'Sweet Charity': Not so innocent
MANILA, Philippines - There’s something persistently traditional yet topical about Bob Fosse’s work. For those unfamiliar with this stage/movie/dancing legend, his resumé includes directing the film version of Cabaret (and winning an Oscar for it) and writing the book for the musical Chicago. Despite his obvious triple-threat status, Bob Fosse is best known for his signature choreography (a timeless brand of theater jazz), which earned him eight Tonys throughout his career.
Now, let me get to the point: he also contributed to Sweet Charity the movie, and his signature style has become prevalent in practically every adaptation of the play — including 9 Works Theatrical’s current production at the RCBC Plaza’s Carlos P. Romulo Theater.
While the music and lyrics were originally done by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields, respectively, it is to Bob Fosse’s credit that dancing never takes a backseat at any point during the production.
Director Robbie Guevara emphasized this by purposely assembling a cast whose dancing abilities were tantamount to their warbling — and his efforts together with choreographer Deana Aquino paid off indeed. The injection of everything Fosse is apparent, though not overly blatant: many do not know, for example, that it was Fosse who started the trend of using lighting to emphasize certain characters or objects in a scene, so blame him for the overuse of spotlights and endless ambition-related metaphors that are now associated with that theater mode in this day and age.
However, Sweet Charity uses the technique sparingly — mostly only for the main character’s occasional soliloquies. Meanwhile, a wonderful aspect of the musical is the amount of effort put into interspersing dance, music and dialogue evenly.
In other musicals, dancing may often end up as filler, or goes quite the lazy route when the alternative (characters standing around on stage to sing) is not an option. But with this production, the dance numbers heighten emotion; each performance certainly ends up a showstopper in its own right. No two dance numbers are similar enough for the jazz theme to become repetitive. One particular eclectic number (Rich Man’s Frug) is almost Daft Punk-ian in its modernity, as it certainly left the audience hypnotized; despite that, it still retains the classy tone that the 1960s invariably aimed for.
The storyline, though initially eyebrow-raising, is easy enough to warm up to. The audience follows a day in the life of Charity Hope Valentine, who’s a 1960s dance hostess looking for love in all the wrong places. She’s admittedly not very bright — and her overconfidence highlights that fact about her. But that extreme combination of traits is what leads her through a series of wacky hi-jinks as she meanders through life in search of an attainable future. Although some may be turned off by the occasional slapstick humor and sitcommy plot devices, the utterly random, mixed bag of a story ultimately produces many golden moments.
Many of them may be credited to the actors and actresses, who take “zany” to the next level with strange accents and ironically straight faces. Nikki Gil appears completely at home on stage (in a pixie-cut wig at that) as the title character, who, for all her shamelessness and ditzy tendencies, is wholly entertaining and exudes enough heart to come across as sympathetic.
Her comedy chops and enthusiasm are matched by stage newcomer Kris Lawrence as Oscar Lindquist. Oscar is your typical stereotype of a tax accountant. Despite the plain-character profile, Lawrence leaves many roaring with laughter within seconds of his first appearance. The sheer earnestness in his voice helps, and his duet with Gil (I’m The Bravest Individual) remains one of the play’s most memorable numbers.
With only 15 songs the musical makes sure to carefully space them out and give each character the limelight they deserve. Another rousing number (and considered to be the musical’s most popular) is Big Spender, as performed by Charity’s fellow hostesses: Nickie (Shiela Valderrama-Martinez), Helene (Ciara Sotto) and Carmen (Sheree). Rather than explicating, the songs only characterize and emote; for one, Big Spender matches the snappy dressing-room dialogue in terms of sheer aggressiveness.
Ridiculously Italian film-star type and scene-stealer extraordinaire Vittorio Vidal (OJ Mariano) doesn’t appear as much as everyone would like, though he croons a song of his own before departing. Even the manager Herman (Miguel Faustmann) shows up every now and then, but gets a comedic number mostly to himself.
Given the timeline both depicted in the play and characteristic of the period during which it was initially performed, Sweet Charity has aged surprisingly gracefully. The fact that it does not delve too deeply into well-known issues (sexism and corporate culture are only implied) may have actually helped; the more obvious reason is that love simply never goes out of style. And although the musical could very well pass itself off as another recycled romantic comedy by today’s standards, it’s not all sunshine and butterflies. There are unexpected doses of realism. Thus, it ends up as a fun, at times raunchy romp with a surprising level of clarity and charitable self-awareness.
* * *
Sweet Charity is being performed at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium on the following dates: Aug. 19 (8:30 p.m.), 20 (8 p.m.), 21 (4 p.m.), 26 (8:30 p.m.) and 27 (8:00 p.m.). For tickets, contact TicketWorld at 891-9999 or visit http://www.ticketworld.com.ph.
