After the acclaimed restaging of “Himala: Isang Musikal” in late 2019, director Eduardo “Ed” Lacson Jr. had planned to take a breather. Based on the Ishmael Bernal film classic, “Himala” is about how blind faith drags a community down the road to decadence.
For the musical, Lacson created the world of Elsa, a bogus mystic, and the whirlwind of fanaticism and hysteria that ensued until her downfall.
When successive lockdowns disrupted the local live entertainment industry, Lacson fully empathized with his colleagues’ disappointment and dilemma. Yet, remaining unfazed, he kept his day job as manager of Power Mac Center Spotlight (PMCS) theater, which has evolved into a venue for shoots and virtual gatherings in this pandemic. As a director, Lacson migrated to the digital medium, starting with special corporate events.
Last summer, Ricardo “Ricky” Lee, who wrote the original screenplay and the stage musical’s libretto, informed Lacson that the latest incarnation of “Himala,” a musical film, would be streamed on a still-undisclosed site. It was produced by Epicmedia Productions, led by Bianca Balbuena-Liew. The top-notch production team consisted of filmmakers Paolo Villaluna, Term Monteras II, Brandon Liew and cinematographer Ice Adanan.
Poetic renditions
During the last week of “Himala” at the theater in 2019, Lee arranged for its recording, but not merely for documentation. His intent was to present it in yet another medium, using the languages of camera and editing.
Lacson is impressed with the first draft as it is. “It’s beautiful,” he says. “The cinematographers are themselves filmmakers, so they knew how to frame every scene. I hadn’t seen a local show documented this way. Ricky had the foresight to do that.”
The camera captures gut emotions hardly perceivable in live theater—powerful acting moments that Lacson had not seen in any of the theater runs, poetically rendered on-screen. Noemi Gonzales’ scene as a shamed Chayong before she kills herself stands out for Lacson.
The 37-year-old director feels that, on account of the pandemic, “Himala” is relevant now more than ever. The viewer would think it’s an allusion to the Filipino disposition of being easily awed by a “savior,” whose false claims often lead to disillusion.
Ishmael Bernal’s film version.
The original musical production was staged at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2003 and 2004 by Tanghalang Pilipino. A dramatized concert version was revived at Philippine Educational Theater Association in 2013, with majority of the actors from the original cast.
When Lacson was tasked to direct the musical at PMCS (both in 2018 and 2019), he reverted to Bernal’s film as source material.
Lacson’s plays have been successful largely due to his casting choices. “Casting is a big percentage of any director’s work,” he says. It took over year for him to complete his “Himala” cast, as the requirements were stiff. Aside from overextending their acting skills, the performers were challenged by Vincent de Jesus’ discordant musical passages. Moreover, they had to project convincingly without the aid of lapel or head microphones.
The director adds, “You need the right combination of actors. They may be individually good but, if they don’t blend well, you have a problem.” The second PMCS run in 2019 was finely tuned, with an added alternate cast.
Minding the present
Since the pandemic, Lacson’s mindset has been on the present—digital productions. His much-lauded plays—such as “Si Maria Isabella at ang Guryon ng mga Tala,” a tale of unrequited love romanticized by classic guitar, shadow play and puppetry, and “Games People Play,” a coming-of-age drama that used cardboard cutouts as psychological symbols—were part of a glorious journey in theater. His directorial style for these plays required the space and the live audience. “The only reason that I was not raring to go back to theater last year was, I got to complete a masterwork—Ricky Lee’s script, Vince de Jesus’ music and the production scale,” says Lacson.
He also recalls enjoying work on a short film for a production company that reunited him with writer Eljay Castro Deldoc (“Si Maria Isabella…”) and actor Shamaine Centenera-Buencamino who, like himself, had to work from home.
Lacson has resumed set designing. He used crates for Art Fair Philippines’ “Uncrating O2O” exhibit in Greenbelt 5 in November last year. It was the first time in eight months that he ventured outdoors for work.
Next, he is set to direct singer Morissette Amon’s 10th anniversary concert, which will be shot at PMCS. He continues to do virtual corporate events as well.
“I look at them as projects with a different set of parameters,” he says. “Creativity is required, of course, and you still collaborate with other people in terms of concept, and get their approval. It’s a job that you do, and you do it well. It’s not like I feel less pressured; I still get the same level of anxiety when I do private events.”
Always seeing new possibilities but never without an eye on cost-efficiency, he adds, “I enjoy directing as much for a camera as for online—shooting via Zoom is a new skill. It’s an emerging industry that is bound to stay postpandemic. It’s outside my comfort zone, which is why it’s appealing to me.”
As he learns the language of visual storytelling, Lacson says he wouldn’t mind venturing into filmmaking in the future. “I’m reviewing the footage of ‘Himala,’ noting very carefully how the story is told. I have this opportunity to study material from a film perspective. It is good—and fun.”
A new passion
Meanwhile, he has a newfound passion for pottery. “I had the urge to create something tactile,” he says, “something I could hold in my hands. I tried stitching and painting, too.”
He took lessons at Tahanan Pottery, and has since been using the studio there, practicing on his own. When he posted images of his plates, mugs and bowls on his social media accounts, friends started urging him to sell. He does plan to do that in the future, he says, to support such an expensive hobby. With characteristic fastidiousness, he is still fine-tuning his skills, taking all the time he needs to get everything right.
His sharpest critiques are reserved for his own pieces: “I see that the handle of a mug is hard to hold in a certain way. Or the mouth of a cup is too thick to sip coffee from. That’s the same obsession to detail that I put into every production. I instantly knew that pottery was something I could be good at. It just happens to be something that I can do by myself from beginning to end, unlike the collaborative process that is theater.” —CONTRIBUTED
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