Simply dubbed as Ibarra, Jomar Fleras’ award-winning play is given a new spin in a nearly all-sung production featuring one of the country’s biggest actors in the title role. Directed by Frannie Zamora, the all-new musical starts its theatrical run on June 8 at the GSIS Theater.
By Alex Y. Vergara
More than 40 years after playwright and social activist Jomar Fleras wrote Kanser, a straight play that drew references from Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere, he and a group of collaborators, including director Frannie Zamora, is restaging the award-winning work anew with actor Piolo Pascual in the lead role. This time though, the retelling would be totally different—from the genre to the title—as Fleras and company are opting to stage it as a nearly all-sung musical simply dubbed as Ibarra.
“Around 90 percent of the dialog will be sung,” said Fleras.
If you know your Noli, Crisostomo Ibarra is the lead character in the national hero’s first novel. Educated, idealistic, worldly and naïve to a certain extent, Ibarra is smitten by Maria Clara (played in the forthcoming musical by opera singer Myramae Meneses), a lovely and sheltered lass whose tragic fate by novel’s end would change Ibarra forever. He later reemerges in El Filibusterismo, Rizal’s sequel to Noli, disguised as Simoun, a rich, but dark, disillusioned character fueled by bitterness and a burning desire for revenge.
But Piolo won’t be channeling any of that hate, as the musical’s references are limited to Noli Me Tangere.
“Kanser, which I wrote centuries ago, won the CCP (Cultural Center of the Philippines) playwrighting contest in 1979. It was first staged in 1980, and has since been staged (by various productions) every year except during the height of the pandemic,” said Fleras during a recent press conference at the Diamond Hotel. “But this year will be our 40th year of restaging it as a musical with a different title.”
Apart from being the musical’s writer, Fleras is also the executive director of Rise Against Hunger Philippines, the Philippine chapter of a global relief organization, which, as its name implies, seeks to alleviate hunger among the world’s poorest families. It will be one of the musical’s beneficiaries once it opens on June 8 at the GSIS Theater.
“We feed about 1.5 million Filipinos every year,” said Fleras. “We operate the only national food bank in the country. I’d like to thank everyone for their support.”
It won’t be Zamora’s first time to helm Fleras’ award-winning work. He debuted as Kanser’s director as early as 1988. It later also made the rounds of various campuses, including the Far Eastern University, where an impressionable Piolo, then in high school, saw the play. By 2015, it was reworked into a musical with the same title. For its 40th year, Fleras and Zamora, decided to further tweak the work and completely change the title, putting emphasis on the lead character and by extension the famous actor behind it.
“Ever since I learned from (journalist) Mario Dumaual that Piolo saw the play as a teenager, I said to myself that if ever I get the chance to restage it again, I would want no one but him to play the lead role,” said Zamora, who’s also a singer during his younger years. As fate would have it, Zamora got his wish, as Piolo immediately said yes to his offer.
And it’s proving to be an inspired choice. Apart from possessing a broad acting range and that all important box-office appeal, the actor and “pambasang heartthrob” is also a fairly good singer.
“Aside from having seen Kanser back in high school, I also taught Noli Me Tangere back then during Filipino Week. It’s one of my favorite works of literature. To be given a chance to play the most coveted role of Ibarra is something really important and significant to me as an actor,” Piolo, who had his first taste of the stage as an actor in school productions back in college at the University of Santo Tomas, said.
“I’m excited to read the script and hear the songs–excited and nervous at the same time. But I’m looking forward to this new experience. Overwhelming as it is, it’s something very new to me,” the actor added.
For his part, Fleras said that he had to reinvent Kanser to cater to a big star like Piolo while also drawing inspiration from his persona as a performer and public figure.
“We wanted it to be a title role for Piolo since we’re getting a big star,” he said. “But we did not change any of the songs. In fact, we even added to the repertoire. We all feel that Piolo will be able to rise up to the challenge posed by each song. It’s really a very difficult role to play.”
Zamora added: “The production will be very faithful to the script. If there’s going to be a twist at the end, we’re not saying what it is. We want it to be a surprise. The level of this production is way up there not just because we have a big star. We have a very good actor and singer. Even his fellow performers are on par.”
Piolo is not winging it based on his popularity. He’s aware that the stakes are high. Since he knows what he’s getting into, he’s not leaving anything to chance as he trains vocally in the coming months to prepare for what could be the role of a lifetime.
“Despite my busy schedule, I’m really looking forward to getting started. To begin immersing myself in the role because, like I said, Noli Me Tangere may be familiar to me, but playing the role of Ibarra is something I haven’t done before,” Piolo said.
