Expat Chameleon

Expatriate actor Arthur Acuña remembers a difficult time in the 1990s when for several years he had taken care of his father, who was downed by a stroke in New York City. He alternated with his mom in the caregiving duties, looking after his dad during the daytime while taking on odd jobs at night, such as bartender working the graveyard shift.

You can work around your schedules, make things fit, so it all comes together, he says. The last time the elder Acuña was in hospital, Arthur says he had an ongoing off-Broadway show, so he had to shuttle to the hospital then back to the theater, amid worrying about the medical expenses piling up, but he thanks the St. Mary’s Hospital in Hoboken for helping foot the bill, otherwise they would have been reduced to penury in a foreign land.

Filipino? This line uttered by a child in Sari Dalena and Keith Sicat’s indie film Rigodon comes to mind when we interview Acuña at the garden near the employees’ entrance at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, shortly before his rehearsals for the play Golden Child by David Henry Hwang, where he plays the role of the Chinese patriarch with three wives who makes good in business in Manila.

One can only be so lucky he says, as during the course of the interview, wives one two and three troop in one after the other for rehearsals.

It was in Rigodon where we first saw him in the role of a prize fighter in New York, a TNT (tago ng tago) who sought the help of his fellow expat, a poet played by Joel Torre. Chinchin Gutierrez as the devotee completes the triangle of strangers in a strange land, each with their respective doses of alienation.

Arthur plays Amado, a boxer who receives news of his dying father back in the homeland, something the actor is not entirely unfamiliar with. In the 2005 digital film Acuña sort of resembles Jose Rizal, with the prominent jawbone and quiet mien, although here one could well imagine the old Simon Garfunkel song in the background: “I am just a poor boy though my story’s seldom told… ”

He says he saw Sari just the other night at a gallery where she has a group exhibit, and the filmmaker couple have returned and decided to settle down in the Philippines. Filipino? Yes, by all means.

Though Rigodon itself received mixed reviews, there was no denying that it was a visual trip, full of well-angled shots and subtle composition, a lyrical, moody film with political undertones.

That last shot of the suddenly crewcut actor framed by what could be Niagara Falls may be an unintended segue to his present stage work in Golden Child, as he is now equally close cropped, as I had hardly recognized him in his transition from a boxing Rizal to a Chinese merchant who sails for Manila.

Acuña, 46, started acting in his college days at De La Salle University’s theater guild doing plays like Takipsilim (Shadowbox) and Ang Barako (The Boor), the latter a translation from Chekhov, with fellow La Sallian contemporary Alicia Herrera, nee Alegria, now with BusinessWorld.

He also did plays for SRO and Repertory in the ’80s, before migrating to the States early the next decade. He returned to the stage in 1992, acting in plays in his early expat life.

As for preparation, Acuña says it is practically the same for him in either theater or film, it is in the execution where they differ.

One can’t always expect to have as good a night as the previous one on stage, and he says relying too much on emotional signposts as the play progresses is fake, because that’s not life. Spontaneity is key, and so too is the interplay between actors, the uncharted dynamic. This is because no line is spoken the same way twice, no matter how often the play is staged by the same actors.

New York too is the setting of Lav Diaz’s five-hour film Batang West Side, in which Acuña also appeared. The movie is considered short by Diaz’s standards, as the director was to soon embark on his trilogy of 10-hour opuses. In a recent visit to Manila, Acuña ran into Diaz at Mogwai in Cubao and they had some epic catching up to do.

Aside from Rigodon and Batang West Side, Acuña has also acted most recently in Denisa Reyes’ Hubad, where he plays a panggulo in the lives of two dysfunctional real life couples, with the wife in one couple having an affair with the husband in the other couple.

A good number of the scenes were shot in Penguin Café in Malate, Acuña says, and Hubad made its world premier at the recent Cinemalaya festival.

In a recent visit earlier this year the actor also was guest in a Kontra Korupsyon TV serial where he played a corrupt mayor, with three pages of dialogue, while Joel Torre played an NBI agent.

But with the 1 p.m. rehearsal call time fast approaching, and wives one two and three (Irma Adlawan, Tina Chilip, Liesl Batucan) already in, Acuña says we better wrap up quick, so we ask him what line from the play most sticks to his mind when he’s not at rehearsals.

“I am an individual,” the Chinese patriarch says to his ancestors, noting that everything one does is tied up to the past as well as the future, all the relatives in varied space and time zones of history.

In a way the line sums up his character’s declaration of independence, even defiance, against all those who want to tie him down to age-old tradition, however great and ancient that tradition is.

For spoiler alert, Acuña says his character loves wife number 3 the most, in fact he was ready to leave the two others to be with her only, it’s just that the favorite wife died at childbirth.

It was his co-actor in Golden Child Leo Rialp who pointed out that the Chinese character for trouble resembled a house under whose roof there seemed to be two wives. One can only be so lucky.

The play runs for four weekends in August, the first two in the original English, the last two in the Tagalog translation by Dennis Marasigan. (The run has been extended to the first weekend of September, at the CCP Little Theater. – Ed)

After which it’s back to the States for Acuña, for the restaging of The Romance of Magno Rubio in the west coast with director Loy Arcenas, with whom he earned plaudits in a Romanian theater fest sometime ago, and before yearend he’s slated to play the title role in Macbeth. Bloody hectic, but he still takes time to enjoy his latest visit, hanging out in his late lola’s house in Parañaque, keeping in touch with old La Salle theater guild friends before gearing up for his next transformation.

The actor doesn’t look the same way twice. Hardly any cameos for this chameleon.