There is an old saying, related to opera: “It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings.” Well, lovers of performance in Manila’s post-lockdown times will probably have to wait a while for the fat lady to open up her pipes again. Most likely sometime in 2021.
According to Repertory Philippines president and CEO Mindy Perez-Rubio, “Our trustees agreed it was safest to write off 2020, so we shut down and postponed everything for this season,” including this year’s slate of Carousel, Snow White and The Prince, Stage Kiss and Anna in the Tropics. But those first two will be staged come 2021, with Carousel formally opening Rep’s 84th season in February, directed by Toff de Venecia. “We paid for Carousel, so we have to produce it. We’ve extended three times, we need to do it,” notes Perez-Rubio. Recognizing the health protocols necessary to reopen Manila stages, she says “We are being very, very cautious,” but notes Broadway is planning to reopen shows this September, albeit allowing only 50-percent capacity.
In this “new normal” environment, Rep will be first to put themselves back on Manila stages: “As we say in Rep, the show must go on.”
For the meantime, Rep offers online “virtual workshops” for students starting in July. They’re also exploring REPisodes (brand new creative digital content) and REPartee, its digital newsletter. (Visit bit.ly/2zMOV14 or email Marketing@Repphil.org or Repphilfoundation@gmail.com for enrollment.)
During the COVID lockdown, most Metro Manila troupes and performers opted to head online to keep performance alive.
One was composer Ryan Cayabyab, who organized a series of online concerts during the past 10 weeks to raise money for those most economically affected by the COVID crisis. “Bayanihan Musikahan,” which started streaming in mid-March (see their Facebook page), managed to corral fund-raising performances from the likes of Lea Salonga, Gary V, Martin Nievera, Jim Paredes and Ebe Dancel, and raised P122 million (yes, million) in cash and donated goods, all earmarked to purchase and distribute “manna packs” of food and medicines in the NCR region during the quarantine.
Cayabyab sees the biggest hurdle to virtual performance replacing actual live concert halls as being our slow internet. “The speed of the internet is probably the most major concern in online performances,” he writes. “We just have to live with what we have.”
Besides that, there are the usual logistical challenges of putting on a concert, albeit even if performers are safe at home, playing from their living rooms for streaming. Used to staging lavish productions, Cayabyab approached “Bayanihan Musikahan” like other live concerts. “Just like any other show or concert, one needs to think about the concept; invite people who will 'buy' into the concept; and invite people who will agree to perform.”
Says Actor’s Actors Inc. founder Bart Guingona: “Philippine theater for 2021 is going to be very challenging” because people will be recovering from economic woes of COVID, having much less disposable income for non-necessities, “let alone luring them into confined spaces.” He does note that New York’s Public Theater as well as CCP Virgin Lab Fest have experimented with online staging and digital platforms, one possible direction theater might take. For now, a painful possibility is that things won’t be returning to “normal” normal anytime soon. “My prediction is that 2021 will be the year we cope and adapt, and 2022 will be the year we recover,” says Guingona.
The advantage of all these live fundraising concerts — whether it’s Resorts World Manila raising relief donations by streaming a recorded performance of Ang Huling El Bimbo last month or My Brother’s Mustache raising money for musicians who were suddenly left gig-less during the lockdown — is that the online model is highly targeted and effective: the money can be easily donated from your sofa with a credit card and a phone, and you get to watch a free performance without risking COVID.
Other theater troupes have gotten more creative, turning their productions into something accessible online. The Ikarus Theatre Collaborative, a Marikina-based collective, has been writing and producing online podcast plays based around the lockdown theme. During this ECQ, they’ve gone back to a classic format: the radio drama. They write and perform their own one-act scripts and stream them all for free on a platform called “Podcast Theater” on their website (https://www.ikarustheater.com). The short plays run from the serious, tackling the difficulties of communicating during the quarantine (“Social Distancing,” “LDR”) to more comical takes (“Ang Huling Donut”). On June 5, they generously uploaded their second batch of three spoken plays for a total of six, available in a venue that can be accessed easily from home. “Our podcast episodes are an opportunity for families to come together, listen, and have a different activity that hopefully will make deeper connections,” the website says.
But really, nothing can replace live theater. Can it? Cayabyab hints that Filipinos may be talented enough to come up with something new. Maybe, he posits, they’ll “create a new space, a new medium for 'theater' performance, an alternative performance venue that is an art form in itself. I am sure we have an abundance of creative minds to pursue a new art form using the technology available.”
We can’t wait to see. Until then, most agree there have to be new safety protocols to protect both actors and audiences sharing space in local theaters.
Red Turnip Theater founder and director Jenny Jamora, who is a board member of the Philippine Legitimate Stage Artist Group or Philstage, says it’s important for all creative freelancers to band together, to seek better compensation (she shared her own experience of trying to track down back payment for voiceover work for years during an appearance before Congress’ Committee on Labor and Employment with Pangasinan Congressman Toff de Venecia), as well as safer working conditions, post-COVID. “Truly, there is strength in numbers,” says Jamora. “Now that freelancers are collating data, we are starting to see how huge the gig economy is in this country, and it will increase during the pandemic as people lose formal employment and turn to freelancing. We must make sure no one is left behind. We have a right to welfare and protection, and we have a right to be heard.”
Cayabyab agrees it will take maximum safety measures before theater can return. “We'd have to devise a way or create protocols for rehearsals. Meetings and preliminary rehearsals could be done online.”
He adds that safety guidelines for performance environments clean space and air would have to be followed, plus social distancing at entrances, exits, and among seating spaces. Perhaps even performers, staff and crew might have to submit to COVID testing and get clearance for a clean bill of health. Of course, the question remains: who would pay for all of this?
Still, even with all the creative workarounds during lockdown, Cayabyab and others feel the show must go on.
“Being there — live — is the magic,” he says of the performing arts. “I do not know how that magic can be replicated,” or ever replaced.