the latter. A production with a dark theme was more to his liking. He took up the challenge anyway, channeling his creativity in the opposite direction.
Honk!’s cast of characters are animals. The main character, Ugly, a swan hatched in a duck’s nest, has to endure the taunting of his duckling siblings and other farm animals for his different physical appearance.
The biggest challenge that confronted Gonzales and Gemora was to make the audience relate to the animals on a human level. They had to find a middle ground that would convey the essence of both human and animal without sacrificing visual appeal. Their version of Honk! should enchant grownups and kids alike.
Gonzales did research work to come up with design inspirations. He had to find something he could latch on. Shapes had to be manipulated to avoid turning the characters into theme park mascots. He drew inspiration from American country folk art for the sets.
The stage floor is painted with wide stripes that run diagonally to seemingly disappear into a horizon. An opening backdrop has the title of the musicale emblazoned against a quilt patchwork of gingham prints and egg appliqués. Clouds are egg-shaped and so are house lamps. There’s even a Ferris wheel with egg-shaped seats. Ducklings hatch from gigantic bright blue eggs. Ugly comes out of an even bigger orange-colored egg. Snowmen are egg-shaped. For a winter scene, there is a lovely country quilt backdrop with delicate snowflake patterns as actors bundled up in floor length white fluffy winter coats dance in abandon.
Homes are huge American country-style bird houses in delicious ice cream colors of strawberry pink, vanilla, lemon and purple yam. Barn house interiors are made cozy with gingham prints, lace doilies and a fuchsia satin-covered sofa. Tea cups and pots are two sizes bigger than the usual. The genteel air prompts a pampered feline character to disdainfully tell a villainous tomcat that eating Ugly would be like "eating a meal and flossing your teeth at the same time."
When the tomcat lures Ugly to his home with the intention of making a duck a l’orange meal out of him, Gonzales sets the mood for entrapment with a blazing "Rotisserie" sign. Instead of a couch, he lays out a giant chopping board with matching over-sized cleaver and salt and pepper shakers.
The costumes are very human yet the clever choice of colors, witty accessories and fashion silhouettes manages to convey the animal character portrayed. Gonzales’ costume designs are fun and run the gamut of style from World War I to the swinging ’60s and the funky ’70s.
Agot Isidro, in the role of Ida, the mother duck, wears a petticoat dress in white cotton with bright orange spandex dots reminiscent of Christian Dior’s 1949 New Look. Her hair is dyed a bright shade of orange. She wears a bandana with an orange visor shaped like a duck’s beak over it. Her high-heeled pumps are of the same orange shade as a duck’s webbed feet.
All actors and actresses playing the role of a duck or chicken were asked to dye their hair orange while those portraying the role of a swan had to dye theirs black.
Businessman and occasional stage thespian Bonggoy Manahan, playing the role of the father duck, is the lone exception.
"Can you imagine me attending a company board meeting with orange hair?" he pleaded.
As a concession, Manahan for the run of the play will be auburn-haired.
Ugly as a cygnet, alternately played by Franco Laurel and Carlo Orosa, is garbed in a gray pullover sourced from the Greenhills tiangge. Shredded yarn in the same color is sewn on the garment for a feathered effect. Ugly’s metamorphosis into a handsome swan finds the actors wearing a tunic-length white jacket, the kind fit to be worn by a fairy tale prince.
The lovely female swan, who catches Ugly’s fancy eye, as incarnated by Lana Jalosjos, is dressed in a flowing white robe with diamond spangles nipped at the waist by a very Japanese obi sash.
Ugly’s tomcat pursuer is as sleek as a Chicago mobster in the ’30s in his long black coat lined with red satin, fedora and black and white Oxford shoes. The fur-like locks at his nape are made of foam and wire. He gets to dance a real red hot tango number with a prim and proper she-cat who strips off her dowdy house robe to reveal a sexy black evening dress of wispy fabric with a hanky drop hemline.
Among the colorful characters, who cross paths with Ugly, is a group of frogs. Their leader is an amphibian vision of the middle-aged Elvis Presley with his green pompadour front locks with matching sideburns, bell bottomed trousers and expanded girth (produced by foam-lining the frog costume). His companions sport Afro hair wigs in various shades of green, trapeze dresses gathered at the hem for a bubble effect and tie-dyed leggings in yellow, green and blue. The frogs’ green custom-made footwear is web-shaped. Their hands are encased in long green gloves. Ping-Pong balls were inserted in the gloves’ fingers for a frog-like appearance. Picture the King of Rock n’ Roll backed up by a Roaring’ 20s chorus line twirling hoops in yummy peppermint candy colors.
A flock of geese is dressed like World War I aviators in quilted ivory-colored satin coats over khaki jodhpurs. Fishes in the lake wear 1930s striped maillots de bain in yellow with lilac and yellow with aqua blue combinations. The poultry farm population wears colorful short skirts and fancy chicken crown-shaped hats. The dowager duck, alternately portrayed by Nanette Inventor and Sheila Francisco, is swathed in a flaming red Moulin Rouge-style dress with matching red boots and leg garters. The turkey character, the odd bird in the group, wears an aquamarine jacket with an upturned peplum and a feathery muffler.
With the brightly colored sets and costumes, stagehands, to avoid sticking out like sore thumbs when changing sets and props, had to discard their traditional black work clothes in favor of blue gingham overalls and long sleeved yellow tops.
"Different isn’t bad. Why should being different make me sad? Different isn’t hateful. Different can be well..." Ugly sings early on in the play.
In Honk!, Trumpets has the proverbial goose (make it a swan this time) that lays the golden eggs (represented here by a wealth of theater talents and good material). Directed by Chari Arespacochaga with Ronnie Fortich as musical director, James Laforteza as choreographer, Gerry Fernandez as lights designer and of course, Gino Gonzales as set and costume designer, Honk! is definitely not to be missed.