CCP Complex

CCP (Cultural Center of the Philippines) Complex – a sprawling haven for culture and the arts located along Roxas Boulevard that includes several world-class theaters, museums, galleries and home to the country’s supposed best arts and culture companies.

CCP Complex - Also a psychological condition that makes the afflicted believe that any artistic output that comes from beyond the boulevard and the breakwaters of Manila Bay is inferior.

I must admit I too once had the aforementioned condition, until I stage managed a production that toured the whole country for a whole month and got exposed to the artworks in the regions, from Baguio to Marawi. I knew then that I would get out of CCP soon after the tour. And I did. And I moved to Baguio , around 12 years ago.

Last night a colleague informed me of a group’s interest to feature our productions in a local institution that’s being re-packaged as a cultural and educational destination – they’re interested because it would be much more cost effective to hire a local group to stage a play rather than bring a whole production from Manila . Though I’d rather hear that they’re interested because they believe in what the local artists can deliver, beggars can’t be choosers. And this is among the reasons why I left Manila more than a decade ago to live in Baguio – I just couldn’t stand the arrogance of Manileños in their belief that the best things in this country can only be found in Manila , and everything that comes from beyond the toll gates of both the North and South Expressways are inferior. You patronize artists in the regions only when the budget can’t afford the Manila variety.

They probably haven’t heard the compositions of Ethan Andrew Ventura, and the way he plays his guitar. His work was featured recently in a concert in a mall and the music he composed for Rizal’s Me Ultimo Adios gave me goose-bumps. Or perhaps they haven’t been to a jazz jam session at Overtones, one of many places in the city that houses exceptional local talents. Too bad, most of them never get to sit down and listen to Emerald Ventura, Ro Quintos, Jef Coronado, Cholo Virgo, Yoshi Capuyan, Arkhe Sorde Salcedo, Ramirr Grepo, Jenny Cariño, Sunshine Gutierrez, Mary Raquel, Ron Ruiz, Patchi Viray, SLU’s Glee Club, the reggae bands in Baguio, or the rock ones in nearby La Trinidad, and many others whose music can blow you away.

Perhaps they’ve never been to an exhibit by the Tahong Bundok group at the Baguio Convention Center – watercolors of a beautiful city that hypnotize, or the ongoing exhibit at the Café by the Ruins – coffee on paper, different shades of sepia that calms the spirit, or the photography of local lensmen on Multiply.com that can rival those that hang on Manila’s expensive gallery walls, or the VOCAS group’s multimedia explorations that challenge and provoke the mind.

They’ve never sat in a local writers’ group’s open mic session. They’ve never been to an SLU musical. They’ve never seen Tropang Paltok’s street theater performances. The now Manila-based Pinikpikan charges to perform what one could normally hear for free on the steps of La Azotea or the Dap-ay of Café by the Ruins. Manila charges hundreds to thousands for what one could get into on less than a hundred bucks’ ticket price, or in most cases on a complimentary pass, as in most local theatrical presentations.

And the sad thing is, the community encourages the discrimination against local artists whenever it turns to Manila for most major artistic or cultural outputs in the city. The city’s upcoming centennial celebration is dotted with non-Baguio groups and individuals running this and that show, the institution I mentioned above included.

And what do the Manila-based groups do? Hire local artists to do the job for them anyway, they get the lion’s share and the locals get chump change. But maybe that’s precisely the reason why the local artists continue to produce great art despite the situation: the main thing the fuels them is passion, and just like love, all the money in Manila can’t buy that.

Last Order Sa Penguin

It's been a while since I last went to see a play, and a couple of weeks back, I got invites to two productions: SLU-CCA's Florante at Laura and Dulaang UP-Baguio's Last Order Sa Penguin.

The last production of Florante at Laura that I saw was Tanghalang Pilipino's staging of the musical a long time ago (that was the production with the famous "magkakaroon po ng isang linggong pagitan..." a week-long intermission between acts 1 and 2 because the music was not done in time for the opening, so on opening night the audience got to see act 1, and were asked to come back a week later for act 2).

I chose to go see Dulaang UP's production since it's a been a while since UP Baguio last staged a play, and also because I haven't been to Penguin (an artists' haven in Remedios Circle, malate) in a long time, I was in the mood for a little bit of nostalgia.

