Into the black parade
I think of it fondly. Spoiler alert: that mammoth chandelier is hoisted up the ceiling of the CCP Main Theater, past the gothic proscenium depicting the drama of good cavorting with evil, for a damn good reason. Things get heady and the shadowy Phantom — the dark presence inside the Paris Opera House — lets the mighty chandelier (that symbol of the light of love, that metaphor for illuminating logic) come crashing down onstage toward the end of Act One. The audience for a moment disregards the presence of metal wires, stage mechanisms and gloved hands when that thing drops on the stage floor. Blaaaaaaag… It’s the crack of doom and we are in the Phantom’s world. Cue the theme played on eerie keyboards with that descending/ascending note pattern which Roger Waters of Pink Floyd claims to have been filched from Echoes.
Wait, what spoiler alert? I don’t think so for the 130 million people in 145 cities and 27 countries around the world who have already watched Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera directed by Harold Prince, with a box-office revenue that tops other stage plays or even movies — Titanic, E.T., Star Wars or John Carter. (Wait, the last one was a flop.)
Add to the stats those — some in suits and glittering dresses; some who didn’t even give a bother what to wear (such as me) — who watched the gala night last Thursday at the CCP, 25 years after the show debuted in the Her Majesty’s Theatre in London. Including the person a couple of seats away from me who kept fingering his mobile phone. I wanted to tell the dude this: “Stop tweeting, you idiot, about watching The Phantom of the Opera and do just that — watch.” Those theater actors and actresses have given their entire lives for those few moments onstage, to lead us audience members into a rabbit hole of new worlds, to be or not to be, so they deserve much, much respect. Tweets or texts can wait. And pray tell me how come people start clearing their throat, cough or even sneeze during the most poignant moments of theater productions? When I watched The Phantom of the Opera at London’s West End, not only was I surprised at the dwarfish seats and smallish theater, but got quite annoyed by some audience-members who snacked on crisps as the Phantom sang about his unrequited love, this lonely angel of music. It was a devil of an experience to be in the middle of that maelstrom of crackling potato chips and clogged phlegm. Although the couples in the audience saved the whole thing when they started holding hands during All I Ask of You. Awww… but I digress.
My experience at watching The Phantom of the Opera at the CCP was more fulfilling. The spectacle was, well, spectacular. You see the half-masked Phantom through the looking glass of Christine’s dressing room. You see him take away the beautiful soprano into a parallel world with strange music and even stranger vibes. You see them ride on a gondola across the fogged-up subterranean lake and into a candlelit secret lair reminiscent of the scene in The Police’s Wrapped Around Your Finger video wherein a younger, dapper Sting dances with a damsel in a roomful of lit candles to the strumming of Andy Summer’s gothic ambient guitars. You see the entire ensemble in the “Masquerade” scene: that staircase, the motley-colored costumes, the Opera Ghost wearing the garb of Red Death like someone straight from the fiction of Edgar Allan Poe or the party scene in Joel Schumacher’s Batman movie. You see… well … you should see it for yourselves.
The Phantom enterprise — brought to the Philippines by Lunchbox Theatrical Productions, David Atkins Enterprises, Hi-Definition Radio Inc., and Concertus — features 130 cast, crew and orchestra members; nifty special effects and props; and more than 230 costumes by international designer, the late Maria Björnson. No stone left unturned and no ghoul left unmasked. The stage design rocks. And it’s as if an entire Phantom planet inhabits the darkened backstage of the cultural joint along Roxas Boulevard: with presences tugging at fly lines, giving cues to the stage actors, reenacting an all-too familiar story once more. With feelings… Tale as old as time…
Girl meets boy, albeit the boy is a disfigured, tortured and ghastly-looking musical genius who haunts the unlit corners of the old opera house. His voice booming from all the corners of the theater (via the magic of Sense-surround), giving his character a touch of omnipresent evil. He is everywhere and is nowhere. If we were to give a more modern spin into analyzing the musical, we’d say the Romantic Lord Byronesque figure (named Erik in the Gaston Leroux novel) is suffering from a radical form of psychosis. This obsession with Christine has turned the man with a hideous face into the man who does hideous acts: stalking, voyeurism, harassment, blackmail and even murder.
And since the Deformed One (with a skull-like face, yellow parchment-like skin and cold, clammy hands) can never possess the impressionable Beauty (sings like an angel but faints just like a little girl) who is already smitten with a guy named Raoul (who is in turn doubly-smitten), the Phantom rails against the opera company, against humanity, against fate itself. But in the end, dear readers, fate always wins. As the Phantom realizes that Christine will only give in to him because he has her beloved Raoul hanging by the scruff of his neck, literally, the Phantom gives in, lets go and becomes the better man. It is the Phantom’s soul that has undergone a transformation, so says Christine. Cue the last kiss.
Everyone who has loved and lost and let go can relate to the story (without you necessarily having a rotting-flesh face or hearing a demonic keyboard theme tune whenever you make a grand appearance).
On gala night, South African-born Jonathan Roxmouth was excellent as the tortured Phantom. This guy has already played an entire gamut of roles as doomed musician — from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Buddy Holly. But I think his role in The Phantom of the Opera is his biggest challenge to date. (How could he sing while wearing that monkish cowl in one scene?) The man has the pipes and he goes on an emotional boat ride from pathos to pathological anger from one song to another.
Claire Lyon is awesome. The Australian stunner has that fragile beauty with her curls and svelte figure, but she has a voice that curls into those delicately high notes. And she could elegantly twirl with her ballerina sidekicks.
But what I truly dig about The Phantom of the Opera is its show-within-a-show format that parallels the world-within-a-world situation of the doomed figure suffering dramatically in the dark. He writes his own opera, Don Juan Triumphant, which he forces the company to stage. It is strange, dissonant, and quite mad. Well, maybe not at all “mad,” but innovative in the year 1911.
Maybe the Phantom is not a freak after all, but only a misunderstood prophet of modern music. He sure has every right to be moody.
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The Phantom of the Opera has an extended run at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Main Theater until Sept. 30. Tickets are available at Ticketworld. Call 891-9999 or visit www.ticketworld.com.ph.
