The hit musical Spring Awakening will be staged in Manila starting on September. Details are not yet available as of post time.

I’ve already set a “date” with a couple of friends and have been trying to convince others to join us. I realized, however, that besides trying to convince a few non-theater-inclined people that this one deserves a viewing, I was also compelled to justify the theme of the play. More on that later.

I cannot decide if I love the upbeat score (by Duncan Shiek) or the profound lyrics (by Steven Sater) more. The music is heavily infused with alternative/folk rock variations and I just love the string and percussion work in the original cast recording. The lyrics, on the other hand, is something I am particularly fond of.
Some examples of lines from the play:

Flip on a switch and everything’s fine
No more lips, no more tongue, no more ears, no more eyes
The naked blue angel, who peers through the blinds
Disappears in the gloom of the mirror-blue night [Mirror Blue Night]

So maybe
I should be some kind of laundry line.
Hang their things on me
And I will swing ‘em dry.
You’re just wavin’ the sun
Through the afternoon
And then see
They come to set you free
Beneath the rising moon [Don't Do Sadness/Blue Wind]

Let me teach you how to handle
All the sadness in your soul
Oh, we’ll work that silver magic
Then we’ll aim it at the wall”
She said: “Love may make you blind kid-
But I wouldn’t mind at all.”  [The Bitch of Living]

Now about the theme: In an interview with lyricist Steven Sater, he said that “There was grave concern it would push the mainstream audience out of their seats.” Simply put, the play is about the discovery of teenage sexuality. Conservative viewers may be offended (or, at the very least, shocked) by some scenes/songs, but I say don’t see it for the shock factor. I’m not sure about the age restrictions that will be imposed but I would guess that this is something older audiences will appreciate more just because it will bring them back to that time in their lives when rage (yes, raging hormones, too), impulsiveness, confusion, and self-loathing are rampant. Watch it for the raw emotions translated into songs. Watch it for the art, no matter how cliche that last pitch sounds.

I just discovered that the singer who dubbed Natalie Wood’s singing voice in West Side Story is the same singer who dubbed Audrey Hepburn’s singing voice in My Fair Lady. A quick Wiki research will reveal that Marni Nixon is the singing voice behind many very well known Hollywood movies such as An Affair to Remember (for Deborah Kerr), Joan of Arc (for Ingrid Bergman), Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s The King & I (for Deborah Kerr), and others, in addition to the two movies mentioned earlier.

I love My Fair Lady – The story of Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney (working class Londoner) flower girl who took speech lessons from one Professor Henry Higgins so that she can pass as a lady. I’m just rediscovering Audrey Hepburn (and Julie Andrews, for that matter). I found several treasures at YouTube showing the clips featuring the real singing voice of Hepburn and some other original renditions by Andrews (with rare theater production pictures) and they were all marvelous in their own individual way.

I have also recently watched the original TV production of Rodger’s & Hammerstein’s Cinderella starring Julie Andrews and was pleasantly surprised to realize that the recent Manila production (starring Lea Salonga) didn’t deviate much from the material. Lea’s Cinderella is just a little bit more spunky compared with Julie’s prim and proper lady but I love both versions.

I think I want to rewatch The Sound of Music next.

So long as I’m preoccupied with musicals these days, this is one video everybody should see.

Lea Salonga at Bryant Park, New York, August 2, 2007.

I Dreamed a Dream (Les Miserables)

I signed up for regular newsletters from Jason Robert Brown’s official site and got an update last night. Scanning through his new blog entry on “The Perils of an Online Life,” I found this bit:

Within a couple of months, though, it seemed that everyone on Friendster was actually from the Philippines. Also, whenever I told anyone I was on Friendster, they said, “Dude, Friendster sucks, you have to get a MySpace page!” So I looked at MySpace. MySpace gave me a total friggin’ headache. I hated it then, I still hate it now. I especially hate how nobody has a real name, it’s all PattiFan and imatosser and BwAyFaCe, like we’re all living in a comic book. I made my decision and I felt comfortable with it: I didn’t want to present myself online in that particular forum. Too messy, too weird, too insidious. So no MySpace. And Friendster was increasingly expecting me to speak Tagalog. It seemed my social networking phase had ended.

