Divinity and ignorance
Published Feb 24, 2018 04:05 pm
By AA Patawaran
Images by Adrian Begonia
There are many things I consider rave-worthy in “Himala Isang Musikal,” the 15th anniversary remake of the musical adaptation of the 1982 Ishmael Bernal classic, which starred Nora Aunor. I was too young in 1982, and it took many years before I was finally able to see it, but before then, like many of the Philippine cinema greats, I had heard enough about it, such glowing reviews, that I came to the conclusion that I was born too late, that all that was left for me was the residue of what used to be the golden age of great filmmaking in my country.
There’s still until next weekend to catch “Himala Isang Musikal” at the Power Mac Center Spotlight at Circuit Makati, but the weekend I got to see it, I might have run out of raves. Each scene would unfold to up the one before it, and I won’t be exaggerating if I said it was a play of which every scene was a favorite of mine, but now that I have the benefit of hindsight, what sticks with me the most is the confrontation between Elsa (Aicelle Santos) and Nimia (Kakai Teodora), two old friends who lost their common ground and became polar opposites, the “Virgin” and the “Whore.” I think that said a lot about our ideas of a judgmental, vengeful God and how we use such God to either honor or denounce ourselves and each other.
Thanks to this collaboration between the Sandbox Collective and 9 Works Theatrical, the timeless masterpiece by National Artist for Film Ishmael Bernal once again leaped from screen to stage as a musical under the direction of Ed Lacson Jr. and with Ricky Lee, who wrote the story and screenplay for the 1982 movie, collaborating this time with Vincent de Jesus on the music and lyrics 15 years after the first musical adaptation and 35 years after the film (musical arrangement was by Jed Balsamo).
The result is a story stripped down to its very core, with only a piano played live to heighten the emotional impact, and no lapel mics, just raw voices and feelings to stir up feelings. I watched a matinee on a Sunday afternoon and the entire theater was on fire, intense and undisguised, not only among the performers, but also among the viewers. It helped that the theater setup was such that the line between the show and its audience was almost invisible, the production design elements jutting into the row of seats—a canopy of cogon overhead, dried-up talahib (coarse grass with razor-sharp edges) at your feet, some seats under the thatched roof of a nipa hut—that, in fact, made the experience so intimate and immersive that we, the audience, literally, physically felt like we were transported to Cupang, a fictional arid town on the edges of civilization, where the story of Elsa, a young woman visited by the Virgin Mary and given the power to heal not so much by the Marian apparition as by fanaticism, was set.
Just as perfect as the set and production design (also by the director who kept them at their minimalist best), the music, the story, and everything else, even the costume design by Carlo Pagunaling, is the cast. I’d need this entire space if I were to name them all, each member of the ensemble, whose voices and presence on stage were equally loud and clear and riveting as those of the leads who played Elsa, Nimia, and Chayong (Neomi Gonzalez), the third of their group “Tres Marias,” three friends who stuck together throughout childhood “parang malagkit (like rice cake);” Pilo (Sandino Martin), Chayong’s lover; Orly (David Ezra), who plays a filmmaker come to town to document the “himala;” and “Padre” (Floyd Tena) the town priest; and Aling Saling (Bituin Escalante), Elsa’s mother.
The love story between Chayong and Pilo added fuel to the fire, a subplot equally endearing and tension-filled as the main event of Elsa transitioning from ordinary village girl to almost a deity (“Wala na ang dating Elsa. Ako ay tinig ng Diyos at kasangkapan niya”). Martin’s portrayal of Pilo’s restlessness, his eagerness to possess Chayong as well as to escape life in their small, claustrophobic town, stood out from the start. From the moment he stepped onto the scene, I was rooting for him and Chayong, who devoted herself to the service of Elsa and, through her, the service of God. I hoped against hope that nothing—not good, not evil—would come between them.
I watched the musical with my friend Monique Madsen, fashion editor at the Philippine Tatler, and we exchanged knowing looks at the part in which the miracles of Cupang drew in the curious and the devotees and, along with them, the merchants, the traders, the marketers, and the con men (aka politicians), their ice tubig, their Cupang tours, their enterprising slogans, and campaign spiels in tow. The imagemakers were no less enthused by the possibilities that only a day before the apparition had not existed in Cupang. “Bihisan si Elsa (Let’s dress her up)!” they proposed, eyes wide with ideas. “I-bote ang benditadong tubig at i-benta sa mga nawalan na ng pag-asa (Let’s bottle the water blessed by Elsa and sell it to the hopeless)!” I am making up the words from memory, but something to this effect, but at this point, both of us in lifestyle media, always on the lookout for something extraordinary and mandated to go to town with it, Monique and I looked at each other, our eyes saying, “Oh my God, this is what we do.”
And this is why I love Himala, the film as much as the musical it spawned that reminded me of how much of a mirror of life it is, an intimate look at what makes us tragically human, because, although Cupang is fictional, tucked away in the fringes of life as we live it in this modern, bustling, rising city, it is, at its very core, the story of us. Especially, if I may get back to the scene that sticks the most in my head, the confrontation between Elsa, the almost-saint, and Nimia, the sinner, over the whorehouse the latter set up in Cupang. In this scene, Nimia cried, “Elsa, sabihin mo sa akin ang ating pinagkaiba…ang binebenta ko’y laman, kayo nama’y himala. Libo-libong kaluluwa’y nililinlang n’yo. Kayo’y nakikinabang sa kamangmangan ng tao (Elsa, pray tell, what’s the difference? I sell flesh, you sell miracles. You are fooling around with the souls of thousands. You’re exploiting the people’s ignorance.)”
That scene alone deserves a prolonged standing ovation.
