Dateline: 01 July 2018, The Theatre at Solaire, Paranaque
A theater producer, Cebuano friend Hendri was in Manila, and offered me an extra complimentary ticket to Binondo: A Tsinoy Musical. The performance schedule was likely for PR purposes, lots of personalities from the performing arts and media attended. I was especially thrilled to meet up some friends back in college whom I only get to chat through social media. They were attending to see a fellow Samaskomer, Tuesday Vargas, who cast in the musical.
Got this from the production's Instagram:
BINONDO: A Tsinoy Musical tells the story of how LILY, a Filipina nightclub singer in pre-Martial Law Manila, and AH TIONG, a mainland Chinese scholar returning to Cultural Revolution-era Beijing, embark on a journey of great love and heartbreak that begins one fated, moon-lit night during the Mid-Autumn Festival of 1972 in the heart of Manila’s Chinatown.
Uhm. I'm not a theater critic; I won't be able to offer any legit-sounding critique. I know that now because I once tried to write (blog) about the Virgin Labfest of many years ago, and a prominent theater critic, an acquaintance, was at least polite enough not to comment anything about my writing (or maybe he had conveniently forgotten that I attempted to write at all).
Anyway, as I said, I'm not a theater critic. My feelings about the show came with a memory of a story told by another friend, a performance artist back in college, about one production of a material that they felt unsure about but nonetheless gave their all to salvage (e.g. moves Martha Graham would have done herself, flying splits to end all, extensions of the finest geometry). On critics' night, a big-name theater professor participated, and after their presentation, the faculty member stood up, clapped tersely and shouted, "I love the ENERGY!" Then, promptly left. I remembered that story because this one, too, felt like that.
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