RL and I entered the theater and we were quite intrigued by the stage set-up: they didn't use the stage but instead set up platforms at the opposite end of the theater which became the main acting area. I was eager to see the reason for this, so we decided to sit on the actual elevated stage, which gave a better view of the set.

The house music helped put the audience in a lousy mood: loud and the music had nothing to do with the play being presented. Even our group at times commit this mistake: lousy front-of-house management... from the ushers to the seats to the house music, these should all prepare your audience for the story that's about to be told. Well, at least the technical people seemed to be enjoying themselves toying with the sound mixer. Anyway...

The set was a disappointment - a play about an actual existing place and you would think the production designer would give the actual Pengui Cafe a look-see. The set looked more like Perk Cafe in Baguio when it just opened in th mid-90's. No leather couches where the regulars never fail to claim for themselves: table 1=theater people, table 2=ballet philippines, table 3=photographers and writers, bar=visual artists, the rest of the tables for hangers-on, young artists and poseurs. As a young boy I slept on those leather couches as my mother discussed what art is with (the late) Santiago Bose and how deep is deep with (the late) Pepito Bosch. As a young artist I hovered from table to table depending on my reason for being there on a given night: all tables to land a gig (whether acting, production/stage management, and just about anything), table 1 if I'm coming from an opening night and I'm with my colleagues from Tanghalang Pilipino, table 2 if I want Guiller, a danseur, to treat me to a beer, table 3 to update my mom's friends about how she's been since she moved to the Caribbean, at the bar with Santi Bose to gossip about the people on tables 1 to 3...

There were art works on the wall, which weren't (art works, that is). I've seen a Bose exhibit there, an installation by Boy Yuchengco, photographs by Ronnie Lazaro, paintings by Nunelencio Alvarado, so the "paintings" on the set, which the characters in the play tore to shredsd with their biting criticisms, were quite out of place. Not to say that there weren't so-so art exhibited in Penguin, but those garbage on the walls were over the top. Again, maybe a look-see by the production designer could've helped him/her come up with a better set design.

The play is like an episode of the now-defunct sitcom, Friends. A couch in the center, a group of friends pour their hearts out giving the audience glimpses of the lives of Penguin denizens. Oh wait, make that roughly 6 episodes of Friends, at the end of two hours, when the stage lights went out and the house lights came on, we were quite shocked to hear the voice over announcing the intermission. the play ran for approximately 3 hours! But I could sit through 6 straight episodes of Friends... maybe the script would've done better as a sitcom: by the end of it one is left asking, "What's the point?" And Friends most of the time has a point.

Most of the actors were really effective: a gay guy forever waiting for his boyfriend to text him back, a young woman with issues about her live-in boyfriend, another young woman who's biggest issue in life is her relationship with a "jologs", a drug pusher, the pesky flower-vendor, and Marcell, the waiter..

The actor who played Marcell actually looked like Marcell, a waiter in Penguin back in the 90's. Which confused me: the play was dated: turn of the century, and there were no camera phones yet back then as far as I remember (or maybe I'm wrong, I'm a late-bloomer whenit comes to cellphones, I tried my best not to own one for the longest time).

The friends gather, they tell their stories, and order their drinks in between: A half red? A quarter white? Coffee? Beer? I found it quite amusing when the waiter returned with a half and a quarter glass of wine: who orders a half-glass of wine? In Penguin, a half or a quarter is a half or a quarter carafe of wine.

The actors who entered only in act two, they were the characters being talked about in act one, weren't able to maintain the energy and performance level of the actors already onstage - RL and I agreed that had the play ended with act one, it would've been a better production: leaving the rest to the audience's imagination.

The movements of the actors onstage didn't make sense a lot of times, the lighting and the blocking didn't seem to agree with one another, and at times took away from instead of enhancing a scene. And until the end I didn't see any justifiable reason for having the performance area at the back of the theater. In fact, since the director had his actors kneeling and sitting down most of the time, it would have been better if they used the elevated stage instead: 5 rows from the front and it was quite hard to see the action on stage already.

Nonetheless, at the end of the at times agonizing 3 hours, I was quite glad to see Dulaang UP-Baguio on stage again... and if the actors who performed form their core group of performers, save for two or three who needed a good dose of basic acting, I'm quite excited to be there again on their opening night.

Photos of the performance right here.