Staging the Revolution as rock opera

I had high hopes for Banaag at Sikat, The Rock Opera, a promise of good music and singing, a contemporary retelling of Lope K. Santos’ original novel on the winds of change that would bring the country to revolt against the overwhelming conditions that capitalism and feudalism wrought on the nation. But as it began with fake guitar playing between friends Delfin (Al Gatmaitan) and Felipe (Roeder Camañag), attached to what then becomes a fake amplifier, and with dancing from a chorus many of whom seemed uncomfortable doing the robot and dancing hiphop, I had to wonder if this musicale meant to be funny. Love and revolution, not necessarily together Because it didn’t stop, not the fake guitar-playing, not the requisite head bang. The beautiful love song between Delfin and Meni (Ayen Munji-Laurel) could only lose its tenderness with Delfin fake-playing the song. In this First Act, the beginnings of love are introduced to us at the same time as the characters, all of whom are perfect stereotypes that exist in an oppressive feudal society. Cigar factory El Progreso is owned by Meni’s father Don Ramon Miranda and Don Filemon, both unforgiving and unapologetic capitalists, who refuse to raise the wages of their workers who are ready to revolt. Nyora Loleng is wife of Don Filemon but is mistress to Don Miranda, a seeming pawn to macho control more than a powerful woman. The younger women in this story seem to be more powerful in their belief in found love. The Second Act is all about that, and when I say all I mean that we forget that there’s a strike in El Progreso and that there’s systemic oppression in society. Instead, what we are reminded of is love and sex and individual change. It was beautiful, mind you, but it seemed removed from the First Act as the characters here seemed to just be in a tumble of love and lust. By the Third Act, both the love story in the Second Act and the introduction of oppression in the first, were tied together simplistically as a matter of bringing in all the raised fists and flags again. The question becomes: how can the personal fights between the couples (Meni and Delfin, Tentay and Felipe), and with their bigger oppressive families, be easily related to those raised fists outside? It was unclear. Love and audience, romantics unite! But of course I was also quick to realize this: my seeming discomfort with this musical was what was working for the audience for whom it was created. High school students were obviously enjoying it, and the seemingly clichéd portrayal of revolt and revolution, raised fists and waving flags and all, was actually new to them. The effect being the point of the play, I am content with the thought that this just wasn’t for me. Which I can’t say about the music. About the music I am one with the high school students who filled the theater. While I imagine a true blue rocker dude would question whether or not the music of Banaag at Sikat was truly rock, I was happy enough with the fact that it sounded like good ol’ Pinoy pop rock. There isn’t anything close to classic Pinoy rock ala Juan dela Cruz here, but it sure was reminiscent of the rock ‘n’ roll that’s almost as palatable as everyday Pinoy pop music. There are wonderful love songs here, especially for the second act, when Tentay (Banaue Miclat) enters the picture as the peasant lass who wishes for marriage to Felipe, who doesn’t believe in it, anarchist as he is. When I say love songs, I mean those that problematize love in relation to class, those that point at love as the one thing that is deemed irrelevant or unworthy or just less important by the act of revolt. Loving the performances Here in this staging of Banaag at Sikat though, love is shown to be all-important. It’s because she loves Delfin that Meni sees her father’s anti-poor and anti-worker sentiments, it’s because of this love that Meni reconciles in herself the ugliness of being borne into a capitalist and landlord class. It’s through this love that she finds herself compromising, by changing her notions of what’s enough and what’s excess, as symbolized by her selling the pretty clothes she lost any use for in the face of a baby and a husband who earned little. It’s in Tentay’s love for Felipe meanwhile, that we see the contradictions between love and social consciousness, romance and the revolution. Tentay, peasant as she is, knows about how it looks to the law and society that she is unmarried to Felipe, even when – and precisely because – they already treat each other as husband and wife. Felipe refuses to get married – it’s a construct of the Church! he says, it’s the construct of a colonizers’ institution! And Tentay is forced to contend with the contradictions that only lie within women, because we are the ones who will suffer the stereotyping and the tsismis, we are the ones who are accused of being sinners. Miclat’s felt performance allows for Tentay to be a strong character precisely because of this struggle between the ideal world of revolution and the current society. Munji-Laurel is a surprise here, as her voice carries over the innocence that’s required for one who looks at life through that lens of romance. And when faced with the economic changes of marrying a newspaperman, Munji-Laurel’s portrayal of Meni is affected by a voice that was slowly growing stronger and firmer, as if this was being changed as well by the need to survive. Miclat’s number with Munji-Laurel about the struggle of being woman is one for the books, because of the song yes, but even more so because of the singing. Gatmaitan and Roeder would be outshined by the women, though their duets about being activists and wanting change, being men and dealing with their wives, proved they could stand on their own. In fact all things considered, Banaag and Sikat is able to prove one thing: that with good music, and a libretto in the hands of National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera, all things can be saved. Everything is worth watching. Including the revolution. - HS, GMANews.TV