I am supposed to visit you in S. Korea when I come there in October. I didn’t tell you first about this plan because I could see that you are in and out of the hospital the past few months. I don’t didn’t want to pressure you to get better. I saw your last post that your were put in isolation. I had always prayed for you whenever your body failed you. Then I read Yo’s early morning post that you already passed. I was in Singapore at that time. I couldn’t process your death well because I was busy with work in a foreign country.
You were the stage actress that I looked up to in our group. I remember that time when I sang Joey Ayala’s “Bathala”, you provided the impromptu interpretative dance that had everybody in stitches. You taught the craft at the Philippine High School for the Arts when I left to pursue my journalism career and I told myself, how lucky were the students to have you as their mentor. When I was making a fool of myself during one of our performances in Letran because I was struggling with the Henerala Agueda character (I wasn’t able to completely memorize the script), you supported me by ad lib-ing so much.
I never heard a negative feedback from you even though I was messing up. You always encouraged me. You and Bill saw my potential way back in high school and the rest of the ensemble took me in after that.
I’m sorry I was not so much of a friend the past few years. We were all charting our own paths, with our own struggles. When Bart died at the start of the pandemic, I worried about you because you were among the immunocompromised people I know. But then I knew you were better off there than being stuck here although you are away from family. I thought that your university where you taught ought to be taking care of you well…
Your love for the theater and the arts never died as you continued your podcasts with our fellow stage people even from afar.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
No more pain. You are now with Him.
While you aren’t here in this photo, this still reminds me of our group. Our memory keeper, Bart, already went ahead of you so we couldn’t recover our archives.
Dear Theater Actor,
Congratulations! You had a good opening night. You received so much flowers and gifts from admirers. I don’t think I ever received such gifts on any opening night I had…😂😂😂 Hopefully I can still catch the last run of your performance, but damn it’s so difficult. Scheduling my vegetable shopping is already difficult for me. Hahahaha! Shall I bring flowers backstage? I dunno; it will just get buried with all the other flowers that you often receive. Am I brave enough to meet you backstage? That I have yet to see.
You don’t know me and I don’t think you would ever know me. But one day I would be able to watch you on stage.
You make me smile.
I came from the stage, too. I can see how intense your rehearsals are. I’ve been there. But eventually I had to choose writing over the stage. You, on the other hand, chose the harder road.
Would you be able to get to know me? Maybe. If I would be brave enough to meet you backstage. But I’m not brave. So I’ll just watch you from afar.
The markets are on a tailspin and commodities traders are going nuts. I’ve never seen prices like this before, not even in 2008 when the world had gone mad.
Nickel miners here in the Philippines and Indonesia must be very happy right now but industrials are not. Steel bars are going to be very expensive and it would hit real estate companies that are building high rises. I remember one former Ayala Land president getting fired for hedging steel bars in 2007-2008, when prices were sky-high (according to grapevine). I was the one who interviewed him when he revealed that they hedged. That was also the problem with Philippine Airlines around that time, they hedged jet fuel—and registered losses when it just exited receivership. I clearly remember those times when I had been busy writing about those things…writing about going into the red. By that time I was already used to writing so much negative news having been seasoned by the global financial crisis–especially after Lehman Brothers fell.
I remember asking real estate companies then if they would make their units smaller or scale back project launches given that all prices of raw materials shot up. Their answer: both.
Younger local reporters ought to ask the corporates the same questions now if these reporters are enterprising and not boxed in like the usual lazy reportage that I had seen in my time with local media. During this time I should also have to ask them about possible refinancing or deleveraging given that interest rates would soon swing to an unfavorable direction. Let’s see how their financing programs would pan out with this crazy market that we have right now.
I’ve been watching sketching and urban sketching lessons online along with my Domestika subscription to level up my basic skills whenever I couldn’t sleep. I draw until I feel sleepy. It’s hard to have your mind blank when you’re waiting for your brain to stop working.
My facial proportion exercise no. 1. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
I purchased this course but I haven’t been following it step by step because I have a day job.
Initial oputput. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
I let this scene of Metro Manila viewed from Padi’s Point, Sumulong Highway, Antipolo dry first before layering.
