Full metal martyrs
Tanghalang Pilipino’s “EJ: Ang Pinagdaanang Buhay nina Evelio Javier at Edgar Jopson” starts from a promising conceit: what if the two political martyrs were together in heaven observing the Philippines below? By all accounts they never met in real life. But if they did in the next, what would they have to say to each other? Moreover, what if such a story were to be told in the form of a rock musical? Intriguing, to say the least. Yes, but telling such a story carries its risks. Though martyrs, whether of the religious or political stripe, make for excellent role models, they aren’t necessarily the best subjects for stories. Too often the teller of the tale is interested less in spinning a good yarn than in trumpeting the virtues of a great person.
This, alas, is what happens to EJ, whose four-weekend run at the CCP Little Theater recently concluded. Evelio Javier and Edgar Jopson, two men who resisted the Marcos dictatorship in their own ways and were ultimately felled by agents of the regime because of it, are the two protagonists of this tale. And as imagined by multi-awarded writer Ed Maranan, they’re not interesting enough as people to sustain our interest or sympathy. They’re practically saints, and Maranan gives them no interesting foibles to make them compellingly human. Their inner anxiety is explored in an early scene in which both go to school in Ateneo and become aware of the ills of society, but after they make their respective commitments, little else happens to change who they are.
Without dynamic main characters, the story could have shifted its point of interest to an external conflict, one of good versus evil. The play goes down this path too, but the producers make the ill-advised decision of turning Marcos into an object not of fear but of horror-show amusement. The all-knowing narrator assumes the role of the late dictator by wearing a grotesquely huge headpiece. At one point he appears with a plethora of tubes attached to his back that lead to a chandelier-full of dextrose bottles with candy-red fluid; this while the chorus dances around him dressed for what appears to be a costume party in a Tim Burton movie. The upshot: the autocrat who held the nation in his thrall for two decades is not cold-blooded and vicious but merely a sicko. Diminishing the villain diminishes the threat to the protagonists, and we miss the sense that they live in dangerous times.
Also, the novelty of seeing the two EJs in heaven arguing which approach each took, reform or revolution, is better wears off quickly largely because of the wooden dialogue. At one point Jopson tells Javier that the Philippines is like a patient with cancer who can be cured only by extreme means (“paggamit ng kutsilyong matalim”), which is why he chose to go underground. Javier responds that sometimes patients will also respond to faith (“panalangin at pananampalataya”), hence his running for public office. Laid out in such bald terms, the argument never interests us.
Another weakness: The play lacks texture, a grittiness, and a sense of being transported back to the days in which the story unfolds. Surprising, considering that director Chris Millado also steered last year’s Insiang, which exuded the life of the slums from its pores. The rally scenes are tame; a torture scene provokes chuckles. The costumes of the chorus, white shirts with slits on the sleeves that make them look like school kids, don’t help. Neither do the toy-like guns.
Yet though the whole suffers, parts of it work. The assault on Malacañang is riveting: the chorus members play activists who hurl stones at a barricade. Lights flash, bombs explode, sirens blare. (Tanghalang Pilipino’s technical crew flashes its reliably superb skills here.) All sound dies just as Jopson (Jett Pangan), off to one side of the stage, receives a TOYM Award for student activism, then segues into a stirring rendition of Take Me Back. Acting best while he sings, Pangan takes to a microphone with the ease of a rock star. (For his part, understudy Riki Benedicto is none too shabby; he certainly has the vocal chops for the role.)
The scenes in Antique evoke the idyll of the countryside, and Davao puts on a folksy charm as effortlessly as he did a slimy menace in Insiang. He wins over his province mates and gets elected governor. (The many scenes back in the province get tiresome, though, because hardly anything happens there, and the little that does is reported in bluntly informative language.)
Perhaps the best episode is the one set in China: Jopson pays the country a visit and is seduced by their brand of socialism. The vignette pulses with life, probably because it dares to depict the hero as naïve. While Jopson rhapsodizes on the wonders of China, the chorus marches in, complete with Mao jackets, caps, and red flag, like windup toys, then assume poses as if in some comic diorama. But after the scene ends, the story reverts to martyr-mode, and the tedious hagiography continues.
Also noteworthy is Bong Cabrera’s turn as the protean narrator, channeling the same earthy appeal that he used to great effect as Mikey the jail guard in this past January’s Kudeta! into the role of an omniscient consciousness that both comments on and participates in the story. His alternate, Nar Cabico, doesn’t fare as well, though not for a lack of talent; his youthfulness and cherubic countenance undermine his credibility.
The female leads do much with little, turning in fine performances as the wives of the heroes, radiating a vitality that their too-eager mates often lack. As Precious Javier, Wenah Nagales is down-to-earth, sweet yet strong. So, too, are Tex Ordoñez and Mayen Estañero as Joy Jopson, who doesn’t have much time on stage yet provides needed emotional ballast for the rabidly patriotic Edgar. Joy’s lament that she must read the newspapers before he comes over to see her because “national issues lang naman ang tatalakayin natin” endears her to those of us who wish that the rebel she loves would chill out even for just a few moments.
And as for the music: the idiom of rock fits the material, in itself a pleasant surprise, and the decision to get The Dawn involved is a smart one. Now two decades old, the band provides most of the songs, whether new or old ones custom-fitted to the text. I’m not familiar with most of the band’s work, so I often wasn’t aware of how the songs were retooled to fit the play. But probably the most obvious case of adaptation, and the most successful, was Salamat: After the double murder, the widows launch into the verses, transforming a piece celebrating fun and fellowship into a tender and haunting dirge. The two men join in briefly and turn it into a dolorous quartet, then take their leave. A lovely scene, and it does much to redeem what went before it. Who would have thought a song once used in a beer commercial could move us to tears?
It helps too that The Dawn performs live during the show. After only a few bars into its opening number, the band demonstrates clearly that it’s a veteran act in peak form. Francis Reyes’s guitar work is particularly sure-handed, his lines glittering or ethereal, soaring or scorching. It’s enough to hold your attention when the story loses you, which is fairly often. (The alternate band, Sisig, is solid if unspectacular.)
Such delights can’t make up for the play’s deep flaws, but they do keep it from sinking under the weight of its own earnestness.
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