From Boublil-Schonberg: 'a musical show for Filipinos by Filipinos'

By Cora Llamas
Published in The Philippine Daily Inquirer, Feb. 1 2014

It was not the typical benefit concert where the usual star-studded cast offered their talents for a worthy cause.

First, the response of the audience benefactors was immediate, and the desired goal was accomplished. By the time the performers made their final bow at curtain call, P24 million had been raised to build 200 homes for residents of Tacloban who had been deprived of their shelter (among other things) by Supertyphoon “Yolanda.”

Second, the stellar cast, top-billed by the Olivier-and-Tony-award-winning legend Lea Salonga and Australian musical theater sensation David Harris, shared the distinctive experience of having performed in any one of the international productions of “Les Miserables” and “Miss Saigon,” today among the most popular, longest-running musicals in Broadway and/or the West End.

Another chapter

Finally, the Manila version of the concert billed “Do You Hear the People Sing?” was another chapter in the continuing relationship between the creators of those musicals and the Filipino people. Claude-Michel Schonberg, who was in London when Yolanda hit the Philippines, phoned his long-time writing partner Alain Boublil in New York, suggesting that they stage the concert—which had been enjoying a successful run in Southeast Asia—in Manila as a fundraiser.

Boublil agreed and contacted Salonga, who then started the huge job of organizing two performances.

There were significant differences in the Manila show. Eight more soloists were added to sing what could possibly be the definitive line-up of numbers from the Schonberg-Boublil canon, including the lesser-known shows “Martin Guerre,” “The Pirate Queen” and the French-language “La Revolution Francaise.”

Conductor Gerard Salonga worked with the French creative duo for the first time (although he had known them for decades) to orchestrate the musical, which were premiering new or reinvented songs. Salonga was also ably supported by Pinoy theater and concert stalwarts such as Leo Valdez, Cocoy Laurel, Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo, Jed Madela, Michael Williams, Rachelle Ann Go, Carla Guevara-Laforteza, and Robbie Guevarra, just to name a few.

As Schonberg put it, the powerhouse talent—onstage and behind-the-scenes, all of whom waived their talent fees for the benefit—made this particular version of “Do You Hear the People Sing” a musical show “for Filipinos by Filipinos.”

Special relationship

“We have a special relationship with the Philippines,” he added. “It is a special place for us. I first came to Manila in 1988 when we were doing auditions for the original production of ‘Miss Saigon.’ Since then, I have been here 74 times.”

That first time landed Salonga in the “Miss Saigon” titular role and cast other Filipino musical theater artists in the ensemble. It was the culmination of a long worldwide search by Schonberg, Boublil and producer Cameron Mackintosh that had long since made the annals of theater history. It also opened doors for more Pinoy artists to make successful careers in Broadway and West End musical productions.

“We have a lot to give back,” said Boublil. “Up to today, there is not a cast of ‘Miss Saigon’ that does not have a Filipino in it, or at least one with Filipino lineage, even if they grew up in the US or the UK.”

The connection is even more personal for Schonberg. He adopted a daughter from the Philippines who is now 21 years old and taking up design classes in a French school. Also, the orphanage he put up in Parañaque, named Sun and Moon from one of “Miss Saigon’s” musical number, currently has 200 children in its care, in partnership with the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

“What we do”—he said of the concert and the orphanage, in light of the immense problems of poverty and the effects of disasters in the country—“is but a drop in the bucket, but we do what we can.”

Transformation

Their experiences offstage have had a hand in the transformation of their musicals. As shown in the Manila version of “Do You Hear the People Sing?”, songs that didn’t make it to musicals were now included in the lineup—such as “Too Much for One Heart” (which Salonga said the creators regretted cutting from “Miss Saigon”), and “I Still Believe,” the Kim-Ellen duet that has undergone revision to paint a more accurate \ portrayal of the protagonists’ situation.

“After 20 years, your point of view changes,” says Boublil. “You learn more, especially what is more relevant to the people in the world. It adds to the songwriting and the creative process.”

The songwriters’ journey continues. “Do You Hear the People Sing?” will open in Taipei by end of March and continue on to other Asian and possibly American cities. But the Filipino connection will remain.

“I love it here,” said Schonberg.

