Darna! Ang Bato!

My sister, Denisa Reyes, broached the idea of springing up Mars Ravelo’s comic book Darna two years ago. She said she wanted to do a multi-media spectacle with a script, songs and dances for Ballet Philippines. People were going to fly all over the stage with midi video footages and techno/romantic music specially created for it.

This would be her Pinoy answer to the Western Peter Pan, Sugar Plum Fairy, Giselle, and Odette/Odile combined. Our very own magic straight from the pages of our own imagination: Pinoy pop. Pinoy culture. Enough of borrowing from Russia’s Marius Petipa and Peter Tchaikovsky and their anemic tutu-clad fairies. She saw children sitting in the audience wide-eyed, not at a European Christmas tree growing, snowflakes waltzing, and a Nutcracker Prince spinning, but at a humble Filipino lass, Narda, who, with a magical stone puffs into the ferocious hoodlum-slugging flying machine as Darna. (Guess what BP will do this Christmas anyway? My Nutcracker.)

She presumed it would cost a lot of money, millions maybe. Ambitious indeed. Where would she get the sponsors? Where would she get the locally-made flying mechanism? How soon can a choreographable music be complete? For fear of being accused of sibling rivalry, I kept myself from blurting out: "Oh please, don’t do that. I’m sure you’ll fail."

Well, my sister can be intense, passionate and bullheaded to a fault anyway. Nothing anyone says can remove a seed planted in that stubborn head of hers. Once there, the seed will have to sprout, germinate, mature, clamp its roots, forge through the jungle, skirmish with obstacles and find the sunlight no matter what the cost.

She hired Chris Millado to write the script and direct the show so that she and assistant Alden Lugnasin, could concentrate on the choreography. Over the months that followed, collaborators began toying with ideas. Jesse Lucas began tinkering with melodies; Rene Villanueva, lyrics; Shoko Matsumoto, lighting design; Boni Juan, set design; Liz Batoctoy, costume design; Rubber Inc., beats and atmospheric music; Gerry Fernandez, technical answers; Blue Dog Productions, video documentation; Willy Munji, sound design; and Alex Fernando and Thumble Remigio, rigging.

They held numerous workshops in Los Baños, Baguio, the Sinag Arts Studio and the Folk Arts Theater, experimenting with aerial acrobatics and movement themes. It took a whole year of intense preparation. Wow, a la Miss Saigon. But a lot can happen within a year.

After the fulfilling aerial workshops, the movement consultant suddenly charged BP triple the original fee. He somewhat disappeared when told it was impossible. BP young bride, Judell de Guzman, cast to do Darna, got pregnant. Camille Ordinario, another Darna and new mommy, resigned due to personal reasons. Christine Crame and Kris-Belle Paclibar ended up doing the role. They were fabulous.

Chin Chin Gutierrez was in Bangkok when I forwarded her a text message about the Valentina auditions. She was very interested and came back just in the nick of time. When asked to sing, she sang a Chinese ballad. When asked to dance, she did a cartwheel and a fouette practically in high heels. She, of course, got the role. Denisa and Chris were delighted by her daring. Jenine Desiderio quit as Valentina due to professional reasons. Tex Ordoñez, a gifted singer, alternated with Chin Chin instead.

Boy Toys Roeder Camañag, Mio Infante, Raul Montessa, Jay Espano, Roy Rolloda and Filomar Tariao came by later, with Tim Yap as the narrator, DJ Dalang. JM Rodriguez, after an impressive performance at the CCP, was asked to be Yap’s alternate.

In the middle of the company’s 33rd season performances, work behind Darna continued. The dancers, journeying through inflexible French choreographies, the technical Cinderella, fun numbers in Shoes++, and the exotic Balikbayan works, had to twitch their muscles to accommodate aerial maneuvers in between. But there was the SARS scare, too. And the Iraq war. No matter. This company is known for rehearsing and performing through coups d’etat, typhoons, floods, earthquakes and even volcanic eruptions.

Mica Bernas and her alternate Carissa Adea touched up on Narda after removing their pointe shoes in Cinderella. The Narda role was so visible the ballet should’ve been called Darnarda. The young Valentina role went to talented Hanedy Sala. Irish Abejero became the hunk Arman. He had just returned from a tour where he danced exotic Asian movements as Rama, broke his back in Cinderella, and recuperated fast enough to be in Darna. The role of Narda/Darna’s brother Ding went to Ruben de Dios and Clark Rambuyon (who was excellent as Prince Charming).

The stirring Myra Beltran essayed the role of Lola. I was considered for this role myself, but with my weight they would need five riggers to fly me. So, out I went. Myra was beautiful anyway.

Their first flying showcase was at the Sinag Arts Studio. It was neat and compact, impressive. The idea was to seduce sponsors into doling out much-needed alms. BP got many interested parties, promises and support from the business sector. The NCCA obliged generously after a pleading proposal from BP. The good intentions were there but the money came late.

