ALLOW me some vulgarity: How much do we spend for each production of an actor reading a poem, with music and landscape?
There’s the two of us: Kristian Sendon Cordero and I. Fr. Wilmer S. Tria of the Ateneo de Naga University Press is a consultant. We talk about the actor and what kind of poems we would ask him to read. There is no discussion because there is no time. We find the contact person—the manager or a friend, usually a filmmaker also—and get the contact number or e-mail address or Facebook account of the actor. Then we start the conversation.
The most common trail we follow is to create a group chat through Messenger. Everything begins with the awkward “Hi” and “Hello,” as if we are meeting in a party or at a street corner. The technologies may have created applications that conjure social relations but, caught in that site, we resort to time-tested human gestures and expressions.
So, if you are privy to our first meetings, you would see this line from me: “Christian [Bables], meet Kristian Cordero.” Then I begin the short introduction of Kristian as if he is not there. In the case of Lui Manansala, Kristian initiated the contact. By the time I got to the chat, Lui Manansala was there, active already. I entered the chat and wrote in Bikol: “Giromdom mo pa man ako, Lui? [You still remember me, Lui]” with the words “pa man” adding an embarrassed endearment in the line.
It helped that we began the project with Jaime Fabregas. With Jimmy, we gave the shortest explanation and that was it.
In most situations, there were not much time to decide which poet or poem fits who, with reference to the reader. If there is a lesson learned in this project that has an added value to the enterprise of filmmaking, it is that typecasting must be most unfair to actors. It is good to producers who are afraid to take risks; it is a dead-end to actors whose creativity remains alive despite the economics of cinema. What we have discovered has been known all these years: The idea of a one-to-one correspondence between a role (assuming the actor giving voice to a poet and his composed poem is a “character”) and the poem (which is part of a screenplay) is a tired approach to performance. It is good to think of the actor with no organic attachment to any role. It is good to try. It is good to be surprised. It is good to uncover, unlock and discover. To enjoy the process.
With all candor, we—Kristian and I—must accept one thing: we were learning about the project as we went along. All throughout, we were enablers and project persons. The wellspring of emotion and presence, however, the kind that our audience said “calmed them” or caused them to tear up a bit, came mostly from the readers.
The readers were the actors who allowed the lines to be material elements. They locked with the verse forms or in rhythms that were as old as their fear and fantasies. The shock of recognition was always there when the actor/reader recognized a metaphor and transformed it into a guttural sound or a whisper that was terrific and terrified. The commas and periods became pauses with tones because the reader knew how to dance with the verbs and modifiers.
Their approaches were different. Jimmy Fabregas known lately for his more outward acting in commercial films and TV, perhaps surprised his fans when he produced readings that were little gems of subtlety and intimations. Jimmy, as we fondly address him, set the bar high not only for the readers but also for us organizers.
Favoring the quiet technique was another actor: Enchong Dee. He made us aware that he was reading but it was in that going in and out of the scenes in
the poem that he created inflections barely lifting itself from the pages. Enchong reminded many of
the power of reading aloud the poems instead of following the images with one’s eyes. One fan said Enchong was a joy to behold as he fleshed out the sound of the verse. Among the lines he read were the conversation of the Fox and the Prince in the Bikol adaptation made by Fr. Wilmer S. Tria of Antoine Exupery’s popular The Little Prince.
Christian Bables and Sandino Martin were contacted at almost the same time. Each night, even long before the airing of their readings, the two would contact us separately. There were times when we would ask them for updates. Christian did not ask for the meaning of the poems; what he did was to do a reading and to send us the video. He was asking us to judge his understanding of the poem by viewing how he enacted, in a sense, the poem. The raw performances he sent in were beautiful exercises in acting that he could always go back to as he works on his craft.
Sandino Martin early on used the word “experiment” when we gave him the poems. The first time he sent his first “experimentation,” Kristian and I could not find the words to describe his accomplishment. We never thought the poem could be done that way. As we have not shown yet his readings, let the description of Sandino’s works remain with that expressed awe.
Lui Manansala had very practical concerns about the poems we sent her: how to navigate through those Bikol words that had become difficult after being away from Albay for a long time. Sure, she could speak and understand the language but poetry was different. She contacted her cousins but they, too, were candid enough to admit that the words being used were “old” and “deep.” Kristian then worked with Lui.
Here is how she did the reading: “video recording was done during the wee hours of the morning…had to do the set-up myself…no cameraman, no DOP [Director of Photography], no soundman, no production designer or art dept [departrment], no director, and no make-up…Lighted ceiling lights, a table lamp with warm light for added lighting effect…the phone camera on an octopus tripod….”
Lui would produce very intense and dramatic performances using the poems assigned to her.
Sue Prado, a Bikolana with roots in Libmanan, found in the poem sent to her a way home. Kansyon ni Oryol (The Song of Oryol), composed by Dr. Jaya Jacobo, was Sue’s task. In the actor’s reading, Oryol, a half-woman, half-serpent being in the Bikol epic Handyong, was not anymore the wily and cunning enchantress but this female ready to embrace her reincarnations through histories. Allure for allure, Sue Prado was kin to Jaya Jacobo’s goal to enthrall and engage societies about the politics of gender.
As to the question of the amount we used to fund this project: nothing. We spent nothing. But if the reception to the readings is to be considered, it looks like we have a precious legacy project that will remind us that once upon a lockdown, artists read lines that comforted people in isolation.
In the first installment of this topic, I neglected to cite the proper credit to the photo of Sandino Martin. That photo was courtesy of JL Javier and CNN Philippines Life. My apologies and thanks.
Enchong Dee’s photo is from Star Magic.