From day one, even when he was still in his mother’s womb, Jaime del Mundo says he knew that his destiny was the theater. In 1960, his mother, nine months pregnant, attended a school musical in which her daughter was appearing. On the way back, feeling something, she decided to drop by the hospital. And whereupon she gave birth to Jaime.
He says: “I always joke that I became aware of how bad the show was from inside and was yelling ‘Lemme out! Lemme out! I can fix that! We just need to reblock a couple of scenes!’”
At a very early age, the would-be stage director played with model theaters, dabbled in music, ventriloquism, performed in puppet shows at children’s parties (and was even paid for it), saved his money, and bought one Shakespeare play every week because they were the cheapest books he could find.
The plays cost all of three pesos,” Del Mundo recalls. “I still have them.”
As an adult, he was “totally rocked” by the productions (on video) of directors like Peter Brook, Trevor Nunn, Harold Prince, Peter Hall and Peter Sellars.
“The first production I directed was Brooks’ version of Bizet’s opera (‘Le Tragedie de Carmen’),” he says. “And to this day, I make my students sit through the eight glorious hours of Nunn’s ‘Nicholas Nickleby.’”
Filipino idol
His Filipino idol is the late National Artist Rolando Tinio.
“I was a subscriber to his company in my teens,” Del Mundo recalls, and he raves: “Boy, could he direct! The man was a theatrical genius. I miss watching and learning from those productions during the early Teatro Filipino days.”
Actresses who have had a terrific impact on him include Baby Barredo, Shamaine Centenera-Buencamino, Irma Adlawan, the late Ella Luansing, and Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo.
“I was one of the lucky ones who saw Baby Barredo at what I believe was her prime in the late 1970s,” the director reminisces. “I have great memories of her in ‘The King and I,’ ‘Marriage Italian Style,’ ‘The Rose Tattoo,’ ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,’ among others. These were great, passionate performances of equally passionate women. I saw her ‘Mame’ (the very first Repertory Philippines musical I saw) and was totally smitten.”
During his college days at the University of the Philippines, Centenera and Adlawan were already big stars on the Dulaang UP stage.
“Watching their performances, you knew you were in the presence of great talent,” says Del Mundo. “Years later, that great talent turned into great artistry. Also in my teens, I witnessed Ella Luansing’s portrayal of many of theater’s great female roles. At that age, I thought her versatility was astounding. Her Hedda and Sally Bowles were particularly memorable.”
Greatest partner
According to Del Mundo, whose recent hit “The Bluebird of Happiness” is up for many nominations at PhilStage’s Gawad Buhay! Awards, “The relationship between actor and director is like a good marriage in the sense that you are partners in bringing out the best in one another. And the product of that partnership is an artistic ‘offspring’ that could not be possible without one or the other.”
And the greatest partner of such an artistic marriage, for him, is the “amazing” Lauchengco-Yulo: “She takes everything I throw at her, turns it inside out, and makes it work. It is such a joyous experience working with her. She makes my direction look good. Heck, she makes me look good.”
There are many other actors who have impressed him, including the young generation:
“There’s a lot of great talent and artistry out there,” he declares. “But then again, we’re Filipinos. Talent is always a given.”
Pinoy playwrights
Immersed as he is in foreign Repertory-Atlantis type of plays, how does he feel about Filipino playwrights and theater in the vernacular?
“Of the playwrights whose works I have seen,” Del Mundo observes, “I confess an admiration for the work of Floy Quintos. I am always fascinated by the topics he writes about, his wit and stagecraft. I have probably mentioned more than once to Floy that I want to direct one of his plays. Of course, I also love the classic ‘A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino’ by Nick Joaquin, and I wish that I get to direct it one of these days.”
He is also excited by the more current plays: “I was able to catch ‘Maxie the Musical’ and admired how the writing (by Nicolas Pichay) developed the original film scenario. I heard that ‘Sa Wakas,’ a musical performed early last year, was promising, and am looking forward to the new generation’s ‘Toilet the Musical.’”
And, of course, there are the Tinio translations of foreign masterpieces: “Watching a production of a Tinio translation, and seeing the effect on hundreds of high school students as it was in the ’70s, one marveled at how fresh the material seemed, and how it always hit closer to home in the vernacular.”
Clockwork precision
Del Mundo goes into transports of excitement when describing the magic of theater: “I’ve always believed that a performance of a play is an example (a microcosm, if you will) of how society could run. Everyone working hard, putting aside their differences, and working together for the benefit of a third party—the audience.
“I love the experience of watching my shows from the wings or backstage. If the audience could only see the clockwork precision that goes on backstage at every performance, they would be astounded at the miracle of order that arises from the chaos.
“They would believe that for one brief shining moment, the world is as it could be,” he says. “Something I do believe in. If theater can teach us anything, it is that.”