With Bilog, ‘Spring’ comes full circle / Italian fete opens

In more ways than one, "French Spring in Manila" came full circle with the staging of Bilog by the UP Dulaang Talyer (Theater Workshop) at the CCP Little Theater. To begin with, "bilog" is the Tagalog word for round or circle.

Further, the focal point stage was a transparent screen in the form of a circle – still another symbol – through which the audience viewed constantly moving shadows of two figures, obviously lovers, who alternately express love, isolation, anger, affection, etc. Playwright Nicholas Pichay gives the clue to these figures in his program notes: "Bilog is about the thing that terrorizes us the most – love, or the lack of it – or the misdirection of it, or the redemption or disillusion it brings, on a case-to-case basis. In the play, each character embodies a different love dilemma."

Because Bilog will be shown starting July 1 in the Avignon Theater Festival (outside Paris) before an international audience, the visually compelling screen shows key words with their French translations: e.g., bilog (l’amour), a dream (reve), etc. The clever device, as well as the occasional use of English phrases and sentences will help foreign audiences to comprehend the story.

The experiments, highly original multi-media play integrates music and dance into the drama. The players strikingly versatile, have been chosen for their skill, experience and ability to project. The singing enchants; indeed, some of the players (both male and female) could pursue a singing career in the future.

If the audiences abroad cannot quite follow the dialogue, they can certainly appreciate the songs as also the dances which have been imaginatively choreographed by director Paul Morales.

A few reservations: The scenes tend to be episodic; the many players come and go, leaving sketches rather than real or deep character delineations. Often, too many things are happening onstage, these blurring the focus. This is particularly true with the opening scene.

However, various illuminating insight into Philippine life, culture and character will doubtless fascinate and enlighten the viewers. We wish Dulaang Tayler bon voyage and a resounding success. Before the play began Ambassador Renée Veyret expressed warm encouragement and support of the group whose engagement in Avignon completes Fil-Franco interaction. This was affirmed by the very presence of "Spring" stalwarts Counselor Franck Hebert, AF Director Philippe Normand and Press Attaché Benedict Meysson.

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In the following letter, Maria Gracia Anelli, cultural attaché of the Italian Embassy, lists and briefly describes the films directed by Fellini and other award-winning greats, which are to be shown at the Italian Film Festival opening July 1:

Dear Ms. Orosa:

Although I know that music and the arts related to it, like classical ballet and modern dance (by the way allow me to congratulate you for the splendid articles on the French artists) and sometimes theatrical performances, mostly attract your professional interest, I would like to inform you that an Italian Film Festival, jointly organized by the Italian Embassy, the Philippine Italian-Association and the CCP will be held very soon in Manila. It will be a veritable cinematic feast, owing largely to the creative talent of some of Italy’s top movie directors.

The invitational launching, scheduled on Tuesday, July 1st will coincide with Italy’s assumption to the Presidency of the European Union. It will take place at 7 p.m. at the CCP Little Threatre and the academy-awarded Amardcord D’ ecte by the incomparable Federico Fellini will open the festival. It is in fact the Ambassador’s wish to commemorate as was recently done at the Cannes Film Festival as well, the 10th anniversary of Fellini’s passing.

In the following months (once a month two screenings at 4 and 7 p.m. on the same day until December) that is, for all the period Italy will hold the EU Presidency, other critical and/or box-office hits will be presented at the CCP "Dream Theater."

I would like to tell you not to miss Ludwig II, where the splendid melodies of Wagner and Mahler make even more dramatic by contrast, the King of Bavaria’s painful descent into despair and madness. Very timely is The Way We Laughed, winner of the 1998 Venice Film Festival by Gianni Amelio, one of the most talented and strongest voices of the Italian contemporary cinema. His ideas about immigration (the topic he deals with in the movie) are extremely interesting; "I cultivate" – he said in an interview after his award in Venice – "the utopia that one day people will not emigrate any more but it will be possible to meet all the different ethnic groups everywhere in the world. The future of the world is not multiracial but interracial and the different cultures will confront every day in all the places of the planet. The West cannot barricade behind the defense of the workplaces and its riches. It must rather think to the investment that will result from the future of the world without cultural borders."

The October screening Not Of This World, the 1999 Italian Academy Award Nominee highlights the isolation many people experience in urban life. In November’s movie The Legend of 1900, the haunting music by the famous Italian composer Ennio Morricone was awarded the Golden Globe. Bringing the festival to an end for 2003 is a comic movie (at last!). Such is Life, written, directed and interpreted by the comic trio Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo, is highly popular in Itally and is in the same blend as Roberto Benigni.

However, the Italian Film Festival, thanks to the precious support of Rustan and the CCP, will not close at the end of the year. Acclaimed Italian movies will continue to be screened at the "Dream Theater" once a month, in 2004. The CCP and the PIA, even after the end of my assignment in Manila, will take care of the festival so that the best of Italian cinema will be regularly shown. While the 2004 schedule will be published in the CCP quarterly brochure, the PIA will send or e-mail, upon request, the synopses and the biodata of the directors.

I really hope your many engagements will allow you to grace the screening of Amarcord (this letter is a formal invitation) as well as the reception after the film showing, H. E. Ambassador Umberto Colesanti and I would be very, very pleased to welcome you.

With my sentiments of highest consideration and best regards.