Diarist Review: 'The Notebook The Musical' by Theatre Group Asia

To think I almost skipped this! The website version here.

*    *     *     *     *

The Notebook easily one of the year's better musicals

In the months leading up to the international premiere of The Notebook The Musical at Samsung Performing Arts Theater, Makati City, it was almost as if the show had only one card to play to market itself: Morissette’s rendition of My Days, the musical’s eleven o’clock number.

The Notebook marks Morissette’s much-ballyhooed return to the stage after more than a decade away from musical theater—a decision that, at one point, even attracted unfounded debates on social media regarding stunt casting. And My Days, with its demanding high belts and rapid vocal and emotional build-ups, couldn’t have been a more stunning showcase of her singing prowess.

Last April, the production company Theatre Group Asia (TGA) released her full rendition of the song for the first time, filmed specifically in the empty theater. Three months later came another live capture, this time with Broadway performers Allie Trimm and Lissa DeGuzman for Samsung’s 4th anniversary special After OZ (the title a nod to the imported headliners’ past turns as stars of Wicked on the Great White Way). Finally, in August—less than a month to opening night—Morissette sang on the Wish Bus, the popular mobile studio of FM radio station Wish 107.5, where a performance has become something of a rite of passage and cultural marker in the local industry. (All videos are available on YouTube.)

As it turns out, there’s so much more to the show than this one big song: Polished from start to end, and constantly resisting the urge toward melodramatic hysterics, The Notebook is easily one of the year’s better musical productions in Manila.

I’ve always maintained that a good musical should flow like one continuous breath—and that’s especially true here. In this production directed by Nicholas Polonio, almost every element—human and inanimate—is in sync, like jigsaw pieces clicking into place to conjure the intergenerational love story of Nicholas Sparks’ eponymous, bestselling novel.

The Notebook is about Allie and Noah, who meet by chance as teenagers, quickly fall in love, become forcibly separated by her parents, then reconnect many years later in adulthood. Fundamentally, it is both a story about class and about love. He’s poor and works in the lumber yard, while she’s only vacationing in his backwater town before heading off to some fancy college—ergo, they cannot be together.

It’s hardly a spoiler to say that Allie and Noah’s reunion as adults results in their ending up together—not against all odds, but, in true Got 2 Believe fashion, with her impulsively choosing Noah at the very last minute, never mind that she already has a fiancé and an about-to-happen wedding.

In old age, Allie’s mind becomes so ravaged by dementia, she can’t even recognize her own husband, who lives with her in the care home and reads her life story to her every day from the titular notebook. (Again, not a spoiler.)

I haven’t read Sparks’ novel, but I’ve seen its wildly popular 2004 film adaptation starring then-not-so-popular Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. On the whole, it’s a rather agreeable, if unremarkable, way to pass the time. As a love story, the film is far too intent on milking your tear ducts, especially with its dementia subplot (and maybe the adultery one, too, if you’re so inclined).

In fact, it’s a much more potent commentary on class, largely thanks to Joan Allen’s sublime performance as Allie’s hoity-toity mother.

Tearjerking instincts

Fortunately, Polonio’s production has tempered the material’s primal tearjerking instincts: There’s an elegance to how it handles the sappy romcom portions, never mind that the commentary on class is now surprisingly far less substantial onstage than onscreen.

At its best, this TGA production works as a playful, heartfelt exploration on the idea of memory, making the most out of material that’s frankly not that deep.

What was a straightforward linear narrative in the movie has been effectively broken up into multiple timelines converging onstage, the better to elucidate the musical’s conceit. Figures and incidents from the past weave in and out of the present, akin to how the mind can be a jumble of memories.

The musical cohesively plays with three versions of its protagonists, representing three distinct ages, occasionally by having all of them in the same scene—and the outcome summons both the tenderness of mundane recollection and the sweep of intergenerational remembering.

The production is well served by its first-rate design (chiefly, Miguel Urbino’s set and Cha See’s lights), whose evocations of the story’s iconic dock by the lake and the house Noah refurbishes, have a dollhouse-like precision in the way they break up and repurpose these working pieces of scenery.

So, how is Morissette—inarguably this production’s main draw?

Playing Allie in her prime, she is excellent, as capable a dramatic actress as she is a comedian. Her performance of My Days, as my colleague Gibbs Cadiz puts it, is the one instance this production indulges in a proper diva moment, and deservedly so: It’s a breathtaking number, with a wisely deployed orchestra reveal that enhances the song’s ephemeral break from narrative reality.

Orbiting Morissette is a constellation of pros: Carla Guevara Laforteza, doubling as Allie’s mom and her care home nurse (who, in true TGA fashion, sports what sounds like a Pinoy accent); Benedix Ramos and Sheena Belarmino, both in rapturous voice as the teenage protagonists; Rody Vera in an all-timer performance as the elderly Noah; and especially Omar Uddin, who miraculously transforms what could have been a throwaway part as Noah’s physical therapist into the musical’s comedic nucleus.

As teenage Allie, Belarmino beautifully captures the headiness of growing up and falling in love, and lets you see her character making sense of her feelings and grappling with what they mean in real time, in that number appropriately titled If This Is Love.

