Reckoning with Repertory

Elsewhere in this space, I speak of how there is pride—original Pinoy pride—to be had in original Philippine theater. Those productions that have the blood, sweat, tears of a Pinoy playwright and director and cast, are the kind that I like to celebrate by default, the effort in itself, at least to me, already far larger than local theater versions of Broadway or West End texts. 

 

But after seeing “Next To Normal” last year, after seeing the talent that is in “Next Fall” and “Sweet Charity” among so many other plays, I’ve spoken too about the value of doing these foreign productions. And yes, Pinoy talent knocking it out of the ballpark has everything to do with it, beyond the limits of doing it the way the foreign productions require. Sometimes it is within these limitations that we also prove our genius.

After the past two years of seeing more local theater than I ever have, and being gifted really with the wonder that is Mario O’ Hara’s “Stageshow”—all-Pinoy and all-original—which I implore everyone to see, it seems perfect that it would be Repertory Philippines that puts me in my place, that forces really a reassessment of the value of theater companies that rarely mount, if at all, productions of locally-written plays.

 

It is in this reassessment of course that Rep proves how it leads the pack with more pride than we might understand. Easily, it is the years it has over the other theater companies, born as it was in 1967. More importantly, it is what those years mean, what the stretch of four and half decades has meant for Rep, what it has meant for nation even as we might like to deny it.

 

This is no false claim on Filipino talent, the kind that the world has seen. Lea Salonga and Monique Wilson led that first batch of Filipinos who went off to London to do “Miss Saigon” in 1989; they were the first of many Filipinos who would be part of the musicale’s run from Toronto to Stuttgart, Holland to Austria. That list of Filipinos is a long one, the breadth and scope of work done by these Filipino actors and actresses within and beyond “Miss Saigon,” yet to be documented. 

 

What might be easily documented though, and what Rep can unquestionably lay claim to, is the fact that before the world saw Filipino theatrical talent, this theater company knew to value this talent. It is Rep that gave these actors and actresses the training that prepared them for the bigger theatrical world. 

 

This was in much of what Audie Gemora had to say, on the Repertory stage with young actors and actresses, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, the cast of the company’s upcoming big musicale. And I couldn’t help but agree that if we are to measure the value of Rep, if we were to look at its contribution to Philippine theater, we must—we should—go beyond questioning the foreign productions it mounts.

 

Because it is within Rep that talents are trained, it is under the kind of discipline that theater stalwarts Bibot Amador and Baby Barredo strictly upheld that the world would come to know of Filipino theater talent that is professional and hardworking, persistent and resilient. 

 

It was always extraordinary to me that Lea was able to do Kim, baring body and doing sex onstage, just because we know of so many who wouldn’t know to do exactly that, who wouldn’t know to go that extra mile and forge through conservatism of any kind, because it’s what needs to be done. Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo talks about the how the show must go on, no matter that she might not have a voice; I remember my sister-in-law Patty Manahan (now hyphenated with a Santiago) going onstage for "Les Miserables" with a sprained ankle. 

I realize that as I talk about Lauchengco-Yulo’s brilliance in “Next to Normal,” and as I celebrate Leisl Batucan’s “Stageshow” performance, both owe much of that to Rep. The same goes for talking about Lorenz Martinez on “Forbidden Broadway” and “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” or Topper Fabregas in “Shakespeare in Hollywood” or Cris Villonco in “Walang Sugat.” 

 

Batucan in particular who was singing, dancing, acting in Filipino for all of “Stageshow” could only fall back on Repertory training: by the time she was doing the lead Ester, her Filipino was flawless. Anyone who was seeing her perform for the first time wouldn’t know that what she knows like the back of her hand are those English-language-texts and accent-variation-heavy Rep productions.  

 

Which is as well to say this: there is value in our local theater companies’ engagement with these foreign texts, no matter that these might limit them, too. I’d like to think that across 9Works, Atlantis Productions, Upstart Productions and Rep, the task of tackling these foreign plays is always a creative one. Of course the more snooty, if not those who have seen these productions staged in their original contexts, would critique on the level of mimicry, would gaze upon local theater’s take on it with an upturned nose. 

 

But for those of us who will watch these productions only as part of local theater history, what we’re allowed to see is not just a display of local talent, cast and production included; more importantly, I realize now, we are given a sense of how local theater is far larger than what’s happening in our local languages, than what’s going on in CCP and PETA. Certainly we must wrestle with the snootiness that is of the anti-English theater kind. 

 

Because there is much to be said about Repertory Philippines, all 45 years of it, plodding through regardless of this nation’s travails. To say that it has persisted without government support, despite political instability and the changing landscape of culture, is an understatement. 

 

It was a great moment of being put in my place, this realization that the productions that have floored me and brought me to tears, that have allowed me to live in countless ways through local theater in whatever language, has everything to do with Repertory Philippines.  Because it’s a realization that is a reminder, too.

 

It’s not so much that we have talent that we do not know to acknowledge. It’s that we have talent, and they are cared for and trained on these shores, without government support, and within independently driven cultural institutions. Rep just might have kicked-off the indie for theater, and yes, it might fall back on that given the phantoms of huge foreign productions finding a market in this country. 

 

And too there is this: Rep’s kind of theater is one that celebrates diversity, where this bunch of teenagers on that stage with Gemora was a beautifully real display of heterogeneity, i.e., without the sleek and faked-up images of celebrity as we know it today. For that and everything else that’s here, you thank heavens for Repertory Philippines. –KG, GMA News

 

Repertory Philippines’ big musicale for this theater season is “Camp Rock” with a cast of teenagers, many of whom are performing on stage for the first time, doing roles made famous by the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato. It’s directed by Audie Gemora, choreographed by Paulo Infante, and with musical direction by Felix Rivera. It runs from November 16 to December 16 at Onstage in Greenbelt 1, Ayala Center, Makati City.