2003: Twists and turns in theater
January 19, 2004 | 12:00am
When Zeus tasked the Titans Epimetheus and Prometheus to create living things to populate the earth, the first, having only hindsight immediately gave fins, scales and gills to the fishes, wings and feathers to the birds, and thick hide to the beasts of the fields and the forests. When man was finally created, he was the least endowed creature of all until Prometheus, in defiance of Zeus, stole fire from Olympus and gave it to his creation – fire, symbol of intelligence as well as the power and technology that could spring from its application, by means of which man could aspire to be as powerful as the gods themselves.
Zeus punished the Titan by chaining him to a rock in the Caucasus mountains and man was punished by the gods by giving him woman, the cause of his sufferings.
The women libbers of today will howl in protest but they won’t be the first to debunk this ancient myth. In the 5th century BC, the comic dramatist Aristophanes hailed the wisdom of women and their love for peace and unity in his comedy, Lysistrata.
Dramatis Personae’s director-producer Lito Casaje mounted this play at a time when the United States and its allies sent their forces to Iraq to rid the country of its tyrant, Saddam Hussein. Aristophanes employed an entire arsenal of arms – a topical subject – the war between Athens and Sparta – satire, irony, verbal abuse, physical obscenity and sex – to condemn warfare. An Athenian woman, Lysistrata, convinces all the wives of Athens and other warring cities to go on a sex-strike against their husbands if the men insist on going to the battlefield. The women finally teach the menfolk a lesson that remains fruitful to this day: "Make love, not war!"
Dramatis Personae deserves our applause for this timely production of Lysistrata.
Tanghalang Pilipino, without Nonon Padilla, seemed to be in the doldrums. It opened its 2003-2004 season with Oraciones, a tetralogy of one-act plays by various playwrights on a common theme – Philippine-American relations. Its Pinoy humor was not funny, only insulting and vulgar. Humor they should learn from the Americans, if nothing else – good taste as in Neil Simon. It had a great cast, though, including Ronnie Lazaro, Richard Cunanan, Ebong Joson, Jojit Lorenzo and Ana Guillen Feleo, to name a few.
TP rose from the swamps with Ang Negosyante sa Venencia, directed with imagination by Padilla and starring a superb cast led by Irma Adlawan-Marasigan, Roy Rolloda, Mailes Kanapi, George de Jesus III and Lou Veloso. You might ask if Shakespeare in Pilipino is still Shakespeare; but if one is no-read, no-speak the Queen’s English, Shakespeare in Pilipino is still better than no Shakespeare at all.
Dulaang UP’s 28th theater season presented, among other plays, Moliere’s The Imaginary Invalid, directed by Amiel Leonardia. The cast led by Richard Cunanan, Frances Makil-Ignacio, Lily Chu, Lesley Leveriza, Romnick Sarmenta, Fonz Deza and Tony Mabesa delivered a show that was absolutely a riot. The comedy was also presented in Pilipino.
Barangay Theater Guild gave a staged reading of two one-act plays by Anton Chekhov, The Boor and The Marriage Proposal. Directed by National Artist for Theater Daisy H. Avellana, the reading featured stage talents Adriana Agcaoili, Ivi Avellana-Cosio, Bart Guingona, Jaime del Mundo and Jose Mari Avellana. We welcome the revival of this august company and we hope that in the near future, it would mount a full production such as that of Nick Joaquin’s Portrait of the Artist as Filipino, the play for which it is remembered with love and esteem.
TheaterNow, a laboratory arm of Gantimpala Theater Foundation, staged as its initial 2003-2004 theater season Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde. Directed by Jeremy Domingo, the stellar cast included Val Trono, Miguel Vasquez, Donnah Alcantara, Miguel Castro, Maritina Romulo, Richmond Tan, Angela Baesa, Andre Tiangco, Mona Katigbak and Ku Aquino. The play with its round-robin sort of plot bubbled gleefully like Austrian pale pilsen.
GTF aims to stage Filipino classics like Ibong Adarna, Florante at Laura, Kanser and the like. Well and good – but at a time when the Philippines is becoming a part of the global village, our young audiences should be exposed more and more to foreign plays like La Ronde. In the near future, TheaterNow should present plays by Pirandello, Brecht, Molnar, Pinter, Mamet, Albee, Ionesco, Arrabal, Adamov, Camus, Sartre, Anouilh, Babel, Mayakovsky, Schwartz and many others.
Repertory Philippines has been the most steady theater company around. This last year it had its regular season, its 66th.
