ACTRESS Angeli Bayani is having a grand time in her career.
For many weeks now, she has been enjoying the rehearsals for the Philippine staging of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, her first for Atlantis Theatrical Productions.
Bayani is breathing life to the character of Harper Pitt, the unhappy Mormon wife of a closeted gay lawyer. “My husband is caught in a Web of an illicit same-sex affair and gets entangled in many ways, affecting me and our relationship. So I resort to popping Valium to somehow calm my nerves and help me escape the harsh realities of living and loving.”
She added, “Harper is both familiar and unfamiliar to me as an actor. She seems to be logically simple enough to understand the many sides of her being, specifically her subconscious, which is as complex as complex can be.”
Bayani is elated that her director Bobby Garcia offered her the part. “I have always wanted to work with Bobby and Atlantis Productions. I am just privileged to be part of Angels in America, working with A-listers, from actors to the technical and artistic members of the production. You just have to level up every time you go into rehearsals.
With this experience, I am just so thrilled and fulfilled as an actor.”
She revealed she gets excited every time there’s an opportunity for her to do theater work.
“I breathe acting, and when a good role comes along, be it in theater, on film or television, I always try to find time and make time to accept these projects. I’m always thirsty to work with the best and most professional people, because I continue to learn from them as an actor. I am just grateful to Bobby Garcia and his team for the chance to be part of Angels in America!”
Garcia directed the first Manila production of Angels in America at the Music Museum in 1995, and he comes full circle with this new staging.
“I was 25 when I directed Angels in America for New Voice Co. I was very young and, somehow, not mature enough to fully understand the complexities of the play. Death and despair have taken a whole new meaning for someone who’d turn 50 very soon, who is looking and dealing with mortality in a more vivid way,” he said, adding, “Having taken on the show before, I knew I needed a cast as fearless, as unexpected, as complex, and as artistically brilliant as Tony Kushner’s material. I am thrilled that Angels in America circa 2019 Manila features every single actor I had originally envisioned for this retelling of Kushner’s gleaming modern classic.”
“The cast consists of some of the most acclaimed, most awarded and most respected actors in the country. To say that I am excited for this particular staging is an understatement,” he shared. Garcia is proud of Bayani and his entire ensemble of actors. “Angeli is a thinking actor and she works hard at her character. She goes deep down and unravels the layers that makes Harper both interesting and real.”
Bayani pits acting skills with the likes of Art Acuña, Topper Fabregas, Markki Stroem, Nelsito Gomez, Pinky Amador, Andrew Ranay and the inimitable Cherie Gil.
Angels in America opened last weekend at the Carlos Romulo Auditorium of the RCBC Plaza in Makati City, and will run until April 7.