…

All of which is to say: if you’re a Friend of mine on Facebook and your last name is somewhere near the beginning of the alphabet, it’s been a really fun ride and I hope we’ll figure out how to connect again soon. Or, as they say on Friendster: pasalamatan ka dahil sa ay sinusulat akin kaibigan.

Funny. But I also noticed that Friendster is Filipino haven. But, hey, JRB, some Filipinos with Friendster accounts, such as myself, are ardent admirers of your works. By the way, if you’ll need a Tagalog translator, I’ll be more than glad to help.

On a related note, I received this SMS from a friend, something that I think I can really look forward to :

Sprint Productions and 9 Works, Inc., invites you to watch SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD, an Off-Broadway musical by Jason Robert Brown featuring your favorite theater actors: Carla Guevarra-Laforteza, Caisa Borromeo, Felix Rivera, Anna Santamaria, and Harold Cruz, directed by Robbie Guevarra. August 24, Sunday, 8 pm, at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Makati City. Please contact 0906-3315961 for details.

I’ve written about this musical revue on my other blog.

Maya Angelou once said, “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that although age harbors wisdom, youth is the height of beauty. A relatively new Broadway musical called Spring Awakening is being hailed as the new Rent owing to its portrayal of the exuberance (together with the struggles, angst, and self-discoveries) that is associated with being young and its being categorized as a rock musical, as its predecessor. Duncan Sheik wrote the music. Steven Sater is the lyricist.

Despite the quite grim and gloomy theme of the play, one of the final songs, The Song of Purple Summer, talks of hope:

And all shall fade
The flowers of spring
The world and all the sorrow
At the heart of everything

But still it stays
The butterfly sings
And opens purple summer
With a flutter of its wings

Apparently, “spring” here represents being a teenager, whereas “summer” represents adulthood. As everyone of us who is past that stage knows, those were hard times. Not that adulthood offers more thrills in exchange for the “wisdom” gained through experience. But there is magic to transformation – sometimes how people change can be a real cause of surprise. Its being a good or bad surprise counts for something, too. We can never bring back the times that passed. The time will come when we’ll need to move away from its shadow and take delight in the present.

The trouble with schools is
They always try to teach the wrong lesson
Believe me, I’ve been kicked out
Of enough of them to know
They want you to become less callow
Less shallow
But I say: why invite stress in?
Stop studying strife
And learn to live “the unexamined life”…

Dancing through life
Skimming the surface
Gliding where turf is smooth
Life’s more painless
For the brainless
Why think too hard?
When it’s so soothing
Dancing through life
No need to tough it
When you can sluff it off as I do
Nothing matters
But knowing nothing matters
It’s just life
So keep dancing through…

Dancing through life
Swaying and sweeping
And always keeping cool
Life is faught less
When you’re thoughtless
Those who don’t try
Never look foolish
Dancing through life
Mindless and careless
Make sure you’re where less
Trouble is rife
Woes are fleeting
Blows are glancing
When you’re dancing through life…
- Fiyero, Wicked the Musical

I read somewhere (I think it was in the reader’s comments) that one of the worst things you can do on your blog is to force your kind of music to your readers. Hey, I’m not forcing. For the sake of argument, I’m posting the lyrics to this song because this is so NOT my philosophy. This song, though, is one of the most enjoyable tracks in the entire Wicked soundtrack.