Meanwhile, nearing August this year, sets had to be constructed, costumes made and people paid. Collaborators had other rackets to compensate for their own personal bills. The contractors wouldn’t build without a down payment for the materials. The experts wouldn’t come in early enough because of money-making commitments elsewhere. This cost tightwad Darna her valuable technical rehearsals.

Without seeing everything on stage, how can the necessary changes be made? What can look snug in a small studio can be fatal at the CCP Main Theater. Towards production week, frantic alterations were made. Blocking was changed. Sets were removed. Costumes revised. Lines added. The flying sequences were not working as well as expected. So much for a year’s preparation.

Come the mighty critics on opening night. The oral reviews were harsh. Where was the dancing? This was not a dance production but a theater production. What was the narrative all about? There was no magic because the riggers were seen. Too much gimmick. The characters were weak. The flight was boring. This was a pantomime. Some sets had no connection. The lights were dark in some sections. It’s confused. Slam! Bang! Kapow!

The children and theater newcomers were easier to please. Free of the seasoned balletomanes’ jaded view of first-time productions, how they loved the phenomenon of moving sets and colorful lights, the soaring and crawling, the fun and lunacy of it all. Sometimes, I wish I could look at a show without my analytical mind and just enjoy it, too. If the jaded ones missed out on it, were the newcomers indeed discovering the Pinoy Nutcracker and Miss Saigon themselves?

Looking back, here’s my analysis. I was correct about my apprehensions. Darna was doomed from the very start. But I know my history. The great ballet classics were flops during their dubious births, too. The Nutcracker almost suffered an abortion when it was first previewed in 1892. Its greatest disadvantage? A foolish libretto. It was staged many times, but it seemed an impossible piece to produce satisfactorily. To this day, people still scratch their heads with regards to its feeble story line.

Swan Lake was also ill-fated in the beginning. Produced in Moscow in 1877 as Tchaikovsky’s first ballet score, it had an inadequate choreographer in Wenzel Reisinger, a conductor who thought the score was "too difficult" and a ballerina without great ability. Choreography was later passed on to Marius Petipa. His illness cinched the second act for the younger Lev Ivanov who had an instinctive understanding of the music. He then created his masterpiece. Swan Lake went through countless revisions through the years with later hands.

Both flops live to this day, more than a hundred years later. Just think. We would have missed out on two of the world’s greatest classics had the producers listened to the moans and groans of the critics on opening night.

The most controversial choreographer in the last century was Vaslav Nijinsky, a famous Russian dancer himself. Talk about innovation, this man taunted his audience to the hilt. In his L’Apres-midi d’un faune (Afternoon of a Fawn), he made his dancers perform barefoot, move in a jerky rhythm and end in an obscene pose. This happened amidst the flurry of tutus and pointe shoes in the Romantic era, a big shock. His innovations influenced the choreographers of today, but he was considered a big scandal at the time. He raised storms of protest all over so that his ballets were barred from the Soviet stage. Well, he eventually went mad. He paid a big price for the future of dance.

Modern producers and directors in the West have learned from these valuable lessons of the past. They create and mount a big presentation, tour it for a year, feel around for audience reaction, make modifications, tighten, anchor and secure the production before they finally show it in the major theaters. Hence, the Miss Saigons and Chicagos are seen in perfection.

In the Philippines, we don’t have that luxury. We make do with a risky opening night to see where we go wrong. After 24 runs, BP will have to wait another year to tighten and secure its Darna. Unfazed by the mixed reactions, Denisa has already planned next year’s production… Darna versus Gringo Honasan, or something.

There’s a part in the show where the narrator, DJ Dalang, holds a cardboard to the audience with the words: "Ding! Ang Bato!" urging the viewers to shout the words out loud. With that prompting, the characters remember to use the magical powers of a little piece of granite. Darna’s amulet is a gray, crude, uncut stone. The glass cutter has a lot of cutting to do to show its brilliance. The diamond may be coarse but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a gem.

Darna brought people to the theater the way Rama Hari and Tales of the Manuvu did in the ’80s. It got the young adults, our future audiences, away from Starbucks and Tomb Raider 2 for a night, at least. It aroused curiosity and got direct response, be it a backlash or a rave. Reaction is what theater is all about anyway.

So definitely, Darna should be encouraged and supported again and again.

Filipinos love their comfort zones. Anything different (like a coup) stresses us out. Seeing beyond 2001 when my sister broached her ostentatious dream to me, I was that Filipino afraid of boldness and the ridicule it might bring my sister, our family, our name. But watching her Darna and all its flaws infused humbling admiration on my part.

She dares to be different at least while many of us would rather stick to our stable, tried and tested foreign plays, musicals and ballets. And so, I give her, Chris and the rest of the artists an A for their mighty and daring effort. It may have raised eyebrows instead of the hoped-for gasps. But we do not tsk tsk, shake our heads and kill it.

With tenacity, the gasps will come after the trial and error of a hundred years. It could take that long for a true Filipino Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Miss Saigon and Lion King to surface. Even longer, if no one bothers to try.