"The King and I" in Manila, Something Wonderful

Narra, posing with the elephant and the King.

My mother loved musical theater and made sure my sister and I grew up exposed to her favorite Rodgers and Hammerstein classics such as The Sound of Music, Carousel, Oklahoma!, South Pacific, Flower Drum Song, and of course, The King and I.  These are shows we've seen over and over at various points in our lives.  In the 1980's, these titles were borrowed from the Betamax rental shop a few streets  away, and watched in succession.  Later, they were borrowed in VHS - then on Laser Disc in the early 90's - then on VCD at Videocity in the late 90's until it became cheaper to just buy our own DVD's, or even better - to just download them on our computers.  It is as though we domesticated new technology and confirmed their official residency in our homes through a ritual-like viewing of time-honored classics. Now, in our effort to take a piece of home with us, wherever we go, we find these family favorites in our mobile devices: Ipods, Ipads, and Iphones. It is amazing how these shows, produced in the 1940s-50s, continue to remain relevant through fast-changing times.  A few weekends back, my family had the chance to experience some Rodgers and Hammerstein magic, yet again, in another format: live, on stage, at Resorts World Manila's Newport Performing Arts Theater.  It was Narra's turn to get to know The King and I.

With Narra and Guijo...and an elephant.

I was excited for my daughter.  My sister and I eagerly anticipated her turning 3 so she could be old enough to meet the age requirement to gain entry to the theater.  Last year, the Sound of Music was playing at Resorts World, and we lamented the fact that we couldn't bring Narra with us.  This year, I could take her at last - but I couldn't bring my 1-year old Guijo with me! My poor baby boy, he could already sense when he's being left out! Good thing my supportive parents offered to watch him.  My ever resourceful folks made a career out of maximizing their Resorts World membership cards, and they strategically accumulated enough credits to redeem a complimentary stay at Remington Hotel across the street so that they can enjoy playing with Guijo at their hotel room, while we watched our show.  So I felt as though both kids had a special night out. Narra had a girls' theater night with me and her aunts and grand aunts, while Guijo had an exclusive date with his grandparents.  

Boy's Night Out at Remington Hotel: Lolo Walter watches Guijo.

When we watch something familiar, something we've seen repeatedly since childhood, we get a chance to take stock of how we've changed.  Our perspectives shift over time, and we notice things we didn't pay attention to before, or understand old scenes in new ways.  Take the musical, the Sound of Music, for instance.  As a kid, I could relate to My Favorite Things, and the Do-Re-Mi song, and I Have Confidence.  While my mother, if I remember correctly, could most relate with the song I Must Have Done Something Good.  Last year, when we watched the Sound of Music live, I found myself tearing up at the song Climb Every Mountain.  I had a particularly difficult year, full of trials, and the lyrics hit home. "When God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window"... how many times have I heard that line uttered by Maria before?  I've lived a charmed life of open doors for most of my life, until last year, when for the first time, a door that mattered to me dearly, closed without warning.  Many lovely people quickly came forward offering me precious windows of opportunity soon after.  So that scene, when a distraught Maria sought her Mother Superior's counsel, struck a chord, like it never had  before.

Narra and her aunts. With the Serranilla sisters, and our family's        
"patron of the arts", my sis Marion, who bought all our tickets! Thanks sis!

So with the King and I, I was curious to see how I would see this musical now.  If this was a few years ago and I was still writing my dissertation, and taking my graduate courses on Southeast Asian history, art, and politics.... oh dear, I would have scrutinized the show from a post-colonial angle of vision and would have probably cringed in my seat throughout the show.  But that night, I saw the musical not as an academic, but as a teacher.  I could relate with Mrs. Anna's anxiety at having to teach children who spoke a different language.  Some 11 years ago, while on break from  our graduate studies in Spain, my sister and I taught English at a summer soccer camp in Valencia. Yes, it was a soccer (or should I say futbol) camp that had the special attraction of offering English lessons sandwiched between football drills. My sister got to handle the teen-agers, I was assigned to the energetic little kids ages 5 to 8.  Woohoo!!  They would all shout "Nikki! Nikki!", and crowd around me, when I arrived. And while I knew how to teach, and knew how to speak English and Spanish - oh dear, their energy overwhelmed me - going to work daily required a lot of courage.  So when Mrs. Anna was singing the line "I whistle a happy tune, so noone would suspect I'm afraid"... and she faced the King's many children, I just had to chuckle.

It was also the first time I saw The King and I as a wife.  And from this angle, of being a married woman, one song in particular, stood out - and I swear, it seemed like I heard it for the first time, even if I've watched The King and I countless times before.  It was a song sung by the King's head wife, Lady Thiang, as she asked Anna to help the King.  Entitled "Something Wonderful", the verses went:

This is a man you'll forgive and forgive,

And help protect, as long as you live...

