In town: Jessica Hagedorn

Or so she was for a week, till yesterday, when she had to fly back to New York. While here, a guest appearance on Boy Abunda’s Private Conversations on ABS-CBN Channel 2, another on Cheche Lazaro’s prizewinning Media in Focus on ANC, and a press launch at Tosca in Hotel Dusit all had to be squeezed in, so that she couldn’t even shop for clothes for her daughters at the tiangges in Greenhills as she had wanted.

The whirlwind week also saw her checking out, and contributing inputs for, the staging of Dogeaters as adapted from her blockbuster first novel.

Last Friday saw a well-attended press preview at the Carlos P. Romulo auditorium in RCBC Plaza. The next night featured the first regular performance of a three-weekend run, as mounted by Atlantis Production and directed by Bobby Garcia. Also last Saturday, she had to appear at the venue lobby earlier, at four in the afternoon, for a Power Books-sponsored book signing.   

It’s always a treat to welcome back an accomplished balikbayan writer such as Jessica Hagedorn, premier novelist, poet, playwright, and multi-media performance artist. She last visited in 2003 to attend a women playwrights’ convention. And that was when we last high-fived with her, when National Book Store at Shangri-La EDSA Plaza honored her with a special launch and book signing of her third novel, Dream Jungle.

For those who’ve been alone on some rocky atoll for half a lifetime, Jessica was born in Manila, grew up in Sta. Mesa, migrated to the US at 14, became a poet in San Francisco where her influences included Kenneth Rexroth, and where she also led a rock band called Gangster Choir. In 1975 she authored her first poetry collections, Dangerous Music and Pet Food & Tropical Apparitions, both from Momo’s Press, both reviewed in 1976 in Ermita magazine, to which she also contributed. In 1978, she moved to New York for good.

In 1990, Penguin Books published Dogeaters. Gaining a 1990 National Book Award nomination and an American Book Award, it heralded the gradual success of Fil-Am writers in the American arena, as well as other Asian American writers.

Her second novel, The Gangster of Love, was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1996, while Viking Press published Dream Jungle in 2003. (The last is a typical Hagedorn take, multi-layered and non-linear, on the Tasaday hoax entwined with the shooting of Apocalypse Now in Pagsanjan.)

In between came Danger and Beauty, a 1993 compilation of early poems from her SF phase, as well as new writings, including the short story “Gangster of Love” that was expanded for her second novel. That same year, she also edited Charlie Chan is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction for Penguin Books.

A New York Times interview recounts how director Michael Greif first broached the idea of adapting Dogeaters for the stage. Jessica initially balked. “I could see it as a film, but for the stage? It’s so big and busy and dense,” she said.

But Greif had his way, commissioning Hagedorn to  write the play, and eventually staging it at the La  Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in 1998. Then a theater student pursuing his master’s degree, Bobby Garcia served as assistant director. From that time, he nursed the desire to someday direct Dogeaters himself. He spoke often with Jessica when he visited New York. Jessica encouraged Bobby: “We should just do it. Carve out the time!”

Meanwhile, further developmental workshops led to a full production of Dogeaters at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in NY, where the Fil-Am cast had such luminaries as Ching Valdez-Arran playing Imelda. It has since been staged elsewhere, including a recent all-girl production in South College.

And now Bobby Garcia has brought Dogeaters and Jessica home. They’ve discussed it in detail for the most part of the year, with Bobby sending video clips of the actors’ readings. Jessica recalls that she was in San Diego when Bobby Fed-Exed a DVD that showed the immense talent of Andoy Ranay. And Jessica agreed that for the first time, Imelda could indeed be played by a male actor. She also admired Gina Alajar, and was happy that the multi-awarded actress agreed to join the cast.

Joel Torre she had met in New York, and now reprises a role he played there. Others in the cast are Michael de Mesa, Jon Santos, Rez Cortes, Leo Rialp, Ana Abad Santos, Chari Arespacochaga, Lao Rodriguez, Jenny Jamora, Jerald Napoles, Che Ramos, Richard Cunanan, Nicco Manalo, and Teresa Paredes Herrera, who had also been the La Jolla production.

Jessica’s presently engaged with another theater piece, a planned operetta that fictionalizes the celebrated killing of fashion guru Versace by Andrew Cunanan. But here the killer and his victim lose their racial backgrounds. She says what she’s trying to bring out is the universal fascination with celebrities. Titled Most Wanted, it’s now undergoing workshop production at La Jolla Playhouse, with Jessica collaborating with composer Mark Bennett.

She’s also working “slowly” on a new novel, on the theme of what storytelling means. “It’s set in San Fran and the desert, and winds up in Amsterdam,” Jessica says.

Whatever free time she has is spent watching tennis on television. That’s because a 16-year-old daughter who wants to be a filmmaker took up the sport. And now they’re both gaga over Rafael Nadal, pedal-pushers, wedgies and all.

While in Manila, she hopes to see all the parols again on Ortigas off Valencia Street, where good buddy Joel Torre runs Manukan Grille. “I dream about that chicken,” Jessica enthuses. “I call it the People’s Chicken.”

Well, she got her wish last Saturday. As a send-off for the playwright, the whole cast went for Joel’s and wife Christine’s famous chicken inasal.    

We caught the Dogeaters press preview last Friday, and were delighted with its staging. Sure, at intermission we overheard some pundits asking themselves in the smoking courtyard what it all meant and where it was headed.

It’s not your regular play with a flowing narrative. In fact it keeps true to the novel’s structure and spirit, and will surely be seen as a pastiche of scenes, a dense collage, seemingly of inter-related skits with witty lines of dialogue interspersed with the horror of Marcos-era, martial-law depravations. And the characters all seem stereotypical (firebrand senator, general, NPA rebel, wealthy padrino, porn star, beauty queen, gay performer, call boy, et al.) — thus not capable of depth beyond caricature. But the acting and staging mitigate the expected brow-knitting, and there are delightful scenes that are simply soooooo Pinoy.

What Jessica acknowledged in that NY Times interview still holds true:

“It is dense. It’s not a minimal story. There are many, many, many layers of the story: the effect of religion and spirituality and faith. Violence, the love affair with violence. And carnality. Deep spirituality and deep carnality. A sense of melancholy pervades. And there’s this entertainment façade, show biz, everything’s all right, we’re going to smile through hell if we have to. But I think there’s a genuine joy, too, a sense that no matter what, even if my stomach’s growling, I’m going to dance. That’s what I want to leave people with at the end of the play. After all this, people still know how to live.”