Epitome of restraint

Vera is the epitome of restraint, giving the most by doing the least. He’s all the weariness of old age, and the fortitude of true love, in a single body.

It’s a shame, actually, that I can’t say the same for Celeste Legaspi as the older, dementia-suffering Allie. Where Vera is all sincere quiet, the OPM legend is all mannerism and attention-calling surface; she’s so visibly acting, while Vera is simply existing. If I shed not a single tear during this musical, it’s mostly because of Legaspi, who on the night I watched kept derailing her scenes’ truthfulness, diluting their emotional power.

There is also one particular instance when Polonio’s directorial polish and understatedness doesn’t really work to his advantage. It’s that crucial, climactic scene at the dock, a storm magicked into being by See’s lighting and Jordana Abrenica’s sound design, with Allie and Noah drenched in the rain as they finally discover why their teenage correspondence ended abruptly. Fans of the movie no doubt have this scene, and the confession to end all confessions at the heart of it, engraved in their minds: “I wrote you a letter every day for a year.”

Polonio hardly lets the scene breath; he sort of rushes through it, the gravity of its revelation landing with the softness of an afterthought. In my view, it’s the one instance The Notebook could abandon itself to some old-fashioned melodrama—and be all the better for it.

Diarist Review: 'Muli: An OPM Musical' by FlipMusic

New musical, bigger concerns. The website version here.

*     *     *     *     *

Muli—When this musical is fun, it's laugh-out-loud, but...

A new original musical is always cause for celebration. In this case, it’s Muli: An OPM Musical, which opened last weekend at the Maybank Performing Arts Theater, Taguig City.

Muli reunites two of the brains behind the critically acclaimed Sugarfree jukebox musical Sa Wakas: Charissa Pammit and Andrei Nokolai Pamintuan. Pammit is executive producer and co-writer with Jose Paolo dela Cruz, while Pamintuan is director. The original score is by Matthew Chang and Nica del Rosario, fresh off their Gawad Buhay win for the self-styled Pinay pop musical Gregoria Lakambini.

Years from now, the amnesiacs among us will probably wonder when it was exactly that bearing witness to an original Filipino musical became a privilege one could no longer take for granted. And let me tell you: It’s right about now, with one such work having taken its first bows, and the dust barely settled on the whole debacle involving Studio A and the questions and allegations surrounding the authorship of its sold-out musical Tulog Na (not to mention that production company’s newfound penchant for mocking critics on social media in the most juvenile ways imaginable). Some might say AI has been knocking on local theater’s door—and not enough people seem to have thoughtfully considered the long-term implications of letting it enter. At the risk of stating the obvious, the time to act is now.

But back to Muli: This is evidently new work—which is to say, Pammit and Dela Cruz’s book needs serious editing. My colleague Emil Hofileña compares it to the Oscar-winning film Everything Everywhere All at Once, and that’s a pretty accurate reference in many respects. Here in the musical, we have a mother, Anita, going through one of those milestone moments in life—but the not-so-happy kind—and ends up reflecting on the many ways her life could have unfolded or could still unfold. So the musical alternates between the sober present and ditzy throwbacks to her high school days at the turn of the new millennium, or else, sequences from completely imagined alternate lives in which she’s a big-shot contractor, an arrogant pop star, the works.

That’s all set to Chang and del Rosario’s exuberant score, which is the best thing about this current iteration of the show. The music is cheeky, irreverent, adventurous, and packed with a good amount of crazy. And Act I closes with an ode to Defying Gravity from Wicked that makes a rip-roaring ear worm out of that regal mother of all Tagalog cuss words, pun intended.

Judging from the discussions I’ve had with some theater artists and fellow reviewers, I clearly had a better time watching this show than most. When this musical is fun—as when it’s indulging in some protracted throwback to the Y2K era—it can be quite laugh-out-loud funny. But when the seams and rough edges start to show, it makes me wonder about the state—or virtual absence—of a workshop or tryout culture in the local theater industry. There’s no denying that Muli is one such work that could have benefited from several (more) workshops before being handed on a plate for paying audiences to consume. Right now, its most underdeveloped moments might provoke a migraine or two.

The one part that had me rolling my eyes was the big Act II reveal—a twist so trite, you’d think it was written 40 years ago. Without going into specifics, I’ll say that it only underscores what makes the rock musical Next to Normal, with its story of a mother unable to move past her infant son’s death, so effective: The early reveal propels the whole thing forward, requiring the chunky remainder of the show to fully grapple with its existence and consequences. With Muli, I can’t help wondering why its story of a woman realizing she wants—and needs—more from life has to be anchored in some late-breaking tragedy at all.

But then there’s also Kakki Teodoro literally giving her all as Anita, in a performance that must be unparalleled this year for its sheer bravery and the actress’ ability to soldier through the role’s punishing physical demands. There’s the tireless ensemble, almost all of whom fully commit to the musical’s endless inanities. And there’s Chang and Del Rosario’s straight-up human-made hoot of a score.

I hate to end on a grim note, but if we’re not vigilant enough, we might just be seeing the beginning of a tragic, preventable, unnecessary end.