It opened the season with a farce, Ken Ludwig’s Lend Me a Tenor, a high C of a show that used old comic formulas like mistaken identities and the use of disguises to send the viewers rolling down the aisles with a bellyache. Stated director Zeneida Amador of this season’s opener: "In these difficult and troubled times, comedy is its excuse for being. Indeed, when there were threats of terrorist attacks last year, we needed something to allay our fears." When the tigers are at the gates, shouldn’t we sing with Plautus: "A comedy tonight to forget our fear?"
Rep’s second show, Power Plays by Elaine May and Allan Arkin, was a trilogy that depicted the ways in which men and women were engaged in the game of one-upmanship. The setting varied – the office of a top business executive, an abandoned warehouse, a dentist’s clinic – in the asphalt jungle of Manhattan, but they were all in a cat-and-mouse or dog-eat-dog Darwinian battle for the survival of the fittest.
The Woman in Black, adapted by Susan Hill from a novel by Stephen Mallatratt, depicted the experience of a lawyer who had to go to a remote village in England to execute the last will and testament of a deceased client who had left behind something more than just piles of documents – a deep, dark secret that would not remain buried. Miguel Faustmann had to play multiple roles in this gothic yarn about the restless dead. He shared the success of the play with Paolo Fabregas.
Neil Simon’s London Suite, a tetralogy of one-acters, concluded Rep’s 66th season. Directed by Michael Williams, it served the proper blend of pathos and humor in these tales about human follies and foibles. You would not mind that Simon’s humor was as American as the Big Mac at McDonald’s, not English like Big Ben, Yorkshire pudding or kidney pie.
Rep also mounted an off-season offering – a magical production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by Amador. The comedy depicted the unlikely collision of two worlds, that of Athens, its royalty and its low life, and the realm of the fairies. Remarked Amador about his comedy: "A fun show… a gambol in the forest, a fantasy concocted in the rich landscape of the mind, a mixture of fairies and real people whose follies remind us of ourselves when we were young, fickle and carefree."
And there was Amador in a one-nun two-act show titled Late Night Catechism by Vicky Quade and Maripat Donovan produced by Bahaghari Production Studios Entertainment, Inc. The show directed by Baby Barredo had Bibot gabbing for two hours before an audience of "pupils" on matters that godparents at baptisms and weddings should know about their duties as such. This was the classroom without tension, without the pain, only good, clean fun – one hell of a show, if you pardon my language.
There were also visiting performing artists from abroad who brought to our shores their musical specialties.
From the Republic of Korea came Dr. Soo Kwan Park, a living legend in his homeland, and baritone Sang Kyun Choi, who regaled their audiences with their folk music and also performed familiar classics with Rachelle Gerodias and local ensembles. Also from the Land of the Morning Calm came the Huh sisters, Seung Yeum, Hee Jung and Yun Jung, who interpreted chamber works by Western composers with virtuosity.
The Japanese Foundation Manila Office presented Rakugo in English, a Japanese sit-down comedy played by an ensemble of five who tossed around anecdotes and played on musical instruments, much to the delight of the audience; and Gauche, The Cellist, a musical fable about a bungling musician who was taught by animals to play his instrument beautifully – a show that couldn’t fail to charm young and old alike.
A joint Japan-Philippine opera project was Fr. Manuel Maramba’s Lord Takayama Ukon, a musical epic recounting the travails and triumph of the Takayama clan in Japan, its flight from oppression in the homeland, and its finally finding peace and freedom in the Philippines.
Tanghalang Pilipino’s Himala: The Musical, by librettist Ricky Lee and composer-musical director Vincent de Jesus and directed by Soxy Topacio, was a grand production that satirized the Pinoy preoccupation with miracles. May Bayot gave an outstanding performance as Elsa.
And Spoliarium: Juan Luna, the tragic opera with a libretto by Fides Cuyugan-Asensio and score by Ryan Cayabyab, dramatized the rise and fall of the great painter who raised the art of the Filipino to international fame. The participation of Robert Seña as Luna and Margarita Gomez-Yulo as Paz contributed in no small measure to the success of this enterprise. This was assuredly a landmark in the growth of Filipino operatic literature.
Who were the most outstanding personalities of the year in the theater arts?
• Stage Thespian of the Year: Miguel Faustmann
• Stage Director of the Year: Zeneida Amador
If Prometheus had not been consigned to oblivion by our nationalistic academicians who belittle the significance of classical literature, what would the Titan prognosticate about the performing arts for 2004? I bet his titanic eyes would glow as he envisions these artists attaining higher and higher levels of excellence in their respective fields.
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