He will not always say

What you would have him say,

But now and the he'll do

Something

Wonderful

You'll always go along,

Defend him where he's wrong

And tell him, when he's strong

He is

Wonderful

He'll always need your love

A man who needs your love

Can be

Wonderful

I couldn't help but think of my wonderful husband Oliver, who was not by my side because of another business trip.  His crazy-busy workload and packed travel calendar isn't something I take against him.  He needs my support and understanding, and that's wonderful!  I do what I can to make sure he doesn't have to suffer the consequences of absence, for I only know too well, the depth of sacrifice and the pains of separation the overseas Filipino worker feels.  Not that Oliver is an overseas worker, though it can feel that way at times, when he's gone half of the time even if he's supposed to be Philippine-based.  So I protect him by seriously investing my time in some painstaking storytelling.  Whenever he travels, my children will hear stories of where he went, and what he did. They will see pictures on the internet of the hotel where he stayed, and see on a map the path his flight took.  We anticipate his arrival with a countdown. Narra keeps asking why he needs to be away, and I tell the truth - the long version: about the nature of his work; the effort it entails; why he does it; and the rewards we get to enjoy; ... how much he misses us while he's gone; how tired he must be upon his return (and why we should smother him with hugs and kisses).  When we watched The King and I, it was my birthday weekend, and Oliver was so sorry he missed my special day.  But it was so easy to forgive him... especially since...

...Now and then, he'd do something wonderful. 

Like when he'd ask me to travel with him.  Last year, when I was 7 months pregnant with Guijo, he invited me to join him in Bangkok.  I had a week to rest my aching back and throbbing feet, and slept as he worked away.  After work hours, we'd go on lovely dinner dates.  It was something wonderful. The year before, he took me to Bali.  At least once a year, he takes time off, extends his business trip a few days, so we can spend time together. So where are we going this year?

Oliver and I, in Bangkok, while I was 7 months pregnant with Guijo.

The night we returned home from watching The King and I,  an email was waiting for me at home. It was from Oliver, who was coincidentally in Thailand at the time.  The email contained my birthday gift written in a sentence: "Come with me to Barcelona". Woohoo! Viva España! It's a chance to return to a country I briefly called home ten years ago - a foreign place - the first country overseas I lived in on my own... Spain to me, is what Thailand probably was to Mrs. Anna.  A strange place where you become the strange person.  That's how my brain works: a musical premised on the adventures of a European lady who traveled in Asia, makes me think of my experiences as an Asian in Europe.

And Lady Thiang's song, expressing love for her king, makes me think of my own husband, and those things he does, that are just wonderful.

The Phantom's Visit to Manila and How We Enjoyed It

My sister Marion and I, outside CCP.

The Phantom of the Opera. That alone, by itself, is a great gift.  Just to see it live, to soak in its lavishness, is worth the ticket price and the traffic.  But my sister decided to make something even grander out of our night at the theater.  She forcibly plucked us from our everyday existence and made us "travel" to Manila - that is, to see it with the eyes of tourists, to take in the sights and sounds, and revel in its beauty.  She gave our family a gift - not just of watching Andrew Lloyd Weber's great musical, but to enjoy the Phantom of the Opera IN MANILA.  My sis is a traveler, and has seen Phantom in three other places- in Toronto, New York, and London.  Why would she spend more money on a musical she's already seen a few times?  Simple. Because it is HERE, in Manila, OUR Manila. This is the MANILA PRODUCTION OF PHANTOM. And we enjoyed it as such.

Lounging around at Sofitel, hours before the performance.

My sister booked a room at Sofitel on the day of our show.  By booking a room, all the usual culprits for causing stress will be eliminated: no last minute wardrobe changes, no instructions to leave with maids, no traffic congestion to manage, and no threat of arriving late!! My sister asked that I meet them at the hotel hours before the show.  My kids were taking their nap when I slipped out of the house. I didn't feel guilty about leaving them. After all, Oliver was going to  take them to his niece's birthday party.  So they had their own thing.  And I was free, for the rest of the day, to be Nikki-the-bunso (the youngest daughter) in my old nuclear family of four.  And here's what we did. We relaxed. And chatted about our first family trip together, to North America, 21 years ago! That's when we first saw The Phantom of the Opera in Toronto when our aunt Maricar treated us to the show.   This was the central theme of our afternoon: while in the past we exerted strenuous effort, and spent on travel costs to see the world's great productions; Now they come here! How convenient!   And this mindset, we exploited to the hilt.  Our slogan for the afternoon: It's More Fun in the Philippines!!!