I’ve recently visited my closest relatives, something that I’ve delegated myself to do but once a year, much to their disappointment. We got to talk a little about our lives and here are some conclusions that we agreed on (because there were few points that we’ll forever argue about):

• I am a stress factory
• Life is hard; but how you spend your time matters
• Sacrifice is a labor of love; love is hard labor
• It is very seldom that children continue their parents’ business ventures, thus the loss of a potential family legacy (according to my friend, this is debatable if you’ll bring into picture the multimillion dollar industries)
• Parents will always have something to fault their children; they’ll mostly think it is their shortcoming
• Blood is really thicker than water

“Learn to live the unexamined life?” You see, I wasn’t brought up that way. There’s no way I can change back no matter how much I want to dance through it.

[audio:moonriver.mp3]

Moon river, wider than a mile
I’m crossing you in style some day
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker
Wherever you’re goin’, I’m goin’ your way

Two drifters, off to see the world
There’s such a lot of world to see
We’re after the same rainbow’s end, waitin’ ’round the bend
My huckleberry friend, moon river, and me

(moon river, wider than a mile)
(I’m crossin’ you in style some day)
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker
Wherever you’re goin’, I’m goin’ your way

Two drifters, off to see the world
There’s such a lot of world to see
We’re after that same rainbow’s end, waitin’ ’round the bend
My huckleberry friend, moon river, and me

Spring and summer
Every other day
Blue wind gets so sad.
Blowin’ through the thick corn
Through the bales of hay
Through the open books on the grass…

Spring and summer

Sure, when it’s autumn
Wind always wants to
Creep up and haunt you -Whistling, it’s got you
With its heartache, and its sorrow
Winter wind sings and it cries . . .

Blue Wind, Spring Awakening

I don’t know what all the colors are. It might take me a lifetime to figure it all out. And even if I won’t get to, blue wind has given me enough perspective to know that it’s alright.

An acquaintance asked me recently if I’d be interested to see a fortune teller. I plainly said no – I like the not knowing part; I like the mystery. The truth is, I’d get freaked out even if I won’t be inclined to believe. I may be alone in this but I think that life is beautiful exactly because you can’t understand it. The element of surprise keeps us on our toes; it keeps the blood flowing through our veins; it’s what tickles our brains. We anticipate; we hope; we dream to prosper.

Maybe blue wind does tend to blow in the direction of those who try to dig a little deeper in the mystery – those who can’t live through two-dimensionality. Because, in the end, all our questions are the same. The difference lies on how we accept our answers.

People who need people

Are the luckiest people in the world

We’re children needing other children

And yet letting our grown-up pride

Hide all the need inside

Acting more like children than children

From the song People (sung by Barbra Streisand), Funny Girl original motion picture soundtrack (1968)

Barbra Streisand’s first film role was that of Fanny Brice in this semibiographical movie account of the hit Broadway musical. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1968, an honor she shared with the late Katharine Hepburn.

That scene when Fanny sang People is one of my favorites from the movie. I think it’s all because of Streisand and the song. In what should be a particularly romantic scene, with the two leads enjoying a rare moment alone, I entirely forgot about the leading man and focused on Barbra’s clear, awesome voice (although I must say that’s also because I’m not particularly charmed by the Don Juan type). I was compelled to ask a friend if she thinks Barbra Streisand is overrated. The answer was a clear no. I rest my case.

Fanny was funny. She was not a classic beauty but her ambition and sheer determination gave her a flourishing career in a business that normally only embraces belles and sex symbols. Then she fell in love. It didn’t end well – her husband rained on her parade, that’s why.

In another of my favorite scenes, Fanny comes out to greet the reporters after it became known that her husband, a pathological gambler, had been arrested for embezzlement. She was devastated while her back was turned, and then she faced the cameras with a bright smile and a handful of jokes. That’s an actress for you – image is everything; reality, secondary.

Another friend told me that people who appears to be gregarious and animated all the time are sometimes the loneliest people in the world. “Fun” is their way of taking the very “non-fun” parts of their private lives. I suppose there’s truth to that claim because I’ve seen some first hand. But it shouldn’t be our business to measure our cumulative loneliness. I think maybe we should start learning how to need each other. At least until we’ve come full circle and being needy starts to make us unhappy and it all becomes a joke.