Post-Gala Night
(singing ala-La Aunor) Tonight, I gave the greatest performance of my life… (stops)
And out of all those I personally invited, only three came to witness it. To them I say, Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Two cancelled on the day itself. One didn’t even bother to send regrets; I only found out after the play. I should have just invited my family—at least I’m so sure they would watch.
Oh well.
At first it was easy for me to be understanding and just let it go. But during the cocktails after the gala night performance, when I saw how the other cast members were surrounded by their guests, that’s when the disappointment hit me—not hard, mind you, but nagging just the same. All that effort and none of you got to see it. Then again, every audience member who watches any of my performances deserves that kind of effort, so I suppose none of it is wasted really. It’s just that I never really mentioned here how much of an effort and how important this role was for me because I was planning to talk about it only after the play’s run (it didn’t seem appropriate to discuss it at length while the process was still on-going). Then again, I suppose what’s important for me isn’t really important to others. I guess I should just appreciate the stuff that I do and not expect the same appreciation from others.
There I’ve said it! Got that fucker out of the way.
Anyway, to blunt the disappointment I decided to have dinner first with some alumni then drink and dance the night away. Dinner was a sedate affair at Katips. After that some of us trouped to Centro in Libis to join the rest of the cast and crew to celebrate the birthday of one of the cast members. Centro is located on the second floor with a private area on the third floor which we had all to ourselves. There we danced and drank and boy did I drink. Our lighting designer ordered a whole bottle of Jim Beam and between the two of us we finished almost four-fifths of the bottle (I don’t know where the rest went). Pretty soon we were dancing on top of the unused bar on the third floor. There were two cages positioned on the third floor overlooking the dance area on the second floor and soon some of the girls were gyrating wildly in them. However, when I and another guy took over the cages, a staff member politely asked us to leave. “Only women are allowed in the cages,” they explained. Because they were polite we complied, but afterwards we were all fuming: “How discriminatory! How pa-straight naman itong lugar na ‘to! Pakshet!” So we contented ourselves with dancing on the bar.
After dancing almost non-stop for close to an hour, I sat down and assessed the damage. My right middle finger was swollen; I think I clapped just a little too hard and too carelessly to Will Smith’s “Switch”. And my neck was tired from giving all that head—banging and bobbing, that is. Still, it was surprising how much I was able to last long that night. I had two shows that Saturday (2 and 7pm), and by dinner my eyes were drooping. I guess music and whiskey can equal the effects of several bottles of Red Bull.
Driving home was a blur, but tipsy as I was I was still very much aware of driving carefully and within safe speed limits. My mind is like that—when all else fails, my mind takes over.
Sunday found me with a slight hang-over (which immediately disappeared after eating lunch) and a nagging neck ache that was just painfully short of a full-blown stiff neck. That made driving after lunch a bit of a chore because it was painful to look to the right when turning. I decided to spend quality time with my most reliable companion, myself, and catch up on movies (I put movie-going on hold during the whole rehearsal period). I first watched this French film in Galleria, Wild Side. It was billed in the poster as “a wickedly seductive gay love story”. After watching it I felt like tearing down all the posters around the area; it was neither wicked nor seductive. Well, I must admit I got a hard-on twice while watching two very explicit sex scenes, but that’s only because I’ve placed my sex life on hold too during rehearsals. Disappointed, I went into The Brothers Grimm expecting to be disappointed further (after reading all the lukewarm reviews). Surprisingly, I allowed myself to be amused by this film—I could see that the critics were right in saying the film takes on too much for its own good, making it a scattershot mess, but knowing that coming in I was ready to enjoy the little joys that director Terry Gilliam managed to pull off.
Sigh. I guess that’s the way life goes, eh? One must always expect disappointment so one can enjoy the little joys life throws one’s way.
* * * * *
By the way, TA Marketing was able to book more shows for “Bayan-Bayanan” for the third week, so the cast had to rework the performance assignments given the additional shows. So the schedule I posted before doesn’t hold true now.
