Noli Me Tangere Manila

Why I enjoyed my theater trip outside RCBC

I can't decide how much I liked this show. On the one hand, production value was excellent. On the other, I only understood like 40% of it. (Yes, I am a terrible Filipino. Yes, I am terrible at Filipino.) Maybe I should have invited a companion who could have acted as a handy reference for words I didn't understand.

I have, let's say, personal baggage about Noli Me Tangere. I had to take it up twice, once each in high school and college. I didn't enjoy studying it either time because, well, I didn't really enjoy anything we took up in Filipino class. And having read it 1-2 times, I really don't think it's a good book. I'm not talking context; but as a work of literature I don't know what it wants to say or do. So many characters, so many symbols, so many sub-plots. Too crazy. (Like seasons four and five of Lost?) So me disliking the content to begin with + not being able to understand the whole show makes me feel like I can't really make a judgments or comment about whether or not play's truth was well told.



But there were some amazing things in the execution of the story that I really liked:

• Voices. Amazing voices. AMAZING VOICES. +50
• CCP's acoustics are amazing. Ensemble pieces that resonated with beautiful harmonies. +50
• Mark Bautista, I believe is a pop singer? He was A-mazing! His voice never faltered and I do believe he has acting chops. He also seems to have a very Ibarra look. +50
• Cris Villongco, I don't think I've ever seen live til now. Wow. I have a few nits, two main ones, and maybe I shouldn't be entitled to the first: Sometimes it seemed like she sang with her mouth open too wide and missed the round tones that seem to be important for classical singing. And she had this default action of wiping Ibarra's face, which I didn't get at all - is it that hot in the Philippines? Otherwise WOW. She really hit her high note at the part when she decided to give Savli Ibarra's letter in exchange for her mother's, except it opened a floodgate of tears that continued until the curtain call... I can't wait to see her in Sound of Music. +30
• Everyone else, WOW! Amazing. What a treat when everyone in the cast can sing! And you find yourself thinking that even the supporting cast is vocally stellar. +20
• Batibot actor as Padre Damaso. +5
• Sleazy Salvi, Psycho Sisa, Capt. Tiago +10
• What felt like, regardless of language, purposeful acting. Props, director! +40
• As much as I liked Mark as Ibarra I feel kinda bad I missed seeing Giancarlo in this role - how well did he do? -5
• No tinola or bapor tabo, tsk! -10
• Nice job cutting out unnecessary characters. I don't remember who but know there were a lot more in the book. +20
• Clean, simple props that gave texture but didn't distract - blankets for picnics, gravestones for cemetery, banderitas for party, etc. +10
• Movement and blocking that made great use of the stage - width, height, depth +30
• Total = 300! (Compare)

Not holding my own biases about the source material against this production, Noli Me Tangere was amazing. And what I liked best about seeing this was the reassurance that insane quality is completely possible in Philippine theater and that we should expect and demand it in every show we see.