Dramachine: From Sugarfree to Mrs. Robinson

It’s easy to dismiss the The Graduate, a stage adaptation of the groundbreaking 1967 film which starred Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft, and Sa Wakas, an original pop-rock musical that weaves together the songs of Sugarfree, as raw yet fail-safe attempts to capture and metastasize a generation. RENT, Spring Awakening… the list goes on for such youth-centric (read: contemporary) works that have found huge success on Broadway, the West End, and theaters around the world.

The Graduate, directed by theater veteran Jaime del Mundo, tells the story of Benjamin Braddock (Reb Atadero), recent yuppie with no well-defined aim in life who is seduced by a certain Mrs. Robinson (Pinky Marquez). While they engage in a series of late night liaisons, set against a backdrop of a hot American summer, he meets Elaine (Cara Barredo), Mrs. Robinson’s daughter. Her naïveté vis-à-vis Mrs. Robinson’s jadedness is what keeps Benjamin in a tug-of-war between his heartstrings and his hard-on.

Sa Wakas, directed and co-written by Andrei Pamintuan (Mariane Abuan is his literary half), is a love story that chronicles the breakdown of a relationship, and the beginning of another. Topper (Fredison Lo), an up-and-coming photographer, is struggling to find himself while in a relationship with Lexi (Caisa Borromeo), a young doctor who is juggling this with a pressure-cooker career. Topper’s brush with magazine editor Gabbi (Kyla Rivera), who is also trying to rekindle her passions, leads to an affair that proceeds from a rooftop view overlooking an effervescent Manila skyline.

Past (not-so) perfect

While The Graduate’s supposed id-versus-ego conflict holds true to this day (an expectations versus reality sort of thing that resonates with most millennials), its essence is sadly diminished by the playwright’s shoddy theatrical adaptation that annexed or removed certain scenes to Mike Nichols’ near-perfect film.

Originally written, The Graduate tackles the bourgeois superficiality of post-war America in the tenacious persona of a yuppie trying to find himself while having an affair. Sadly, this is downplayed in favor of some off-tangent storytelling – like the drunken ya-ya sisterhood shenanigans between Elaine and Mrs. Robinson, or Benjamin’s post-event reportage of his hitchhiking trip as opposed to the material giving space to actually show it. It would have made a more impactful “prodigal son” moment.

The play also relies heavily on “sensationalism” — perhaps to compensate — playing on nudity and a young man’s affair with an older woman. Except, in the age of post-Ashton and Demi, this taboo is dead. You can almost hear an insouciant le sigh being uttered in between the stage version’s supposed malaise, and Marquez’s quasi-British breath.

While talented actors in their own right, Marquez and Atadero are no Ashton and Demi when it comes to chemistry. Atadero might have taken his spot-on comedic timing too far into the realm of slapstick, that while funny at best, veered away from the pathos of Benjamin’s existential crisis. He is then written off as plain bratty.

Meanwhile, Marquez, an exquisite Marmee in Little Women, is not so much the convincing seductress in Mrs. Robinson — a character, unlike one of her many incarnations in Repertory’s No Way to Treat a Lady, requires seduction that doesn’t find its bearings in farce. Cara Barredo plays an endearing Elaine, as do del Mundo and Angela Padilla who play Benjamin’s kooky parents, and in fact, Marquez and Atadero themselves at certain momets. But at times, she comes off as whiny and caricature, the latter being characteristic of Jeremy Domingo’s Mr. Robinson.

What the show lacked in coming-of-age sensitivity, however, it mitigates with staging (watch out for del Mundo’s use of designer Mio Infante’s bedroom set rendered in perspective, where most of the play’s action is kept a la Broadway’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; and use of lighting to move story forward in scenes like the elevator). His choice to layer scene transitions with Simon and Garfunkel, as sung a capella by Atadero, adds a touch of art house to the otherwise straightforward storytelling.

Sadly, the culprit remains — the material and the little that it enables its actors. In fact, the film’s powerful closing scene where Elaine and Benjamin ride off to uncertainty is sacrificed for a fairytale ending; a coming-of-age insertion down the drain. If it’s coming-of-age you’re looking for, you’re about 45 minutes north of a production playing at the PETA Theater that has found a theatrical resurgence among millennials.

