The Last 25 Yearswith Audie and Menchu

A few months ago, Menchu and I were chatting and she happened to mention that this is her twenty-fifth year in professional theater. I expressed shock and surprise and not a small measure of wonder at how much time had passed and how little it showed on her. It also got me thinking about how time had actually made her a better performer, a deeper, more complex, more intense presence onstage. Her silver anniversary in the service of the stage performer’s craft was cause for celebration and I was determined not to let it pass unnoticed.

When Hendri Go, my producer friend from Cebu, sent me a copy of the original cast recording of The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown, I was thrilled at the brilliance of the music and the provocativeness of the story telling. Most importantly, I thought that "time" being a central theme of the musical was perfect to reflect our celebration of the passing of years. I approached Lisa and Joel Bañares, producers and theater aficionados, to help me get the show together and later approached another "silver jubilarian," Audie Gemora, to make it a double celebration.

Audie and Menchu have now developed into such intense talents they each radiate a light that could easily outshine most of the actors their age. Like aged cheese or vintage wine, acting gets better with age–when it is invested with wisdom.

These two began their professional careers on the same year that John Travolta was making waves and the BeeGees and vst and Company were at the height of their powers. It was the middle of the Martial Law era. The age of kkk and Human Settlements and every acronym that somehow had bl (Bagong Lipunan) attached to it. Repertory Philippines was the undisputed English-language professional theater company in the country that catered to the bourgeois, while peta inflamed the hearts and minds of the proletariat and the students with nationalistic plays. It’s really remarkable how, after all these years, the landscape has remained recognizably intact. The feudal divide is, if anything, wider. peta and Repertory are still flourishing and although the country has since undergone three "people power" revolts and several (and counting, I am assuming wearily) coup attempts, the military still hovers threateningly over our national lives. The movies went from "bomba" to "ST" to "pene" to "bold"–same old, same old.

But the theater has grown in subtle ways. The two original companies have spawned other professional groups and some of us (myself not included mind you) are celebrating milestones as professionals. And given the uncertainty of the socio-political landscape of this country in the last two decades, to have survived and flourished in the arts is surely cause for celebration. That Audie and Menchu are still practicing, with great acclaim, the craft they have chosen is surely a lesson about the rewards that one can reap from constancy and commitment.

In 1978, the only thing anyone knew about Audie Gemora and Menchu Lauchengco was that they were enormously gifted teenagers with golden voices. They were destined towards great careers in theater. I think it is safe to say, after all these years, that they have not disappointed us.

What is surprising is that they have not worked together more often and that their paths have rarely intersected over the years. The last time they collaborated onstage, both were so heavily made-up they were unrecognizable as antagonists in Trumpet’s adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe. Each of them made theatrical magic onstage every time each was in the limelight. In the few scenes they were together, it was a dazzling display of thespic fireworks.

The first time I heard of Audie Gemora, he was making waves as Mozart in Peter Schaffer’s Amadeus. I remember jostling for standing room space in the last of the extended-run performances. It was an electrifying theatrical experience that burnt itself into my memory and although I didn’t know it at the time, it was probably instrumental in egging me towards a career in the theater. Here was, after all, a play that was idea-driven. A serious, adult enterprise that was life altering in many ways. And the acting! I have to confess now that, secretly coveting the Mozart role, I quibbled pettily about Audie’s performance. I must also confess that I still clearly remember that performance, such was its power. Talagang inggit lang ako!

Audie went on to reap further acclaim for such portrayals as Radya Magandiri for peta’s adaptation of the Mindanao Rama Hari text and Simon in Tanghalang Pilipino’s musical version of Noli Me Tangere.

He had earlier made the artistic leap by directing The Fantasticks for Repertory Philippines, and if one were to follow the arc of his career, it made perfect sense that he turned out to be one of the country’s top theater producers, a founder and driving force behind the highly successful Trumpets.

During a lull in one of our rehearsals, he turned to me and said performing was the one thing his producing chores made him miss terribly. And one sees it in the rehearsals. There is a passion there, a deliberate savoring that directors love to work with.

Menchu, on the other hand, was already a glamour girl by the early 80’s, her pretty mug gracing magazine covers with remarkable frequency. But she was not just a pretty face. The clarity of her soprano was the talk of the theater world even then. She was the perfect ingénue, a beautiful face, a beautiful voice but something much more–a depth and intelligence that, combined with her other attributes, is rare even among theater talents today. Her almost fanatical devotion to her craft borders on the obsessive and she is such an artistic adventurer that she has managed to essay roles as varied as the saccharine sweet Maria in West Side Story, the sopranic ingénue in Sweeny Todd, the hideously ugly Fosca in Sondheim’s Passion, the ruthlessly ambitious Evita in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical, the mythical Spiderwoman in Kiss of the Spiderwoman, the titular Witch in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and (whew!) countless other memorable performances that ranged the dramatic and comic spectrum of temptress and innocent, saint and villain, naive and sophisticated.

But what makes her a truly remarkable artist is her refusal to rest on her laurels. She has, at her advanced age (just kidding!), decided to take up ballet in addition to her regular jazz and voice classes. AND her indefatigable learning is only matched by her indefatigable teaching. She coaches aspiring theater talents and teaches musical theater performances every summer in workshops. And all this studiously and quietly pursued. She has the wisdom to recognize that external acclaim is only icing on the cake of the search for excellence.

I have hardly ever been given the opportunity to work with these two thespic giants, and to actually get them working in the same rehearsal hall has got to be one of the highlights of my career as a professional. What is particularly thrilling is that we are working on material that is challenging for each one of us. The Last Five Years is a clever and touching examination of a marriage in trouble that is told from the viewpoints of each of the parties. But whereas the wife tells her story as rueful re-examination, from end to beginning, the husband tells his story from beginning to end, in anticipation and eagerness. The clever storytelling device challenges the actors to clarify their respective time frames and the director must clarify the dual narratives without succumbing to gimmickry.

Not a day passes in rehearsals without some lengthy discussion, some necessary dissection and analysis, and of course there are arguments and of course disagreements do arise. But I expected no less from them and I intend to give them no less. After all, in doing this show together, we are, all three of us, reaffirming our faiths in our craft and ultimately, its necessity to humanity at large. This has got to be the best way to celebrate 25 years practicing the most rewarding child’s play ever invented by man.

The Last Five Years opens on August 29 at 8:00 p.m. with subsequent performances on August 30, September 12 and 13 at 8:00 pm and August 31 and September 14 at 3:30 pm at the Carlos P. Romulo Theater, RCBC Plaza, Ayala Ave., Makati. There will also be performances at Cebu’s Ayala Center on September 5 and 6 at 8:00 pm. Tickets are available through Ticketworld, tel. no. 891-5610.