Marriage becomes her

"I never saw marriage as tantamount to losing your identity," Lea Salonga declares. She speaks with the authority of someone who need not define herself in terms of her relationship with her husband (Robert Chien, whom she married last January in the US).

Lea may be away from her US-based husband for a month to do Baby, the highly-acclaimed musical (Aug. 18 to Sept. 5 at Meralco Theater), but she is not the least bothered that her brief absence will make Robert uh, restless. For one, they have yet to snap out of that honeymoon stage. Best of all, Lea and Robert happen to be the best of friends.

"One of the best things about getting married," Lea gushed in an interview, "is waking up with your best friend beside you." And it’s obvious she’s having the time of her life.

It shows on her face. It has this inner glow that says she’s at peace with the world, thank you. Marriage, to say the least, becomes Lea.

Her gritty, determined stance is still there, for sure. It drives her to always be on the lookout for acting jobs in the US and elsewhere. And it also makes Lea identify — in part — with Lizzie, her character in Baby.

"Like my character, I am driven, ambitious. I want to achieve," relates Lea. But unlike Lizzie, a college student in her 20s who finds herself pregnant, marriage obviously doesn’t push Lea to one corner. Unlike Lizzie, those horror stories about marriage did not deter Lea from taking the plunge. Chances are, it is because Lea, unlike Lizzie, will not, cannot be known as — horrors!— as just the wife of Robert Chien.

For her, the challenge lies in making every play different, her every performance better than the last.

Unlike in Miss Saigon for instance, Lea doesn’t just sing in Baby. She also acts on the stage sparsely furnished with just one bed, the better for the audience to focus on the acting and the story, less on the set.

"The challenge," reveals Lea, "is shifting from talking to singing in a soprano voice. The tone changes from time to time. At one time, I’m acting. Then at another, I’m singing."

The prospect of tackling this new challenge excites Lea no end. So is the idea of working with fellow stage veterans.

Oliver-nominated David Shannon, who has taken up residence here after marrying Ima Castro, looks forward to doing most plays with Lea and the rest of the cast. Agot Isidro, Jett Pangan, Menchu Launchengco-Yulo and Miguel Faustman play couples in a university campus. They go through the painful, agonizing funny consequences of parenthood.

"Baby manages to ask important questions about who we are, the roles we play in our relationships, and the difficult choices and sacrifices we must make sometimes," says the musical’s director Bobby Garcia.

Thirty-something Lea herself is toying with the idea of adopting a baby "after we’ve exhausted all options (of having a baby the natural way)." But if she had a choice, she would want her first-born to be a girl.

"Girls mature faster and are very independent," observes Lea, a classic example of this female edge over males.

Although her mother Ligaya insists she is not pushing Lea to give her (Ligaya) a grandchild, the daughter knows what’s really on her mom’s mind. And it’s a first grandchild alright (brother Gerard, musical director of Baby, is still single).

Never mind if, just like in the Atlantis, an offspring can enhance a relationship or turn it upside down (hence the likes of the musical). Lea is too sure of herself to even worry about it.

Besides, just like marriage, motherhood cannot transform Lea into being known as just the mother of so-and-so.

Meanwhile, on with the show!