He has directed plays for Ma-Yi Theater in New York, and for Tanghalang Pilipino and Peta. He has won the Special Jury Prize for his film “Niño” from the Cinemalaya indie film festival in 2011. “To edit a three-hour Tinio libretto to a two-hour film was an awesome task,” Celeste says.įirst, finding the director who shared Tinio’s as well as the producer’s vision. Making the film presented a lot of challenges. Upon suggestion by Tinio’s family, Dulaang UP director Tony Mabesa took over. The day after recording the soundtrack, he passed away. Ryan used that as theme of the house and of Candida’s final lament,” Celeste says. Rolando also saw the need for it, thus the duet of Candida and Paula. “Although the musical was clear and flowed well, we needed to have moments when the characters could sing what they felt. It took him only three weeks to come up with “Larawan.”Ĭayabyab requested a reading of the translation to hear its flow in Filipino. Celeste had worked with him in Teatro Pilipino for years, and he had translated pop songs that she sang in previous concerts and recorded for an album. “He only asked for San Miguel beer, a typewriter, and one condition: that only Rolando Tinio would translate it to Filipino,” she recalls. She got to see Nick and followed him around before he agreed to her proposal. Which means “Portrait” has seen the collaboration not only of four but five National Artists-Joaquin, the Avellanas, Tinio, and now, Legaspi (sort of). “When my father was studying in Madrid in 1953, Nick would often visit him and Arturo Luz (another National Artist).” “Nick and my father (National Artist Cesar Legaspi) were great pals,” Celeste says. The latter reprised her role in this year’s film adaptation. Zsa Zsa Padilla essayed the role of Paula followed by Rachel Alejandro when it was remounted in 1998. “In 1997, we first went courting Nick Joaquin to allow us to turn his play into a musical,” says Celeste, who portrayed Candida in the first “Larawan” musical. The classic film has been restored by the Film Development Council of the Philippines.Ĭountless performances of the play include those in Korea and the United States. It received six Famas nominations, including Best Picture. That was long before the husband-and-wife team became National Artists. The play premiered in 1955 at the Aurora Gardens in Intramuros, featuring the Barangay Theater Guild under the direction of Lamberto Avellana, with Daisy Avellana as Candida, a role she reprised in Avellana’s film adaptation in 1965. The story revolves around two sisters, Candida and Paula, and their father Don Lorenzo Marasigan a high-profile painter. “Portrait” is a play in three acts written in 1950 as an elegy to our belle epoque and prewar Intramuros. National Artist Rolando Tinio translated the play to Filipino. It is the biggest and most ambitious project of the company, “armed only with a passionate belief in our material and creators,” Celeste says. Now, two decades later, the musical could be seen by a wider audience through film, produced by Culturtain Musicat Productions, Inc. (Musicat), under the auspices of Celeste Legaspi and Girlie Rodis. It was produced by Musical Theater Philippines Inc. It was first performed at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1997, directed by Tinio himself, with Ryan Cayabyab as composer. Rolando Tinio, another National Artist like Nick Joaquin, translated the play to Filipino and wrote its libretto. Nick Joaquin’s “A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino” is debuting as a movie at the 2017 Metro Manila Film Festival, titled “Ang Larawan: The Musical.”
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