Tanghalang Pilipino’s "Noli Me Tangere" - review notes and caveat emptors

Let’s see if I can keep this concise. (Ans: most likely no. I’m rambling here)

Background:  Tanghalang Pilipino’s (TP) “Noli Me Tangere” -  a ‘96 Ryan Cayabyab musical based on Jose Rizal’s celebrated novel. Currently showing at CCP Little Theater. Read here and here for more information.

TL; DR: Noli was so damn good. Just avoid the kids. 

Notes:

They say the devil is in the details. TP nailed it in that department. How Padre Damaso sneaks a glance or two to Maria Clara every time can. The creepy way Padre Salvi holds Maria Clara’s hand when she asks for the usual priestly blessing or when the clerical ring is offered for kissing. The way Maria Clara coquettishly bats her eyelashes to Ibarra. How effective the stage is, despite it being so bare and simple compared to say, Rent’s stage. Imagine a flight of stairs with small landings in the middle and top. Put two of those to make a sort-of isosceles triangle with one flight facing the audience. That’s it. And it worked so well.

If you need lessons on how to be creepy, watch how Al Gatmaitan pulled off Padre Salvi. Sniffing the dropped handkerchief? Check. Snooping around and casting lustful glances to the object of your desires? Check. Holding on Maria Clara’s hand way too long for comfort? Check. Hovering way too close? Check. Creepy evil mastermind voice? Check. All we need is the diabolical laugh and we’re all set.

Strangely, the antics of Garry Lim as Don Tiburcio, Aireen Antonio as Dona Victorina and Jonathan Tadioan as Kapitan Tiago didn’t quite work well for me. They did well, no question there. It felt kinda too campy? And the scene where Maria Clara was “treated” by Don Tiburcio was too sudden for comfort. And I’m sorry Jonathan Tadioan, but you will always be Didi (from Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah Ze Musical) for me LOL.

Kiss your childhood memories goodbye. Most likely you, dear reader, knows who Kuya Bodjie is. Yes, THE Kuya Bodjie of Batibot fame. Well, he’s Padre Damaso here. And he’s good, really good. I wonder how Kiko Matsing feels about that.

Cris Villonco as Maria Clara is a good choice. She pulled off that constrained longing atmosphere whenever she’s with Ibarra and the way she wavered from one emotion to another when Ibarra confronted her about her arranged marriage with Linares? Priceless.

Gian Magdangal as Ibarra worked, voice-wise. But he still has to work on transmitting emotions. You can barely feel the rage when he’s about to slit Padre Damaso’s neck. Maybe work more on the facial expressions? 

There’s a reason why Ryan Cayabyab is called a maestro. He has the skills to distill Noli into a two-hour-and-change musical that contained everything that Rizal wanted to convey plus a lot more.  I should know; I worked on a script for the kid sister’s Noli play that should run in fifteen minutes or less. The resulting less-than-seven-pages worth of noob-sounding words took me almost two weeks. How much more if I had to score it, create voices etc? A small complaint though - Elias was so under-utilized. True, Ibarra is the focus here. But Ibarra will not be Ibarra (and consequently, Simoun) if not for the conflict he had with Elias both in the present and from their past histories. He should have played more with Elias’ death scene. Why didn’t he just copy the entire scene? It was so poignant and loaded with hope. 

Now, for the caveat emptors:

See, Noli is HS material; therefore kids are bound to be in the theater, most likely because the school mandated it. Noisy, spoiled kids that given a chance, would just laze around on a weekend. Couple that with teachers that can’t seem to command obedience and a principal who gets so defensive because she was slapped with the truth that she can’t seem to control the students under her care, hence not the person of authority that she should be in the first place. Not a good idea right?

I should know. I was the other party in an altercation earlier because I decided to stand up for what’s right (proper theater decorum) and for what I paid for (a sterling performance in a very good theater). True, I breathed fire on the kids during the end. I’m only human, two hours of noise and constantly reminding the sources of said noise to be quiet is more than enough to snap me. I approached the teacher during the intermission and asked nicely that she tell the kids to be quiet. That lasted for a grand 30 minutes. Nice yes?

Morals of the story: stop being kind and let the authority (or what’s left of it) of these figures of authority be cheapened by directly asking the ushers to do something about the noisemakers; avoid shows with a high chance of having students in the audience or at least make sure no school has bought a block on that date by asking the production.