Flights of fancy

Two plays recently onstage mirror the temper of our time: Tanghalang Pilipino’s Drakula and Trumpets’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Both of these offered an escape from the chaos of the real world into a twilight zone of dream and fantasy.

The vampire myth goes back all the way to antiquity – to Babylonia, Assyria, Crete and early Greece. Tales about this nocturnal predator that thirsts for human blood are found in many parts of the world including Great Britain, France, Germany, Hungary, Bavaria, Silesia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Russia, Arabia, Persia, Armenia, China and Malaysia. In the Philippines, the manananggal, the aswang and the tikbalang are distant cousins of the vampire.

Allusions to them are found in the works of the classical masters, including Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, among others. In more recent times, Goethe, Shelley, Byron, Dryden, Scott, and Baudelaire in Flowers of Evil have composed poems about them. Byron’s physician, John Williams Polidori, wrote a piece of fiction, The Vampyre, published in 1819.

The term vampire in all its variations has been applied to this creature since olden times – Dutch, vampyr; Polish, wampior; Slownick, umpir; Ukrainian, upeer; and Serbian, wampira. One Russian term vrykolaka means "wolf-fairy," and it is believed to be derived from the Greek.

The novel that has tantalized the imagination of lovers of Gothic fiction is Bram Stoker’s Dracula, first published in 1897. It is an epistolary work of fiction consisting of letters, pages from a journal, entries in a logbook, and medical notes, a fact that contributes in no small measure to the semblance of reality. It was made into a movie in 1931 with Bela Lugosi. Since then, Dracula has been resuscitated by Christopher Lee, Louis Jourdan, Jack Palance, Klaus Kinski, Frank Langella, George Hamilton, and Gary Oldman, among others. He wore a comic mask as Leslie Nielsen and a black one as William Marshall’s Blackula. And Andy Warhol concocted a Dracula who could digest only the blood of "weregins" but vomited that of virgins. The hero deflowered all the castle maidens, depleting the supply of blood to starve the vampire to death!

Historically, there was a real Dracula. In the middle ages, Vlad Dracul Tsepesh defended his native Transylvania from a Turkish invasion. He sowed terror into the hearts of his foes by impaling his captives on wooden stakes on the ramparts of his castle high up in the Carpathian mountains. He came to be known as Vlad the Impaler, "son of the dragon."

And now, once again, the dreadful Count was resurrected this time by Tanghalang Pilipino on the stage of the CCP Little Theater in the flesh of Roeder Camañag. Once again this reanimated corpse – this nosferatu – rises from his coffin/bed to plot his reunion with the reincarnation of his wife, Mina Westerman (Tess Jamias). He engages a young solicitor, Jonathan Harker (Paolo O’Hara, alternate: Randy Villarama), who is engaged to marry Mina, to facilitate his passage from his mountain citadel in the Carpathian highlands to England, along with his mysterious crates.

In the meantime, an inmate, Renfield (Ian Lomongo), in a lunatic asylum run by Dr. Arthur Seward (Kokoy Palma), raves about the arrival of his "Master." Soon after, Lucy (Mayen Estañero), Mina’s sister, a sleepwalker, suffers from an acute loss of blood which puzzles her fiancée, Dr. Seward, who summons a specialist from Amsterdam, Van Helsing (Ony de Leon, alternate: Lambert de Jesus). The Dutch doctor’s prescription is most unusual: garlands of garlic flower. And herein lies the root of the mystery that generates this thrilling, chilling adaptation of Stoker’s Gothic novel for the stage by Liz Lochhead.

States director Ana Valdes-Lim in her Director’s Notes: "We hope to stay loyal to Bram Stoker and Liz Lochhead, while rendering our own version and addressing the needs of our modern audience. We wanted to create a story that disturbs and entertains: One full of aching desire, forbidden pleasures and delicious afflictions."

The costume designs of Danilo Franco, the lighting of Tisha Zarate, the musical direction of Vincent de Jesus, and the set design of Liz Fjelle-Batoctoy all contributed immensely to the Gothic mood of the drama.

Unfortunately, the translation to Pilipino, particularly the Visayan accent of the maid, sounded awkward if not downright hilarious. Even more so was Drakula’s stripping to the skin like a psychopathic exhibitionist who has escaped from Dr. Seward’s asylum.

Nonetheless, TP’s Drakula was a worthwhile addition to Manila’s theatrical life and an encouragement to young viewers to read Stoker’s book.

That should really give them the whillies, that’s for sure!

On the other side of town at the Meralco Theater, Trumpets staged The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Based on the book by C. S. Lewis, this musical fantasy transports the viewer to the realm of Narnia, the kingdom of the imagination that can be discovered by children through a magical wardrobe.

This incredible show is like an alchemist’s gigantic vat into which Lewis’ book has been thrown in and mixed in various proportions from a pinch to a pound Lewis Carroll’s wonderland without Alice, Walt Disney, Mother Goose, Harry Potter, Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Peter Pan, Genesis and the Gospels, classical mythology, fable, parable and folktale, Chinese acrobatic dancers, Wagner’s Ring cycle, Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel und Gretel, and Konigskinder, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Broadway, Tin Pan Alley, The Wizard of Oz and the stuff of which a children’s dreams are made. And all of these wonder-working librettists Luna Griño-Inocian and Jaime del Mundo and composers Lito Villareal with divine inspiration cast into their alchemist’s cauldron and transfigured into an entertaining evangelical-musical parable. This they accomplished with assistance from musical arranger Mon Faustino, make-up designers R. S. Francisco and Icko Gonzalez, production designer Mio Infante, costume designer Mark Lewis Higgins, light designer Naomi "Shoko" Matsumoto, choreographer James Laforteza and musical director-vocal coach Sweet Plantado.

Director Del Mundo assembled an impressive cast for this production: Meynard Peñalosa (alternate: Audie Gemora), as Aslan, the Lion, Carla Martinez (alternate: Menchu Lauchenco-Yulo) as the White Witch, Roy Rolloda (alternate: Carlo Orosa) as Mr. Tumnus, Robbie Zialcita as Mr. Beaver, Sweet Plantado (alternate: Anna Liza Zialcita) as Mrs. Beaver, Stephen Cadd as Professor Kirke, Bonggoy Manahan (alternate: Del Mundo) as Father Christmas. But it is the children who lead them: Paolo Valenciano (alternate: Franco Mabanta) as Peter, Camille Cabrera (alternate: Crisel Consunji) as Susan, Sam Concepcion (alternate: Rafael Iñaki Ting) as Edmund, and Moreen Guese (alternate: Alexa Ortiga) as Lucy.

Trumpets’ gospel theater has a mission: "Theater is the means, not the end. We seek not only to entertain but also to change lives. Our ultimate end is moral regeneration."

It is to this end that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was conceived. Amen.

* * *

For comments, write to jessqcruz@hotmail.com.