THEATER REVIEW: Dulaang UP's 'Teatro Porvenir': revolution immortalized through art

By Cora Llamas
Published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, December 7 2013

With the numerous plays today celebrating Andres Bonifacio’s sesquicentennial, Dulaang UP tries a different approach with Tim Dacanay’s Palanca-award winning play, the full title of which is “Teatro Porvenir: Ang Katangi-tanging Kasaysayan ni Andres Bonifacio, Macario Sakay at Aurelio Tolentino sa Entabalado.”

JOEL Saracho

The title is a giveaway. Bonifacio is undoubtedly the hero of the piece, but he shares center stage with the other mentioned heroes, as well as Jose Rizal, who makes a cameo appearance (more on that later).

The interaction of these great men who inhabited different eras, fought different oppressors and may not even have met in real life (such as Bonifacio and Rizal) immediately establishes the play as an alternative universe (in modern-day language).

Teatro Porvenir, the titular theater company and venue, is set in another plane, allowing Dacanay and director Alex Cortez a bigger artistic space to create what Dulaang UP has described as “a re-imagining of the history of the Katipunan.”

Meeting ground

Jojit Lorenzo

“Teatro Porvenir” is the meeting ground where the different fathers of the Filipino war for independence establish their friendships, collaborate and launch their campaign. Bonifacio (Romnick Sarmenta) and his brothers are portrayed as lovers of the dramatic form, who intend to use it as a platform for propaganda against the Spaniards. And they find all too willing allies in fellow leaders like the younger Emilio Jacinto and Macario Sakay (Jojit Lorenzo), who, historically, was one of the last Filipino freedom fighters to resist the Americans, decades after Bonifacio’s death.

However, the character that acts as the fulcrum of the play, as the conduit between the different heroes and between the notions of art and war, is Aurelio Tolentino (Joel Saracho). 

According to history, Tolentino was a close friend of Bonifacio who joined him as a member of the Katipunan. He survived both Bonifacio’s death and the arrest of Emilio Aguinaldo to continue the war for freedom, but this time as a dramatist and a newspaper editor.

What is unique to Tolentino is that he traverses the worlds of both Bonifacio and Sakay in their respective struggles against the Spaniards and Americans. He was present in the campaigns against both conquerors.

Bitter lesson

In the play, Tolentino is the head of Teatro Porvenir, creating dramatic works and rehearsing his fellow revolutionaries to perform in them. However, once the first guns start firing, not surprisingly, and to Tolentino’s distress, Bonifacio, Sakay and the others give up their moro-moro aspirations to participate in the actual war.

Romnick Sarmenta

Dacanay’s script and Cortez’s direction pull no punches to show how the revolution was eventually lost through infighting and betrayal. It is a bitter lesson all of us learned in school, but one that still packs an emotional wallop when dramatized.

The performances, especially of the leads, are affecting. Irrational though it may be, they make one wish that the outcome of history had been different.

Dacanay also makes his case that art becomes the ultimate battleground for freedom by establishing the-play-within-the-play scenario. At one point, Bonifacio and the Katipuneros are amateur actors cast in the productions of Teatro Porvenir.  Then, after they launch the revolution, they become part of a much greater drama, not merely of the painful birth of a nation, but the murderous politicking behind it.

Nuanced transition

The transition from one phase to another is very nuanced, and one has to listen to the dialogue and be aware of what is happening onstage in order to follow the shift and make the necessary distinctions.

Sometimes, the undercurrent of equating art with life increases the burden in exposition, and tends to make a play didactic. Here, while the background information is interesting, too much of it slows down the first act and makes it stilted, preventing the play from devoting more time to developing our heroes’ motivations or showing deeper layers of their characters.

It is in the second act that the play shines, when all the historical information either narrated by the performers or illustrated in the production design seamlessly come together to support the events and personalities on stage. It is ironic and fitting at the same time, as this is the part where the central figures leave the confines of the Teatro Porvenir that has nurtured them, to fulfill their roles as flesh-and-blood heroes on the larger stage of Philippine history.

Rizal is allotted a dutiful spotlight near the end, without adequate preparation in the prior scenes. That bit of inconsistency aside, it still makes for a hopeful, powerful ending that overcomes the anguish in the second act.

But it is the writer Tolentino who survives the upheavals, to make his stage the vehicle for the spirits of his friends and allies to dwell in. Their immortalization in his art, and in the works of his creative descendants, only signifies that the revolution is far from over.