Anton Juan's beggars' banquet
Ah, the satyr of satire. It gallops unworryingly, pulls no punches and goes for the throat. It’s not as meek as a half-man-half-lamb. It shows you a good time while subverting the status quo. It pisses on the passé. And it brays, man. It brays.
You know which Filipino theater vanguard loves a good satire or two? Anton Juan. That’s why his World Theater Project is revisiting The Threepenny Opera, by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, which goes onstage at the PETA Center in Quezon City on Aug. 14, 15 and 16, with 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. shows.
Yes, it is very timely, according to the playwright-director.
“The play speaks about corruption and its hierarchies. It’s about the reprieve and pardon of the most wanted criminal in the land. And it’s also about Queen Victoria, whose name rhymes with...” pauses Anton before stressing the G-word.
Anton is inside one of the rooms of the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music (well, it’s not as ironic as it sounds) between Trinity and St. Luke’s. Around 20 or so people — actors as well as members of the artistic and production team — are in the room, rehearsing. Costumes and props everywhere: a small tricycle, goblets, wooden boxes painted with garish colors, utensils, denims and much plaid.
Bituin Escalante who plays Pirate Jenny waits her turn and lets loose her gypsy acid queen of a voice. I thought for a moment my teeth would transform into brittle glass or give me a Pete Townshend tinnitus. I’ve heard her sing onstage before, but not in one small room. If Wolverine has Adamantium claws, Bituin has THAT voice. Must be like carrying whirlwind in her lungs. Her voice rises in the midst of everything that is ragtag and of thrift-store chic.
Anton explains, “Here we are trying to (put together the production) in the most economical of ways, realizing that we can do theater in the most minimal of production values. (We have) a belief that what we are doing is more important than sets, lights, costumes, etc.”
It is supposed to be a satirical take on those gaudily glittering over-the-top musicals, in the first place — an opera meant for beggars for crying out loud.
The Threepenny Opera was in fact an attempt both to satirize traditional opera and operetta, and to create a new kind of musical theater based on the theories of Brecht and Weil, two fearlessly innovative punks during their time, two Germans who were never on the Nazis’ Christmas card list. Hit list is more likely. Decades later, two innovatively fearless punks — writer and warbler Tom Waits and beat novelist William S. Burroughs — covered a track from the production. Shows you the tunes have lost none of their bile through the years, nothing tiresome about this satire.
The show opens with a mock-Baroque overture, a nod to the source, The Beggar’s Opera, a parody of Handel’s operas written by John Gay in 1728. Then a shabby figure comes onstage with a barrel organ and launches into a song chronicling the crimes of the notorious bandit and womanizer Macheath, Mack the Knife (which Louie Armstrong recorded in his gravelly Grover voice).
Sounds familiar enough, but, aye, here’s the twist.
“I have a padyak for a set, that transforms into everything,” he shares. In his director’s notes titled “SONA, Skyscraper Squatter, Swine Barrel and Cynicism,” Anton says, “The tricycle is the head on which a crown is to encrust, is the system itself on which we are a part of — part of its brains and tubes and eyeballs and mouth.” The padyak itself has become the central symbol of a play about the democracy of exploitation: each one feeding off each other in the shady sadomasochistic symbiosis of sorts.
Shades of home there will surely be — corrupt police officers, manipulative and scheming businessmen, prostitutes and scumbags, and self-righteous leaders.
“The Queen will tell us there is no poverty,” Anton continues in his notes, tongue poised firmly in cheek. “Oh come on. Look around… Oh well. I am so depressed. Let’s just watch a nice movie. There’s a new one made by the National Artist for Film and Visual (?) Arts declared by the Queen called The Morato Massacres (God Have Mercy)…”
Anton Juan and provocation have gone a long way. Who among our current theater directors can now say they directed a production of Marat/Sade shortly after then-President Marcos declared martial law? Anton’s curriculum vitae testifies to the realities of the period by stating: “Military closes theater after first performance.” Anton — who received the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres in ’92 and the Chevalier de l’Ordre National de Merit in ’02 from the French government, as well as the Alexander Onassis International Award for Theater from the president of Greece — is currently a tenured professor at the University of Notre Dame in the US. He has been returning to Manila at every opportunity to continue with his work with struggling theater companies, doing workshops for teachers and directing productions.
Does he think that theater in the Philippines has improved remarkably?
“Oh yes. My students in directing and playwriting (in UP) have gone on to become directors themselves. The legacy is very strong. There is a renaissance of theater here. There are so many productions happening at the same time. I have to go to UP to watch my student Dexter Santos’ Lulu, go to CCP and watch my playwright-friends in The Virgin Labfest, and here (in this production) we have a reunion. Bituin Escalante and Kalila Aguilos are the daughters of Gigi Escalante, who was the actress in my very first play Turn Red the Sea in Ateneo. There is an excitement, otherwise I wouldn’t go back here all the time.”
This year Anton has already done two other productions — an adaptation of Paz Marquez-Benitez’s Dead Stars and Amelia Lapeña Bonifacio’s Sepang Loca.
“I want to come back and do work not just in the urban centers. Believing that theater must be deurbanized, I’ve done community work in Cebu. Next year I will be doing it in Pampanga.”
Anton watches the proceedings of the rehearsal quietly in one corner. From time to time he whispers to one of the cast-members. Noticing something askew, he walks toward the center of the room and gently lifts an actor’s leg onto a box. Hey, that’s a twist on the term benevolent dictator.
He explains, “Long, long time ago, I might’ve been the enfante terrible as people would say (laughs), but that’s the wrong impression. At one point — when the time turned for me — I realized that explaining with a whisper is much better than reacting with a scream.” And making his actors understand the concept is more important, according to the director, rather than getting what he wants. “It’s even more important to educate beyond the production. So the production is really not the product.”
Something like this: it’s not the destination but the pedicab ride. It’s the trip that makes a profound opera of it all.
“People should expect to be entertained because of the music of Kurt Weill, the wonderful choreography, and the ensemble spirit of the cast,” concludes Anton. “The mind will be entertained as well, because these ideas resonate the realities of our society.”
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The Threepenny Opera is a production of World Theater Project with Anton Juan as its artistic director. Teroy Guzman leads the cast as Macheath, with Bituin Escalante as Pirate Jenny slugging it out with sister Kalila Aguilos as Polly Peachum for the heart of Mack, and Frances Mail-Ignacio as Lucy Brown. Onyl Torres and Ricci Chan play Mr. Peachum and street singer, respectively. Completing the artistic team are Dexter Santos for choreography, John Neil Ilao Batalla for lighting design, video designer Winter David, Roberto Bacsal for sound design, with Meliton Roxas as technical director.
Proceeds of the production will benefit the street children program of Child Hope Asia. For tickets and other inquiries, call Sambalikhaan at 722-5554, 7228577, or SMS 0917-8410780. The PETA Center is at 5 Eymard Drive, New Manila, Quezon City (at the back of the Quezon City Sports Club on E. Rodriguez Sr. Avenue).
