The Chameleon Maiden Sings The Blues

It is raining and half of the noble and ever loyal city is again under water when we get to talk to singer and actress Bituin Escalante about her upcoming play, Ariel Dorfman’s "Death and the Maiden," and she is feeling a bit under the weather, her neck wrapped in a scarf while waiting for the interview to begin at the Red restaurant in Makati Shangri-La.

The play, about a woman whose memories of rape and repression during Pinochet-era Chile are triggered by the melody of a Schubert piece of the same title–"Death and the "Maiden"–is Bituin’s first straight, non-singing role onstage. This is after the unqualified success of "Once on this Island" which she also did with Bart Guingona of Actors Actors Inc., and a string of strong supporting roles in independent cinema.

"I have a cold," she says, as she sips some tea. She’s been up since four in the morning doing the rounds promoting the upcoming play with her co-stars including Guingona, who directs as well. And just recently, she was in concert with jazz singer Mon David in a very successful gig; why, the lady knows how to sing the blues when she needs to.

Lately things have been a far cry from when Bituin–who grew up in Project 4, a product of an Ivatan mother and a Waray father ("they had long radars," she says, when asked how her parents hooked up)–was relatively starting out in the business playing the role of Mary Magdalene in the local production of "Jesus Christ Superstar" at the GSIS Theater six years ago, opposite heavy metal vocalist Basti Artadi as JC and Robert Seña as Judas.

We remember one particular scene from the musical, when at the end of a number JC Basti literally picks up Bituin Magdalene and carries her off stage, into the fading spotlight.

Now Basti and the rest of the band Wolf-gang have migrated to proverbial greener pastures abroad, but Bituin, who must be pushing 30 based on our humble estimates ("Bata pa ako"), is entertaining no such thoughts as she is enjoying life in these islands. "Ang sarap dito, e."

How did she get into the music business in the first place? "Everyone in our family sings, and not just in the bathroom," says Bituin, who if we heard right is actually a second generation singer, her mom being a member of, what was it, the New Minstrels or the Ambivalent Crowd, among those patented vocal groups that captured the spirit of the late 60s and early 70s.

In QC among her haunts was the nearby Cubao Farmers Market and Farmers Plaza, where up to this day she still does most of her marketing even if she has moved to faraway Parañaque. "It’s the best market in the world," she says of the cheap and fresh produce newly unloaded from the provincial buses at nearby terminals.

She went to school at JASMS along Edsa, where most of her classmates were kindred spirits, "children of rebels and activists."

From the groovy groves of JASMS –which she heard is about to close, a bit of sad news there–it was on to UP Los Baños at the foot of Mt. Makiling in Laguna in the early to mid 90s, where she spent three years, living in an apartment in Umali Subdivision listening to Prince on a cassette recorder when he was already the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, writing for the college paper UPLB Perspective, breaking into creaky Baker Hall with friends in the dead of night for a swim.

And the jeepney ride through College and up forestry way was fairly inspiring because of the constant greenery, so unlike the jeep ride from Project 4 to UP Diliman where she would transfer for her later college years, full of smoke and concrete.

Strangely enough, she says she was never involved in any theater or singing group while at UPLB, where she was however encouraged to contribute to Perspective by her teacher but which she later on tapered off in doing, because she felt writing revealed far too much about herself and those around her. Neither in Diliman, where her fave hangout was the College of Architecture on the topmost floor of the College of Engineering, jamming with friends and drinking some stuff to warm the gut.

But she kept singing, and not necessarily in the bathroom, because little wonder that on this rain dreary day we find out that Bituin has already released two CDs, with a third one in the works. The two previous ones were under major labels, and she is seriously considering going independent for the third CD–the third’s the charm –for greater artistic control.

The memory still rankles how record executives of her last album had asked her to replace four songs with their chosen four. When asked if she’ll finally get to include the bumped off four in the upcoming one, she says no, the theme is now totally different, more on acid jazz and is it swing, so that’s all lost to the wind now, stale as yesterday’s papers.

Did she have to do a bit of research for the Dorfman play? "I lost an uncle. My dad’s brother, who was a priest. He was blamed for helping communists, but they were farmers. He was diabetic and he wasn’t brought to the city hospital in time for treatment."

There were others, of course, mostly friends of relatives, who were victims of martial law that could be co-related to the lead character of "Death and the Maiden" and its milieu.

She also remembers fugitives hiding in schoolbuses with arresting officers hot on their trail.

"Death and the Maiden" by Actor’s Actors is the third Philippine production of the play, after Lito Casaje’s and Alex Cortez’s, the latter a translation into the Filipino from the translation into English from the original Spanish.

Guingona himself is not averse to the possibility of also one day staging it in Filipino, "remember, the English is already a translation."

The director, who plays the lead Paulina Escobar’s husband, is all praises for Bituin, who he describes as "committed, makes intelligent decisions, and has no artifice… she’s very real."

This is totally in keeping with the director’s view that as much as possible, there should be no segues, art is not performance, everything on the brink of the theater of cruelty.

Indeed there are rehearsal nights at Bart’s apartment in Malate, when in the midst of conversation they suddenly shift into the play’s lines effortlessly, as natural as if all the world’s a stage.

Bituin says that there are times when she is acting and then wondering about the rent, but then worldly concerns become secondary in the heat of the moment, when what is being conveyed on stage is life and death and the chameleon maiden herself.

No wonder she looked familiar when we walked in at Red, we had seen her before in Pepot Artista and Ilusyon, two subtle performances onscreen where she doesn’t have to sing either. Or does she? She seems to blend with the crowd, stand out in a startling sequence, then blend back in again leaving us clutching at the flurry of a passing brilliance.

And while she has yet to see Pepot –she can’t stand it watching herself up there in the finished product–she has seen Ilusyon, a copy of which was given to her by direk Paulo Villaluna, her UPLB classmate. She has also appeared in "Wowowee," but was fortunately on leave during the stampede, iwas pusoy.

"I’m a pathological liar," she says, not knowing where lies end and truth begins, glancing sideways at the restaurant mirrors. Even that could be a line from the play, which apart from the light Schubert sonata she is also reminded of Goracki’s "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" on this gray day, grayer even than the boulevard by the apartment where more rehearsals are scheduled in the evening and she can again slip into the role of the rapee, but next time she says she looks forward to playing the role of the rapist, just so she’ll know how it is being at the other end.

Death of a Madien goes on stage at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium (RCBC Plaza, Makati) on August 5, 19 and 20. For ticket information, call Actor’s Actors at tel 536-5844.