BB: Goodbye gay roles

MANILA, Philippines - After 12 years in the United States, Bernardo Bernardo, noted actor-director of stage, screen and TV returned to the country for a “surprise reunion” on TV5’s reality show titled Ganito Na Kami Ngayon in which he was the featured celebrity Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW).

He was welcomed warmly by friends and contacts from TV, movies and theater. There followed a string of roles and appearances in Showtime’s Vice Ganda for ABS-CBN; indie films (Ronda starring Ai-Ai de las Alas, Whistleblower-Silbato with Nora Aunor); and the Virgin Lab Fest play Imbisibol. He even managed to direct two Broadway musicals, The Fantasticks and The Wiz of Oz, at Teatrino and the Meralco Theater, respectively.

So how was life in the US of A? Bernardo (BB to friends) notes that “I was mostly a jobless actor. Although I managed to appear in a handful of successful productions, I was rarely working on a regular basis as a professional actor. If you’re an actor and you’re not acting, you’re just another jobless actor — regardless of the fact that you’re gainfully employed doing something else.”

That “something else” included working as an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco and University of California Riverside; a Tagalog language and culture instructor at the Foreign Service Institute; a contractual Tagalog interpreter/translator for the US State Department; a comedy bar entertainer; and — oy vey — a beauty pageant host and director.

In between these bread-and-butter commitments came significant roles in the acclaimed The Romance of Magno Rubio (New York, Los Angeles and Chicago); The Long Season, a musical about Filipinos in Alaska (“Alaskeros”); and its companion piece, Voyage, a docu-drama about four generations of Filipinos in Juneau, Alaska.

His memorable roles through the years include Manay in the Ishmael Bernal masterpiece Manila by Night City After Dark; Zaza/Albin in Repertory Philippines’ La Cage aux Folles and as King Mongkut, also with the Rep; Tatay in Music Theater Philippines’ Katy!; Takyong Bagting in Dong de los Reyes’ Bien Aligtad; Padre Damaso in Noli Me Tangere the Musical; and as Steve Carpio in the long-running ABS-CBN show Home Along da Riles.

As Manay, he won the Urian Best Actor Award. It was a complex role “and it was truly inspiring to work with the likes of Ricky Lee, Peque Gallaga and of course, director Ishma himself, along with a cast of brilliant actors.”

Zaza/Albin was “a glitzy marathon role with show-stopping solos that required passion and energy in megadose.” He movingly interpreted the stirring gay liberation front anthem I Am What I Am. As Tatay, he aged from age 30 to 70 “with barely two minutes for each change.”

As Takyong Bagting, BB was “a crazed taong-grasa and one-man Brechtian chorus pushed to the limits by the genius of (director Joel) Lamangan.”

He raves about Noli Me Tangere the Musical (by National Artist Bien Lumbera and Ryan Cayabyab with direction by Nonon Padilla): “On all levels, one of the best productions I’ve been involved with during the last 40 years.”

As Steve Carpio, the flamboyant nemesis of Dolphy’s Kevin Cosme, “it was a heaven-sent opportunity to work closely with the King of Comedy for 11 years, regaling audiences along with some of the best lights of Philippine entertainment.”

There have been varied roles in films and stage and yet, BB notes good-naturedly, “it was my gay roles that got me the Urian award and greater popularity with the viewing audience. However, soon enough, I realized that the onus was on me to try and avoid being stereotyped exclusively for gay roles for life! That’s when I went back to theater. Fast.”

Ahead of him now is a formidable role: Shakespeare’s embattled King Lear in PETA’s Haring Lear, as translated into mellifluous Tagalog by Bien and directed by Nonon. This is for a drama festival in Taiwan in mid-October.

Now in his senior years, the veteran performer is in a pensive mood these days. He feels it is payback time, or as he puts it, “legacy time.” He wants to leave something of worth behind: “There are other things I can share from my years of training and experience. The sharing does not end with the curtain call. That’s why I would like to teach.”

One of the major lessons he had learned is the importance of humility: “Awards ultimately mean nothing if an actor stops growing as a person and as a professional.”