And out of all those I personally invited, only three came to witness it. To them I say, Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Two cancelled on the day itself. One didn’t even bother to send regrets; I only found out after the play. I should have just invited my family—at least I’m so sure they would watch.
Oh well.
At first it was easy for me to be understanding and just let it go. But during the cocktails after the gala night performance, when I saw how the other cast members were surrounded by their guests, that’s when the disappointment hit me—not hard, mind you, but nagging just the same. All that effort and none of you got to see it. Then again, every audience member who watches any of my performances deserves that kind of effort, so I suppose none of it is wasted really. It’s just that I never really mentioned here how much of an effort and how important this role was for me because I was planning to talk about it only after the play’s run (it didn’t seem appropriate to discuss it at length while the process was still on-going). Then again, I suppose what’s important for me isn’t really important to others. I guess I should just appreciate the stuff that I do and not expect the same appreciation from others.
There I’ve said it! Got that fucker out of the way.
Anyway, to blunt the disappointment I decided to have dinner first with some alumni then drink and dance the night away. Dinner was a sedate affair at Katips. After that some of us trouped to Centro in Libis to join the rest of the cast and crew to celebrate the birthday of one of the cast members. Centro is located on the second floor with a private area on the third floor which we had all to ourselves. There we danced and drank and boy did I drink. Our lighting designer ordered a whole bottle of Jim Beam and between the two of us we finished almost four-fifths of the bottle (I don’t know where the rest went). Pretty soon we were dancing on top of the unused bar on the third floor. There were two cages positioned on the third floor overlooking the dance area on the second floor and soon some of the girls were gyrating wildly in them. However, when I and another guy took over the cages, a staff member politely asked us to leave. “Only women are allowed in the cages,” they explained. Because they were polite we complied, but afterwards we were all fuming: “How discriminatory! How pa-straight naman itong lugar na ‘to! Pakshet!” So we contented ourselves with dancing on the bar.
After dancing almost non-stop for close to an hour, I sat down and assessed the damage. My right middle finger was swollen; I think I clapped just a little too hard and too carelessly to Will Smith’s “Switch”. And my neck was tired from giving all that head—banging and bobbing, that is. Still, it was surprising how much I was able to last long that night. I had two shows that Saturday (2 and 7pm), and by dinner my eyes were drooping. I guess music and whiskey can equal the effects of several bottles of Red Bull.
Driving home was a blur, but tipsy as I was I was still very much aware of driving carefully and within safe speed limits. My mind is like that—when all else fails, my mind takes over.
Sunday found me with a slight hang-over (which immediately disappeared after eating lunch) and a nagging neck ache that was just painfully short of a full-blown stiff neck. That made driving after lunch a bit of a chore because it was painful to look to the right when turning. I decided to spend quality time with my most reliable companion, myself, and catch up on movies (I put movie-going on hold during the whole rehearsal period). I first watched this French film in Galleria, Wild Side. It was billed in the poster as “a wickedly seductive gay love story”. After watching it I felt like tearing down all the posters around the area; it was neither wicked nor seductive. Well, I must admit I got a hard-on twice while watching two very explicit sex scenes, but that’s only because I’ve placed my sex life on hold too during rehearsals. Disappointed, I went into The Brothers Grimm expecting to be disappointed further (after reading all the lukewarm reviews). Surprisingly, I allowed myself to be amused by this film—I could see that the critics were right in saying the film takes on too much for its own good, making it a scattershot mess, but knowing that coming in I was ready to enjoy the little joys that director Terry Gilliam managed to pull off.
Sigh. I guess that’s the way life goes, eh? One must always expect disappointment so one can enjoy the little joys life throws one’s way.
* * * * *
By the way, TA Marketing was able to book more shows for “Bayan-Bayanan” for the third week, so the cast had to rework the performance assignments given the additional shows. So the schedule I posted before doesn’t hold true now.
posted by joelmcvie at 12:52 PM
1 Comments:
thanks so much for having us as guests during the gala. sorry we couldn't stay for the cocktails.
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