Stage Set Masterpiece

By today’s reckoning the show would have been a smashing success. Just check out the names involved in the production: Nestor Jardin was producer, Ryan Cayabyab was musical director, Gener Caringal was choreographer and among the cast were Chinggoy Alonzo and Nanette Inventor. Set designer and director was Loy Arcenas.

But in 1973, all of them were students at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, and to raise funds for the UP Zoological Society (of which Jardin and Arcenas were members), these brave students decided to put on a musical version of William Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona.

"It was a fabulous show," Jardin insists. It had two performances at the Meralco Theater before, unfortunately, far less than an SRO crowd–which just goes to show how poor we as an audience are in judging talent and potential.

"Pero nalugi kami," Jardin goes on to admit, and it took these brave young artists two semesters selling Yellow Pages to pay off their debts.

Thirty years later that project is a fond and funny memory. Today they are among the most recognizable and bankable names in the world of Philippine entertainment, leaders in the field of Philippine arts and culture. One name though may not be as familiar to local audiences: Who on earth is Loy Arcenas?

Don’t beat yourself up if you are among those who do not recognize the name. For most of the last three decades, Loy has lived in the US (most of the time in New York, with a few years spent in San Francisco) where he has established himself as one of the hottest and most respected set designers. He has done plays, musicals and operas on Broadway, off-Broadway and in regional theaters all over the country. He has worked with some of the biggest names in the American theater scene, including directors Craig Lucas, Joe Mantello (who won a Tony for "Take Me Out"), George C. Wolfe, Frank Galati, Robert Falls and Graciela Daniele.

Loy was a premed student at the UP in 1973, the eldest of five sons of a doctor from Cebu who was on his way to a medical career when the stage beckoned. Despite that less than auspicious start, Loy went on to direct other productions, such as Broadway revues and musical extravaganzas with the fabled Conching Sunico and the Manila Symphony Society.

"Eventually I realized I wasn’t going anywhere," Loy says. "Because I didn’t have any formal education in theater, everything I did was in relationship to what I saw."

Loy headed for London for the needed education, taking a one-year course at the Drama Studio which, he reveals, accepted him on the strength of an interview with his mother (who was traveling in England at the time) and clippings that she showed them.

After that he joined the Design Course of the English National Opera during which time the budding artist found himself absorbing as much as he possibly could: museums, movies, dance programs. "The whole point was to be in London at that time," Loy says.

He came out of the course "not very good at drafting" and with model-building skills that were "okay". But he did get a firm grasp on the conceptual approach to design. "I came out of the course being able to think for myself," he says.

Loy moved to New york in 1978 "specifically to work with the Third World Theater Arts Studies program at La Mama". But, being non-union, he couldn’t get work in the theater and "my assisting techniques were not quite up to par". Fortunately, there was another Filipino designer on the scene: Eduardo Sicangco took Loy on as an assistant and taught him drafting. "He was a very good teacher," says Loy.

He went on to work with other designers, other theater companies, including several Broadway productions like Love! Valour! Compassion!, Prelude to a Kiss, Once on This Island and The Glass Menagerie, among others. Most recently, he completed the designs for the new Adam Guettel/Craig Lucas musical The Light in the Piazza (which ended a run in Seattle and will open in Chicago in January 2004) and the Paula Vogel play The Long Christmas Ride Home (which will open in New Haven in late fall).

Loy directed and designed the set for the popular and critically acclaimed The Romance of Magno Rubio, which won Obie (Off-Broadway) Awards for the actors (five very talented Fil-Ams) as well as the director. He also directed another Ma-Yi Theater production, Flipzoids written by Ma-Yi co-founder Ralph Peña, which was shown in Manila in 1998 as part of the Philippine Centennial celebration. He received another Obie for sustained excellence of scenic design, as well as awards from the L.A. Drama Critics Circle, the Bay Area Critics Circle and the Michael Merritt Award for design collaboration.

Magno Rubio was a unique theater experience for Manila audiences: a play in verse in a restricted space, with five male actors one of whom plays the "voice" of the only female character who appears only as a shadow. The play was so successful extra performances were added, and all shows sold out days before.

There was something decidedly missionary about Magno Rubio. "We wanted to do a piece good enough so that other theater companies would be interested in doing this so they’d be forced to hire Asian-American actors, and to consider Fil-Am actors before other Asian-American actors," reveals Loy. After its successful Off-Broadway and Manila runs, Magno Rubio will be presented in Laguna, California with the cast that performed in Manila and then to Chicago with a cast of local actors, "which fulfills the aim" of providing venues for Filipino- and Asian-American actors.

Fortunately, this will not be the last Manila will see of Loy Arcenas. Plans are afoot for him to design an opera production here next year, as well as a reprise of Magno Rubio for a larger and wider audience, hopefully nationwide. There are also plans for him to do a new work, perhaps a zarzuela. We can only hope that all these plans come to fruition, for after 30 years, it’s about time Manila audiences get re-acquainted with Loy.