Who sleeps with whom?

The title of Ray Cooney’s British comedy "Whose Wife Is It Anyway?" might have been "Whose Wife Is She Anyway?" for grammatical reasons. Or it could also have been "Who Is Sleeping with Whom Tonight?" because the substance of the play invites that question.

Its basic moral lesson is that one lie leads to another and still another in a continuous circuit of contradictions. One of the best things Carmen "Baby" Barredo has done besides direct the play is to adapt it to the local scene, there being presumably scores of congressmen (and senators) as unfaithful to their wives as British MP Richard Willey – turned Filipino congressman.

The comedy is a bit too contrived but riotously funny. However, unfaithful congressmen (and senators) are not likely to go through the pain, trouble, anguish and anxiety Willey experiences just because his plan for a night of trysting with his chickadee Jane – also married, like he is, incidentally – is aborted by the discovery of a "dead" body just outside his hotel balcony. The clever, resourceful, imaginative if harrassed Willey manages to save his neck and reputation by getting his secretary George Santos to impersonate a number of people so he (Willey)can, in addition escape the wrath of Jane’s husband Ronnie and his own wife Pamela.

Characters keep making entrances and exits from Willey’s hotel suite: the irate hotel manager; the cunning waiter who milks Willey dry; Gladys Maalat, nurse of George’s ailing mother; Ronnie, the alternately fuming and whining husband of Jane; the hotel maid Maria who somehow ends up as George’s bride-to-be, and Pamela, Willey’s wife, herself.

To top it all, as Willey succeeds in fooling all these people with the wild claims, excuses and tangled explanations he weaves, the "dead" body comes to life and disappears! The varying emergency situations draw no witty sallies – as a comedy should – only the angry insults Willey heaps on the hapless George.

In the end, for expediency, George, the meek "mother’s boy", suddenly turns into a Lothario who invites Nurse Maalat and Willey’s wife Pamela to a night of passion – with both women surprisingly, but of course, separately, responding with alacrity to George’s advances.

For added fun and naughty entertainment, there are two streaking scenes: Ronnie, who has been frantically looking for his wife Jane in the hotel lobby and, later, in the swimming pool, enters Willey’s suite clad only in a towel which falls as he exits from the suite, his back turned toward the audience. In another scene, Jane likewise wrapped in a towel, leaves the room with the towel falling behind her.

The seasoned and versatile Miguel Faustmann portrays to perfection the philandering politician Richard Willey who is bothered and stymied at every turn. Joel Trinidad, the naive secretary George Santos, is a convincing fodder to Willey’s crazy strategies and schemes.

The rest of the characters give solid and enlivening contributions to making the play rib-tickling as they dash madly in and out of Willey’s functional hotel suite (this designed by Faustmann)! Joy Virata, Pamela; Ana Abad Santos-Bitong, Jane; Robbie Guevara, The Manager; Arnel Carrion, Ronnie; Niccolo Manahan, The Waiter; Raul Montes, the "dead" man whose limpness is utterly credible; Marisse Borlaza, the maid-turned- bride.

Timing is of the essence in a comedy, and the players uniformly demonstrate its importance in their split-second entrances and exits. There should be an award conferred on the window pane that falls at precise moments to entrap certain of the characters. Another award should be given the closet door that unfailingly opens at each opportune time to reveal the "dead" body hanging from it.

Since the untimely passing of Repertory Philippines’ founder-director Zeneida "Bibot" Amador, its co-founder and artistic director Carmen "Baby" Barredo and her associate Joy Virata continue to carry on with Rep’s high-quality productions.

Final performance dates of "Whose Wife Is It Anyway?" at Onstage, Greenbelt I, are April 23 and 24, 3:30 p.m.

Miscellaneous Notes

Former violin prodigy Ma. Joaquin Fernando "Chino" Gutierrez, 14, won a scholarship to the Munich Hochschule. Out of 100 contestants, only he and a German student won in the required tilt. Previously, two winners were generally chosen in each category; this time, the categories yielded only two winners.

Chino was among ten students selected for a seminar held in a German castle. Being the favorite participant, he was asked to play the first movement of a concerto. But he performed so well, he was urged to continue.

The foregoing information on Chino’s scholarship reached me sometime ago. Oscar Yatco, conductor laureate of the PPO, told me at a recent social gathering that Chino is now in dire need of funds that could enable him to continue enjoying his scholarship in Germany. Would the National Commission on Culture and the Arts and the Friends of Cultural Concerns in the Philippines help solve Chino’s predicament?

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Jose Manuel "Joel" Tesoro, son of Tito and Patis Tesoro, consistently finished with honors at Xavier School, graduated summa cum laude in anthropology at Yale U., then studied law at Harvard U. He wrote the book "The Invisible Palace" and went to Egypt to learn Arabic.

He reads and speaks eight languages, including Mandarin, Arabic, of course, and Indonesian, which language he initially learned from his wife who is Indonesian.

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The following letter comes from Naoaki Uchiyama, immediate past director of the Japan Foundation, Manila.

Dear Ms. Orosa:

My tour of duty as Director of the Japan Foundation, Manila, has ended, and I shall soon be leaving for Japan to take on another responsibility. It will indeed be greatly appreciated if you could extend to the Assistant Director – Mr. Hiroaki Uesugi, who will temporarily hold the position – the same courtesy and cooperation you have so graciously accorded me the past two years.

I would like to take this opportunity of sharing with you my gratifying experience of having been assigned in the Philippines. In so many ways, I will hold dear the good memories of a warm-hearted people, interesting artistic events, and occasions of having met the best minds in the cultural field. All these, indeed, would make one look forward to coming back to this country; I consider myself lucky.