Of heels and heroes

Two plays are currently on-stage that are as far apart in taste as English tea (without the cream and sugar) and Pinoy salabat. These are Repertory Philippines’ Ten Little Indians by Agatha Christie at the William J. Shaw Theater, Shangri-La Plaza Mall, and Tanghalang Pilipino’s El Camino Real by Nick Joaquin at the Tanghalang Aurelio V. Tolentino, Sentrong Pangkultura ng Pilipinas.

Can a moonlighting critic write of the Rep production something like this?

"Absolutely dismal… version of the Agatha Christie classic. This one completely mucks up the plot, switching from an isolated island mansion to a hotel deep in the Iranian desert(!). The entire cast overacts, and the script must have been written with a purple pen… Avoid at all cost…."

If I write something of this sort, I’d be skewered by director Zeneida Amador, her entire cast and the whole artistic and production staff.

The indictment is that by critics Mick Martin and Marsha Porter of the 1975 film directed by Peter Collinson, with Oliver Reed, Richard Attenborough, Elke Sommer, Herbert Lom and Gert Frobe.

Fortunately for me, nothing of the sort can be said of Rep’s Ten Little Indians, but unluckily, I can’t say much about it either. The trouble with a cloak-and-dagger – which is what the play is – is that you can’t say anything that might give it away. One little slip of the tongue – or pen – and director Amador will have me boiled in oil.

Without putting my hide on the line, I can state that Christie’s whodunit is about a bunch of people who get invited by one U.N. Owen to his wind-swept island manor off the coast of Devon. The guests are received by Vera Claythorne (Miren Alvarez) and Fred Naracott (Roy Rolloda), who have been hired by the host to attend to their comfort. A cook, Ethel Rogers (Tess Michelena), has also been conscripted to prepare their repasts. Nothing has been spared to ensure the comfort of the guests – Emily Brent (Jay Valencia-Glorioso), Thomas Rogers (Oliver Usison), Philip Lombard (Arnel Carrion), Anthony Marston (Ikey Canoy), Sir Lawrence Wargrave (Miguel Faustmann), William Blore (Meynard Peñalosa), General Mackenzie (Allan Alojipan) and Dr. Armstrong (George Ramos).

Mistress of Murder Mysteries Christie spins her tale with consummate skill as a spider spinning an intricate web of murder and mayhem in a pattern tracing the verses of an old English nursery rhyme.

Ten little Injuns standing in a line

One toddled home and then there were nine;

Nine little Injuns swingin’ on a gate,

One tumbled off and then there were eight…

Over dinner, the recorded voice of the host accuses each of the guests of having hidden a crime and demands retribution. The condemned persons are done in one by one by the unknown executioner with cyanide, a sleeping potion, a knife, an ax, a hypodermic needle, a gunshot, drowning, a booby trap, a bullet.

At this point, I shall say no more, keep my trap shut lest I give the play away and inflame director Amador to go on the warpath and run after my scalp with a tomahawk. When I chanced into her at the smoking lounge during the intermission on opening night, she had asked me, with a naughty glint in her eyes, whether I could guess who the murderer was. I could only respond with a sheepish grin. I already knew the identity of the killer.

In addition to the 1975 film, I had seen two other versions. Not the first made in 1930, in which the setting was a safari camp in equatorial Africa, but Rene Clair’s memorable film of 1945, And Then There Were None, which had Barry Fitzgerald, Louis Hayward, June Duprez and Judith Anderson in the cast, and the less distinguished 1966 version, set in an Alpine village, with Leo Genn, Shirley Eaton, Fabian, and Stanley Holloway.

Today’s text-using, billiard-playing young generation deserves a taste of Agatha Christie and Rep’s brew of Ten Little Indians is well worth shelling out their wampuns for.

Across the metropolis, the current attraction on weekends is TP’s production of El Camino Real by National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin

The play declares the CCP resident theater company’s theme on its 15th Theater Season – "Filipino idealism confronted."

In his message printed in the program, artistic director Nonon Padilla states: "The hidden poverty of the spirit, the deformed and defocused consciousness for preserving patriotism, the fractured sense of unity and internal jealousies within class structures encapsulate the Filipino today. They define difficult and hard times, brought on, not by external forces, but by ourselves as Filipinos. And so, we can sadly boast of a rich culture of self-interest, rugged individuality, and myopic and impure visions."

In the light of the sorry state of affairs in the country today, as an aftermath of the Erap debacle, I agree with Padilla’s assessment of our current condition and the need to reexamine the roots of the perverse values and the rape of idealism in our day. The necessity to unearth the seed of our failure in the past in order to clear the ground for the future is well articulated in an old adage, "Ang hindi lumingon sa pinanggalingan…." And what better example can we find than in Emilio Aguinaldo?

El Camino Real is an incisive examination of a light that failed, a flame that does not burst into a conflagration. The tragic flaw of Aguinaldo is not unlike that of Hamlet – indecision. He fails to "strike while the iron is hot," as the old maxim goes.

The analytical study, "Where did Aguinaldo Fail?," condensed from Joaquin’s A Question of Heroes, included in the program, is astounding for the breadth of the playwright’s research and the depth of his insight into a decisive moment in Philippine history. In the deadly game of war played by seasoned American generals, who would apply anything, including lies and deception, to win at any cost, Aguinaldo emerges as a naïve, gullible lad from a town in Cavite who dares to march to his destiny at the end of El Camino Real only to stop short in his tracts in the last mile to Manila, victory and a niche in the pantheon of his country’s heroes.

Boy actor Derrick Gozos, who plays General Aguinaldo, looks like he has not long been weaned from the cradle. His alternates, Rafael Froilan Jr., and Cysky Manifoste are about the same age. (Their photos look like mug-shots of glue-sniffing street children in the police blotter). The choice of Derrick and his alternates to essay the role of the revolutionary leader is intended, I suppose, to stress the man’s naïve, childlike nature. Despite Derrick’s age, he projects his part with such authority and conviction that he can hold his own against the likes of seasoned actors Sherry Lara, Roeder Camañag, Donnel Bolaños, Roy Marc Dadula, Paolo O’Hara and the rest of the cast.

Associate director Chris Millado, design and costume coordinator Ricardo Cruz, translator Ony de Leon and lighting designer Joey Nobre need to be credited for the strength of this production.

As for the busy-texting, billiard-playing cattle who are herded by their teachers to the theater to watch El Camino Real – they will get something other than the cliff-hanging excitement of Ten Little Indians – the necessity of doing the right thing at the right moment in time and to learn from one’s failure.

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For comments, write jesscruz @hotmail.com.