Waiting for it to dry again. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
It’s hard to get the light colors right because the watercolors sometimes look like they’re enough when wet but when they dry up they look very transparent. So I need to layer again and again just to get it right. I’ll do the third layering tomorrow. My sister-in-law said this looks like the start of a zombie apocalypse.
Two nights ago I had a dream that I was performing in the musical Beauty and The Beast. I was at the backstage changing costumes. I was layering a costume underneath and was putting another one on top—the usual technique for actors when they had to deal with quick wardrobe changes. I was playing Belle.
When I woke up, I searched in my heart if I was missing theater. I think I do. It has been more than 20 years since I last performed on stage.
I played a nagging wife here circa 1890s. My partner here died in Oct 2020 but not due to Covid. RIP to you, B.This was so blurred!I haven’t seen my co-actor here, E, for 25 years!
Theater was so much part of my high school and college life that I still dream about acting on stage. That’s why I love watching musicals and plays. The last adult musical I watched was Les Miserables, (I think), which was the Sydney production, which also performed in Singapore after their Manila run. Before that was PETA’s Rak of Aegis (the original cast) and ohhhh that was a very good one! The very last musical I watched was Repertory Philippines’ Beauty and The Beast when I watched it with the girls. The girls and I also watched one Ballet Philippines performance but I can’t remember if it was Rama and Sita (it’s the Philippines’ version of the Indian epic Ramayana–all Southeast Asian countries influenced by Hinduism have their own versions of Ramayana) or Ballet Manila’s Ibong Adarna
I wish theater will come back. I wish live concerts are back. They were my life then. Now that the girls are much older, I can bring them along with me to more stage performances. When I didn’t have kids, I vowed that I will expose my future children to the arts. Which I eventually did. Even when they were little, I brought the girls to different museums so they can be exposed to visual arts.
The girls at BenCab Museum, Baguio City 2017. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Hmmm…Maybe we could go back to Pinto Art Museum this weekend. I’ll check also some art galleries that might be open now.
Gallery 7, Pinto Art Museum 02 February 2020. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Woke up a few hours after I dozed off. I should go back to sleep but I can’t. I’m angry. Oh fuck you.
My blog entry yesterday reminded me of why I still liked Neil Patrick Harris. He is hilarious as Barney in How I Met Your Mother and his Tony Awards performances are lovely to watch. This clip of NPH’s performance during the 2013 Tony Awards made me miss theater so much.
I came across a video of Philip Quast (Javert in Les Miserables) explaining his process of singing Javert’s suicide; it’s not so much about the technique of singing, but it’s about the motivations behind the words he was singing. He said he likes acting not because of the live audience but because he likes the rehearsals more, the process of building something, uncovering a character, understanding the motivations and interactions. He doesn’t believe in playing characters but rather the roles are not characters because they are you, they are a part of you. I completely understood what he was trying to explain.
Apart from writing, music and theater were my passions growing up. In elementary, I joined singing contests and whatever contest that involved the stage (soliloquies, poetry out loud, etc). In high school, I was a member of the Speech and Dramatics Club and joined whatever stage plays our school had. I did that until college. I was supposed to be part of the ensemble of my theater group that performed at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (I think it was for two weeks) during a national theater festival but I had to back out because I was doing my undergrad thesis. I also auditioned for the local production of the musical Lean, just for lark, to see if I could make it. And I did; I was shortlisted to go through the second round. I didn’t pursue it because I was finishing my thesis (yeah, thesis does suspend your life) and I wasn’t really keen on the local production itself (not the material, the libretto is great). Good thing I didn’t go for it because the production turned out to be a mess.
What I miss about theater, as Philip Quast said, were the rehearsals–the build up. I was terrified of being in front of audiences actually. I have a terrible stage fright. For me theater is 70% about the rehearsals. Whenever we have closed the curtains for good, I would feel a pang and it would hit me that there would no longer be rehearsals to go to after classes.
There was a time when I was running around so much because I had theater, I played football, and I had an active social life. I had to give up football when I couldn’t fit everything as school demanded more of my time.
Fast-forward, when I was already working in Manila, I would try to watch musicals and straight plays if 1) I had the time and 2) I can afford it. That became less frequent when I had the girls.
Sometimes I dream about being in theater again, being in some production.