Himala Isang Musikal runs until March 4 at Power Mac Center Spotlight at Circuit Makati.
There are many things I consider rave-worthy in “Himala Isang Musikal,” the 15th anniversary remake of the musical adaptation of the 1982 Ishmael Bernal classic, which starred Nora Aunor. I was too young in 1982, and it took many years before I was finally able to see it, but before then, like many of the Philippine cinema greats, I had heard enough about it, such glowing reviews, that I came to the conclusion that I was born too late, that all that was left for me was the residue of what used to be the golden age of great filmmaking in my country.
There’s still until next weekend to catch “Himala Isang Musikal” at the Power Mac Center Spotlight at Circuit Makati, but the weekend I got to see it, I might have run out of raves. Each scene would unfold to up the one before it, and I won’t be exaggerating if I said it was a play of which every scene was a favorite of mine, but now that I have the benefit of hindsight, what sticks with me the most is the confrontation between Elsa (Aicelle Santos) and Nimia (Kakai Teodora), two old friends who lost their common ground and became polar opposites, the “Virgin” and the “Whore.” I think that said a lot about our ideas of a judgmental, vengeful God and how we use such God to either honor or denounce ourselves and each other.
Thanks to this collaboration between the Sandbox Collective and 9 Works Theatrical, the timeless masterpiece by National Artist for Film Ishmael Bernal once again leaped from screen to stage as a musical under the direction of Ed Lacson Jr. and with Ricky Lee, who wrote the story and screenplay for the 1982 movie, collaborating this time with Vincent de Jesus on the music and lyrics 15 years after the first musical adaptation and 35 years after the film (musical arrangement was by Jed Balsamo).
The result is a story stripped down to its very core, with only a piano played live to heighten the emotional impact, and no lapel mics, just raw voices and feelings to stir up feelings. I watched a matinee on a Sunday afternoon and the entire theater was on fire, intense and undisguised, not only among the performers, but also among the viewers. It helped that the theater setup was such that the line between the show and its audience was almost invisible, the production design elements jutting into the row of seats—a canopy of cogon overhead, dried-up talahib (coarse grass with razor-sharp edges) at your feet, some seats under the thatched roof of a nipa hut—that, in fact, made the experience so intimate and immersive that we, the audience, literally, physically felt like we were transported to Cupang, a fictional arid town on the edges of civilization, where the story of Elsa, a young woman visited by the Virgin Mary and given the power to heal not so much by the Marian apparition as by fanaticism, was set.
Just as perfect as the set and production design (also by the director who kept them at their minimalist best), the music, the story, and everything else, even the costume design by Carlo Pagunaling, is the cast. I’d need this entire space if I were to name them all, each member of the ensemble, whose voices and presence on stage were equally loud and clear and riveting as those of the leads who played Elsa, Nimia, and Chayong (Neomi Gonzalez), the third of their group “Tres Marias,” three friends who stuck together throughout childhood “parang malagkit (like rice cake);” Pilo (Sandino Martin), Chayong’s lover; Orly (David Ezra), who plays a filmmaker come to town to document the “himala;” and “Padre” (Floyd Tena) the town priest; and Aling Saling (Bituin Escalante), Elsa’s mother.
The love story between Chayong and Pilo added fuel to the fire, a subplot equally endearing and tension-filled as the main event of Elsa transitioning from ordinary village girl to almost a deity (“Wala na ang dating Elsa. Ako ay tinig ng Diyos at kasangkapan niya”). Martin’s portrayal of Pilo’s restlessness, his eagerness to possess Chayong as well as to escape life in their small, claustrophobic town, stood out from the start. From the moment he stepped onto the scene, I was rooting for him and Chayong, who devoted herself to the service of Elsa and, through her, the service of God. I hoped against hope that nothing—not good, not evil—would come between them.
I watched the musical with my friend Monique Madsen, fashion editor at the Philippine Tatler, and we exchanged knowing looks at the part in which the miracles of Cupang drew in the curious and the devotees and, along with them, the merchants, the traders, the marketers, and the con men (aka politicians), their ice tubig, their Cupang tours, their enterprising slogans, and campaign spiels in tow. The imagemakers were no less enthused by the possibilities that only a day before the apparition had not existed in Cupang. “Bihisan si Elsa (Let’s dress her up)!” they proposed, eyes wide with ideas. “I-bote ang benditadong tubig at i-benta sa mga nawalan na ng pag-asa (Let’s bottle the water blessed by Elsa and sell it to the hopeless)!” I am making up the words from memory, but something to this effect, but at this point, both of us in lifestyle media, always on the lookout for something extraordinary and mandated to go to town with it, Monique and I looked at each other, our eyes saying, “Oh my God, this is what we do.”
And this is why I love Himala, the film as much as the musical it spawned that reminded me of how much of a mirror of life it is, an intimate look at what makes us tragically human, because, although Cupang is fictional, tucked away in the fringes of life as we live it in this modern, bustling, rising city, it is, at its very core, the story of us. Especially, if I may get back to the scene that sticks the most in my head, the confrontation between Elsa, the almost-saint, and Nimia, the sinner, over the whorehouse the latter set up in Cupang. In this scene, Nimia cried, “Elsa, sabihin mo sa akin ang ating pinagkaiba…ang binebenta ko’y laman, kayo nama’y himala. Libo-libong kaluluwa’y nililinlang n’yo. Kayo’y nakikinabang sa kamangmangan ng tao (Elsa, pray tell, what’s the difference? I sell flesh, you sell miracles. You are fooling around with the souls of thousands. You’re exploiting the people’s ignorance.)”
That scene alone deserves a prolonged standing ovation.
Himala Isang Musikal runs until March 4 at Power Mac Center Spotlight at Circuit Makati.