Rock music, love, drama & floods

MANILA, Philippines - It is a time of calamity, a post-Ondoy scenario, and there is this low-income community which is flooded. The waters just refuse to subside, and the residents blame the developer of the well-off subdivision nearby who had cut down the trees.

Enter Aileen, a young and talented girl who has a good singing voice and who eyes the YouTube as a way out of poverty. She has a problem with her boy friend Kenny, who is rather insensitive.

The barangay captain is Mary Jane, Kenny’s mother, whose shoe business has been all but wiped out by foreign competition. Aileen’s father, Kiel, would like Mary Jane not to give up her business, but she is not inclined to listen. It seems they were lovers in the past.

Put in a lot of songs by the popular Aegis band, dances, a little conflict here and there, a top-notch cast who can triple threat (sing-act-dance) and a “swimming pool” for a set.

And there you have it: Rak of Aegis by the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA). The musical-comedy will open Jan. 31 at the PETA Theater Center (behind the Quezon City Sports Club, near the Christ the King Seminary), and will run for six weekends until March 9.

This was announced at a recent press conference at the PETA Theater Center (tel. no. 725-6244).

The cast is led by Robert Seña as Kiel, Isay Alvarez (alternating with Kalila Aguilos) as Mary Jane, and Aicelle Santos (alternating with Jean Bugcat) as Aileen. Poppert Benardas and Myke Salomon, and Pepe Herrera and Jerald Napoles, respectively play Kenny and Tolits, the boy friends of Aileen.

Myke is also the music arranger and director. The choreographer is Gio Gahol, with set design by Mio Infante.

During the presscon, a mischievous media person asked: “Is it a rich vs. poor story? May class struggle ba along Marxist lines, in keeping with PETA’s earlier history?” Amused screams were heard in one section of the theater.

“Hindi (not) Marxist,” Liza Magtoto hastened to add. “Kung may struggle, it’s more with the other subdivision.” Maribel Legarda qualified the situation, pointing out that the subdivision developer had developed a guilty conscience, and gave relief goods to the flooded barangay.

“Not all the songs (of Aegis) were apt, so we used other songs,” said Liza. “There was a list of 27 songs trimmed down to 20. The lyrics were changed (iba na) to go with the emotion, but we retained the melody.”

Myke said “the songs were not very popular at first but when placed on the YouTube, there were up to one million hits.”

“The sets will be like a swimming pool, with platforms,” Maribel noted. “The characters live on the second floor, and there is supposed to be a little boat traveling around.” The names of the characters are taken from the songs of Aegis. Popular songs of the band will be heard, like Luha, Halik, Sundot, Christmas Bonus and Basang-basa sa Ulan.  

There is a climactic concert at the end of the play, in which problems arise again and tempers flare. But this is a musical comedy and everything is resolved peacefully, with the cast belting out a triumphant song-and-dance production number.

The story is “hindi mabigat, hindi mababaw, (not heavy nor shallow),” the director concluded. “Simple ang story natin. Wala (no supertyphoon) Yolanda when it was being done. Yolanda gave it a new dimension.”