The shape of Teresa Herrera's heart

MANILA, Philippines - It’s a different experience altogether to watch Teresa Herrera perform live onstage. I’ve seen her host an event live, but it’s not quite the same as witnessing her sharing the stage, sharing her spotlight with other people. Unlike when she models, which I’ve also seen her do in person, the name of the game isn’t Fierce. In theater, Teresa is vulnerable and her famed beauty, though not diminished, is somehow muted as it takes a backseat to her emotions. In other words, she transforms from an ethereal beauty to an ordinary person that ordinary-looking people might be able to relate to.

Her latest play, Love, Loss, and What I Wore, based on Ilene Beckerman’s best-selling book of the same title, and adapted for theater by sisters Delia Ephron, who also penned films like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Hanging Up, and Nora Ephron, of iconic Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally fame. The best description of the play comes from Nora herself: “Like the Vagina Monologues, but without the vaginas.” Teresa shares the bill with names like Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo, Bituin Escalante, Cathy Azanza-Dy and Jay Valencia-Glorioso. To audiences whose knowledge of theater extends only as far as Lea Salonga, this is a heavy-weight cast. I knew that. But I didn’t know about Teresa’s extensive theater background.

Blame it on my youth. My very first encounter with Teresa Herrera was from the cover of one of my sister’s early ’90s copies of Mega magazine, conveniently pointed out to me by her younger sister, Vicky, when I brought it to school to cut up for a collage project. My next encounters with her were roughly four years later when I was working as an intern for Project Runway Philippines and although I didn’t notice it right away, during her turn in Robert Downey, Jr.’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Model, host, Hollywood TV and film actress. That was the extent of my knowledge of well-known personality Teresa Herrera (and it’s not my fault that the Internet didn’t tell me otherwise), so you can imagine my embarrassment when I asked her when she got her start in theater. “Oh, wow. That is the beginning of my career,” she informed me.

Oh.

It started when Teresa was working as model, saving up for art school in Parson’s where she intended to study painting and sculpture. “That’s kind of how it started, really. It wasn’t something I wanted to do when I was little. I was a performing kid, but then I started to lean towards the visual arts. And then I got pulled into the whole modelling thing, but it was only supposed to be because I was saving money for school. And (then), it bit me again,” she said.

Ah, yes. The acting bug.

So she hauled ass to L.A. where she proceeded to train herself for about five years in the purest venue and outlet for acting: Theater. She rattled off the names of her mentors whom she met through different stages in her career: Larry Moss, Jeffery Tamboor, Milton Katselas, Patsy Rodenberg from London for voice (projection) and Jean-Louis Rodrigue for Alexander Technique, an educational method to coordinate breath, posture and movement, usually in order to recognize habitual tensions and correct breathing problems and hoarseness.

Like most actors with backgrounds in theater, Teresa learned to become more discerning when it came to picking projects. This is perhaps why, although she could probably have had a hugely successful career in showbiz here, she preferred not to. I mean, let’s be honest. There is a difference between actors and artistas.

“When I was learning to become an actress, when I was building my craft and my resume, (I was) reading all (this) material from really good playwrights. My acting teacher used to say, ‘That’s the only way you can get a really good education on how to know how to pick the best material for you.’ You have to be well-read, you have to be well-educated, you have to know which stories you resound to, and then you’ll know which projects are good for you or not. Instead of listening to your agent all the time saying, ‘Get this because you’re getting paid this much!’ when you really, you might hate that experience or not want to be there,” she said.

 And that’s what brought Teresa back to our shores after moving to L.A. a year ago. “I flew here specifically for (the play). I haven’t been onstage for three years and I was craving (for it). Sometimes, when you’re working on something for a long time, you crave just something for your soul, you know what I mean? I can’t explain it,” she said.

If you’re wondering whether Teresa is experiencing Love or Loss at the moment, the answer is Love. If you want to know what she’s wearing on opening night, after the play, it’s a great pair of pants, a bandeau top and a tuxedo jacket get-up from Rajo Laurel’s Androgyny collection, which previewed earlier this week. And if you’re still wondering if you’re curious enough to watch Teresa perform, then you should be. If not just for the sake of it, then perhaps for the outstanding cast that she’s a part of, the acclaimed playwrights who wrote it, and the oft-neglected experience of sitting in a theater, discovering the story of another human being unravel before you.

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Love, Loss, and What I Wore will have a one-weekend run only today and tomorrow at the RCBC Theater in Makati, Shows are at 8 p.m. with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 3:30 p.m.  Tickets are at P1,500 for orchestra center, P1,200 for orchestra side, P1,000 for loge, and P500 for balcony. Tickets are available at Ticketworld at 891-9999 or log on to www.ticketworld.com.ph. You may also call 215-0788 or 0917-5378313 or e-mail cteshows@gmail.com.