Bedroom politics in Evening at the Opera

When a stage is filled with a king-size bed, a dresser, and an ottoman you don't know when to begin feeling uncomfortable: the mere sight of a bed conjures up a sex scene, and sex is always reason for discomfort amongst an immature audience, including the three guys behind me who chatted each other up throughout the play before this one. But sex as we imagine it wouldn't be reason for discomfort in that cold little theater; it would be politics that would hush the noisiest of audiences, encapsulated as it is in this bedroom. Floy Quintos' Evening at the Opera (directed by Jomari Jose) is the story of rural politics, as we know it, as we hear it in the news, as it has been imagined in movies, presented by documentaries. That this is also the story of dynasties left unquestioned, of marriages of convenience, of political machismo, of class versus crass, of the wealthy and rich among us, are layers that thicken this stage of a stark white bed and a governor's wife in a bright red dress. She is Miranda: intelligent kolehiyala, smart as it can only happen in English. She is prepping for the opera being staged at the provincial kapitolyo. She is finishing a glass of scotch as she finishes her make-up and puts her hair in a bun. She is talking to her Mamang, dead as she is but present in Miranda's life, like a conscience not quieted down, a lesson unlearned. The mother and daughter are exchanging barbs: daughter says she only followed the mother's wishes, the mother says that certainly this has meant her daughter's happiness.

But happiness is irrelevant in this bedroom; in fact it has no place at all here. Miranda's marriage to Governor Bingo Beloto is made of the corrupt dynasties they were born into, is made of this life of power they live, where Miranda is allowed her love for culture even staging an opera in the town plaza, and Bingo is allowed to throw his weight around the whole province. The image of both Miranda and Bingo make this more real than imagined: Miranda is frail thin wife, Bingo is dirty and hefty, sleazy and scary. Between the two of them the province is run the good ol' malakas and maganda way, where the oppressive and dictatorial is balanced out by the true, good, beautiful. But within that bedroom, in this conversation, the point was the power play between the two of them: who's in control of what, who's got more skeletons in the closet, who's complicit in the corruption? Bingo is everything a corrupt politician is, fearless and untouchable, but in the face of his wife and her world he is half-confused, sometimes seeming like a dimwit, other times part of a conversation doomed to fail given his provincial accent, her kolehiyala English. It doesn't help Bingo any that save for the usual political wifely duties of charity work and culture, Miranda is in control: just like her mother, she's got the goods on her husband's infidelity. Unlike her mother, she's got more on her husband, complicit as she is in his corruption. This gives Miranda the upper hand in conversations such as this one, the one about the opera and the governor who arrives late, the one that's about infidelity, corruption, abuse. Miranda is in control because she has conceded to the inevitable and expected, because she insists on honesty no matter how painful, because she is steel even when the hand of violence is on her. In that small theater, Miranda's eyes were steel. This kind of power is in all of three actors on that stage, forcing the audience to suspend compassion and distrust. Frances Makil Ignacio as Mamang has the most succinct timing, as her own narrative is interspersed with the conversation of husband and wife, where her silence is a presence still. Jonathan Tadioan's Governor Beloto is stereotype perfectly portrayed, scary and disgusting, proving our greatest fears about the powerful in our midst, about machismo made worse by politics. Tadioan's characterization here is also about that language he brings to life, where the provincial Tagalog and English becomes part of the character's shamelessness. Anna Abad Santos' Miranda will have you in the palm of her hand as the woman who might have wanted to live life differently, but between her mother and husband is stuck where she is. It's to Abad Santos' credit that when she finally speaks of the opera, the melancholia could bring you to tears. It's to her credit that there is barely sadness or pity for this character, but there is a sense of sisterhood with this woman no matter that she doesn't seem to need a sister. But it is because of Quintos' skill in Evening at the Opera that these characters make sense without being cliché, within a text that weaves a narrative with nary an uncertain word, with language that is spoken across two generations, between a husband and wife, in English and Filipino, one that is not reason for confusion but makes sense, is real to us who are here. Quintos' story of one evening inside a bedroom unfolds and seamlessly includes the audience as an integral part of it: instead of being voyeurs, the political narrative forces us into silence because we are its victim, we are complicit in it, we are doomed to it. Private bedrooms, Italian operas, provincial politics, it's all about us here. That we might not know it otherwise, is precisely the point. Evening At The Opera is part of Virgin Labfest 7, running until July 20, 2011 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines' Tanghalang Huseng Batute.