Enjoying the view of Manila Bay and CCP Complex.

We used this logic to convince our dad to enjoy himself.  When we told him we were going down to have coffee at the Lobby Lounge, he said "there are coffee-making facilities in the room diba?". "Dad, have the proper mindset!"said my sister.  "In the past, to see Phantom, we had to pay for visas, travel tax, airport terminal fee, airfare and land transpo, on top of the tickets, now we just have to take a short ride! Surely, we can afford to enjoy good coffee?" And enjoy we did. We took our time having our late merienda, and when the bill arrived, "see?" my sister said, "it's not even the cost of travel tax!"..."it's more fun in the Philippines!!" We succeeded in behaving with the enthusiasm and excitement of tourists.  It was precious.  My mom, who is usually reserved, was so relaxed, she even leaned on the balcony railing, which is impressive considering she has a paralyzing fear of heights.  Yup, even her vertigo was away on vacation that special afternoon.  Which is a really good thing, because the seats my sister got may have posed a problem if my mom happened to have a vertigo attack.

My mom, who usually has a fear of heights, was surprisingly relaxed and
unafraid looking out from our high-floor balcony.

My sister got us a Parterre Box, poised above the Orchestra seats, for a spectacular view of the production.  It felt oh-so upper-crusty. There are design elements of the Cultural Center of the Philippines' Main Theater that reek of the elitism of the Marcos era: the dramatic elevated driveway  that is practical only for chauffeur-driven cars is one; The Parterre Box is another.  Each box has a separate entrance and high wall partitions, for maximum privacy, and there's a bodyguard's bench to boot, to make life comfortable for the security detail assigned to dignitaries and tycoons for whom these box seats were designed.  The hierarchical structure of Philippine society was reflected in the exclusivity of certain sections, betraying the security concerns of a ruling class during tumultuous times. We had a box at the center, in the Imeldific zone - I could sense her personality permeating the space.  Thoughts of Imelda Marcos seem appropriate for a night like this, when we are watching an opulent theatrical masterpiece that holds nothing back.   I could imagine that this was what she had in mind when she envisioned this pet project of hers - to create a theater venue that could house world-class productions.  

Photo by the steps, before surrendering our camera to the guard.

CCP was inaugurated 43 years ago, and many newer theater venues have sprung up in the metro since.  But none of the other theaters could have hosted the Phantom's visit the way CCP did.  The grand fountain, the fluid staircases, the capiz chandeliers, the box seats - all these elements created a theatergoing experience that flowed onto the stage.  We always go to CCP to watch performances. Through the years, we have witnessed the CCP's turning away from elitism and transitioning into being a theater of the people in the Post-Marcos age.  Throughout my childhood, we went through many affordably-priced season subscriptions to Tanghalang Pilipino, Ballet Philippines, and Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra as part of our family's cultural enrichment.  Through so many visits, CCP had become so familiar.  But that night we watched the Phantom, she was different.   That night, I saw her not for the theater of the people I knew her to be, but caught a rare glimpse of her old stature.  She was a grand dame, a diva! An elegant hostess to the visiting Phantom.  Never mind that the carpets were faded, one elevator was out of service, and the bathrooms were outdated... these are peripheral details.  What mattered most was the believable union between Andrew Lloyd Weber's spectacular Phantom of the Opera, and the stage and setting of Manila's Grand Dame.  I was five minutes away from my house, and yet, when I returned home, I felt I came from as far away as the Paris Opera House.

I didn't expect tears to flow. I've seen Phantom before and found it exciting and grand, not touching and deep. But I was thirteen then, and a stranger to the allure of dark thoughts.  Now, I am older, and equipped in a different way, to listen anew to the lyrics I've always known.  I was listening to  "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" when I felt a tightness in my throat.  I thought of how much I missed our family of four, and the trips we used to have and would no longer do together.  "You will die to yourself" my mother warned me, before I got married. And I understand what she means.  I am mother and wife now, more than I am daughter and sister.  Of course I am all those roles at the same time, but mother and wife are in the spotlight, while daughter and sister have receded in the background.  This is only natural, for old families to give way to the new.  It is logical, and rightful - but somewhat painful nonetheless.  That realization made an already special night, even more precious. It was a special bonding moment we enjoyed immensely - because the Phantom was here, in Manila, and we went to see it together, like we did 21 years ago. And it was spectacular, as CCP theater was glorious. And we were happy with the fact that the world now comes to Manila, and we need not travel far anymore, to get a taste of the world's best offerings.

Thanks sis, for an awesome birthday gift!!