O'Hara and Arcenas on Tatlong Maria: Looking for Chekhov's gun

MANILA, Philippines - VERSHININ. Yes. They will forget. That is our fate, you can’t do anything about it. The things which to us seem serious, significant, very important – the time will come they will be forgotten or they will seem of no consequence. (From Anton Chekhov’s ‘Three Sisters’)

If you want to hear it from lead actor Mario O’Hara and director Loy Arcenas, they are so excited about Tanghalang Pilipino’s last production for the season, an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” into Filipino, “Tatlong Maria,” more than a hundred years after the play was written and first staged in Russia.

“It is about people who keep talking about what they want to do, but never get around to doing it,” the New York-based Arcenas, who is directing his second play in three years for TP after “Golden Child” in 2008, says.

O’Hara, the Zamboanga-born film director who grew up in Pasay, says he is reminded of a friend of his in Saudi, who always kept his plane fare to go back home to Manila in his pocket, even if he never spent it in 20 years.

In the adaptation by Rody Vera, O’Hara plays Chebutykin, the doctor in the military regiment who could be the father of the three sisters Olga, Masha and Irina, but who was definitely in love with their mother.

And instead of turn of the 19th century provincial Russia with the military in key roles, it is northern Philippines in 1977, with technocrats building a dam somewhere in the Ilocos.

“The technocrat has a different image from the military at the time,”

Arcenas says, emphasizing that any martial law references are tangential because the play is “very toned down politically.”

Arcenas says the Chekhov play is very Filipino. “In a way it’s tragic, but you do not know it’s tragic,” as it very quietly chronicles the breakup of a family.

“But what else can one do? You have to go on living, otherwise just commit suicide.”

Disillusionment comes with the territory in Chekhov, like his gun the literary device that is not covered by the election ban, and which must go off before the curtain falls.

Americans can’t do Chekhov, Arcenas says, unlike Europeans who have a better grasp of the class struggle. He also has a beef about most translations into English: “People don’t talk that way.”

O’Hara says that the play has no clear-cut villain, not even the sister-in-law – the unico hijo’s wife – who eventually takes over and runs the affairs of the family that can’t but dream of returning to the big city, Moscow or Manila, whence they came and where they once were old aristocrats.

IRINA: I dreamed so much about love, night and day I have dreamed so long about it, but my heart is like a glorious grand piano, and the lid is closed and the key is thrown away. (Chekhov, ‘Three Sisters’)

Arcenas says he is using the ensemble approach in directing Tatlong Maria, meaning everyone contributes to the production.

O’Hara says so far there has been no conflict in the director’s handling of the play, as being a director himself he may have other ideas how to do a scene.

“If it makes sense to the actor/character, who am I to force it?” Arcenas says.

O’Hara recalls once being in a play by a German director, who was “very hands on,” which sort of cramped his style.

Eventually the artist will have to put his own spin to the role, O’Hara says, and that has nothing to do with plot.

Arcenas says that ever since Golden Child, he had wanted to return to the home country and do Chekhov. He initially considered “The Cherry Orchard,” but Three Sisters was the right choice because it is a project “with the most number of interesting young actors.”

There can be as many as 16 actors on stage at a time, yet it never feels cluttered or diffused. Among the other actors are Dolly Gutierrez as the eldest daughter Olga, Mailes Kanapi as second daughter Masha, Angeli Bayani as youngest daughter Irina, and Nonie Buencamino as the philosopher soldier Vershinin.

CHEBUTYKIN. Nonsense. Consensus. (Chekhov, 3 Sisters)

The play may also be a way back for O’Hara to return to making movies, his last “Babae sa Breakwater” released more than five years ago.

“Wala na ang audience. Nasunog na lahat ng sinehan sa Pasay. Iba ang audience sa mall (The audience is gone. The movie houses in Pasay have all burned down. Those who watch movies at the mall are a different audience),” O’Hara says.

O’Hara feels rather nostalgic for the old days of filmmaking, “walang dayaan,” it was hard to cheat and things were less superficial.

“Ngayon lahat na lang ‘the best’, ano ba yang the best the best na yan (Now all productions are billed as ‘the best’, but what do they really mean by the best)?”

O’Hara is raring to do “Ang Paglilitis ni Andres Bonifacio” as his next film, courtesy of a grant from Cinemalaya, based on historical records of the kangaroo court that tried the hero, and which were published during the administration of Manila Mayor Antonio Villegas.

He says his audience may not be in the malls but in the schools. His wanting to do the Bonifacio film was spurred partly by a query from a pamangkin (niece or nephew), who wondered why one national hero would have another national hero killed.

But O’Hara says unless they start, nothing is yet final about the project, which would need mostly indio-looking actors.

As for Tatlong Maria, O’Hara says “malaking tulong itong play na ’to (The play’s a big help).”

“My approach is to learn… theater is education,” O’Hara says.

He observes that development of character in Chekhov is vertical, as opposed to flat and one-dimensional, and that they have time to analyze and really flesh out the character and work with other actors.

He did not say it, but there are a good number of actors not necessarily indio in Tatlong Maria he could use in Paglilitis ni Bonifacio, the long awaited next film of Mario O’Hara.

OLGA. (Embraces both sisters.) The music is playing so cheerfully, it’s so full of high spirits that one wants to stay alive. Oh God, Oh God! The time will come when we will be gone forever, we will be forgotten, our faces, our voices, and even how many of us there were. But our suffering will be transformed into happiness for those who live after us, peace and contentment will cover the earth, and they will remember and bless with kind words all those who live now. My dearest, dearest sisters, our life is still not finished. We will go on living. The music is playing so happily, so cheerfully, that it seems, in just a little time, we will know why we live, and why there is all this suffering… If only we could know! If only we could know! (Chekhov, 3 Sisters)

The joy of theater, Arcenas says, is “watching something unexpected happen in front of you.”

“Wala naman talaga mali sa theater, unless mali ang timpla mo (There is really nothing wrong in theater, unless the mix is wrong),” O’Hara says.

The magic of theater, one might say, is making it look not at all expected.

“Ang reality walang eksaktong sukat (Reality can’t be measured),” O’Hara says.

“As long as truth is there, and no embellishments, you can go all out,” Arcenas says.

“It’s like a circus, you have to catch the other in a trapeze.”

“In theater, we have a word for it – pasok.”

Now they know, now they know, and soon, so will we.

Tatlong Maria goes onstage at the CCP’s Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino on Feb. 19-21, 26-28 and March 13-15, 20-22. Call Tanghalang Pilipino at 832-3661.