Present perfect

Sa Wakas, a musical that fills the void left by most musical theater outfits today, is a gem of a show that’s proudly Filipino. Whereas most steer clear of original work for fear of the unknown (and the worry of rectifying production costs with ticket sales and audience reception), Sa Wakas bravely takes up the cudgels and tries to reel in an untapped market. Consider the archetypes used: the corporate, the photographer, and the magazine editor – a two-for-one extrapolation of the corporate vs. artistic conundrum.

In fact, you could say that Sa Wakas is an indie film set to theater, a stage format of Cinemalaya favorite Ang Nawawala – where music, particularly OPM, is a star in itself. You could also say that Sa Wakas is a rock concert (a la Broadway’s American Idiot, We Will Rock You, or Rock of Ages) that found ammunition in the songs of a well-loved band; so much so that when the opening score, as masterfully rendered by upstart musical director Ejay Yatco, starts to play, a tidal wave of emotion overcomes you as you sit amongst theaterati, connoisseurs, and hipsters (note: hipsters, prepare to be crucified!)

While the show’s triumvirate of Rivera, Borromeo, and Lo is a case study on camaraderie, emotion, and spot-on chemistry (though, Borromeo here is at a slight disadvantage because of her thick American accent that takes away from the crispiness of a well-oiled Filipino tongue), the play is hardly original in terms of its use of archetypes. In fact, the story draws upon pop culture’s growing fascination for the “no other woman” a.k.a. the querida.

The playwrights, however, strategically made use of self-referential meta humor to poke fun at its shortcomings. Borromeo is called out by Lo’s character for being an Englishera in the end (her alternate Laura Cabochan for having a thick Chinese accent), hipsters are chastised, and yes, the querida is brought to fore. They also chose to tell the story in reverse a la Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along and The Last Five Years — a format that punches you immediately in the face then proceeds to end in a hopeful note.

As for the staging, Pamintuan kept it simple, relying on lighting to transform a unit set that was mosaic in theme, and TV screens in the style of Broadway’s American Idiot to flash conceptual photography to enhance the introduction of Sugarfree songs. He also made use of a greek chorus (Abi Sulit, Cassie Manalastas, Mikou David, and the stellar Hans Dimayuga), that, though oddly placed for the most part, especially when they are shoddily overlooking the stage from the second level, are able to aid in the transitions.

Future perfect

Watching both pieces, I found myself in the shoes of Benjamin and Topper, vacillating between two loves — a long-standing relationship with Western theater, and a newfound respect for original, Filipino work; an homage to the past that, due to the ironically “new” material, might be viewed as irrelevant (The Graduate), and a gem that situates itself in the nucleus of Manila’s cultural zeitgeist (Sa Wakas). I have always gravitated towards Western theater, what with my travels abroad and theatrical background. However, my metanoia (of late) has led me to believe that Sa Wakas is doing right by Philippine theater at the moment that it is finding its place in the cultural strata, and view the almost masturbatory attempts of The Graduate to enlighten (as evidenced by the usual Rep patrons watching it) with a slight tinge of contempt.

If you think about it, what is “coming-of-age” really but an avenue to remind those of the typewriter and Twitter of the trials and emotions that confounded them throughout their youth. It is a reminder of who we were (when having someone say ‘yes’ to us for prom meant the world) and a reality check of who we’ve become (when having an employer say ‘yes’ means that we could tide over life’s basic necessities). In hindsight, coming-of-age also serves as a guiding force to help us ascertain who we want to become.

In that sense, both pieces (though Sa Wakas more so than The Graduate because of structure) succeed in that they make us remember – Sa Wakas, on what it’s like to be searching for your place in the sun, and The Graduate on what it’s like to live.

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The “Graduate” and “Sa Wakas” are on their final weekends. “The Graduate” is showing at the On-stage Greenbelt Theater ‘til Sunday (April 28) 3:30 p.m. For tickets, call 891-9999. “Sa Wakas” is showing at the PETA Theater in New Manila, ‘til Sunday 8 p.m. For tickets, call 911-5555.