Altar Boyz (Theater)

In the book "Power Plays..." (2000) written by John O. Whitney and Tina Packer, they examined what the notion of power is. To quote: "Power is a freighted idea, filled with shifting cargo: power to build, power to tear down; power to hasten, power to delay; power to inspire, power to frighten; power to give, power to withhold; power to love, power to hurt; power to do good, power to do evil." (p.25)

Repertory Philippines' ALTAR BOYZ did not actually promote such versatility of power. This musical comedy should somehow be associated to the classic rendition of what musical farce is. Farce, by the way, in its common definition would mean - a depiction of life-situation and mockery of society's problems like faith in its most comical-sarcastic way. The term "farce" is ordinarily-termed as the "satire" of today.

Farce, when staged, should be ideal in its theatrical elements. Perfection is needed and hightened accuracy of simple details should be achieved by its director. The director of the production, Chari Arespacochaga, was not able to achieve the idealism on such genre (musical-farce) configured to be called a musical-satire. What lacks is power! The power of this material is to transform somehow the enormous faith in Catholicism and Christianity of the believers (audience). To achieve this realization, an audience member is needed to reflect or even renew religious beliefs and common practices after watching through this almost post-contemporary (technological) age.

Kevin Del Aguila (book), Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker (music and lyrics) should be recognized for their generous efforts to discuss simple but relevant microscopic view of what faith really is. Thanks to an interesting material.

The power, as mentioned in the introduction, is needed badly in the production. Faith (Religion) is POWER and POWER is attained when used in multiple variations such as what Whitney and Packer would see.

The production was not even edgy and sharp.

To go into the theatrical use of elements by Arespacochaga, the set (designed by Tuxqs Rutaquio) almost attempted to ridicule concert sets. Unfortunately, it did not function well during the actual staging. Through the downstage blocking, the actors were not able to move freely to all sides of the stage (in terms of aesthetics and logical actions), hence, making their movements so limited as opposed to the conventional musical concerts that we see in reality. It (the material) calls more for a bare stage with strategic scaffolds and the use of moving lights on stage should fuel-up the energy of the set. It also calls for a more sarcastically concert-type of thing.

The costumes (designed by Faust Peneyra) were too flat. Again, "concert" concept should provide an avenue for experimentation in fashion. Peneyra lost sight on this valuable idea. The change of costumes from one song to another should signal magic and mystery - threading another sub-story into it. This interesting idea got lost in the way.

Lighting (as designed by Martin Esteva) served only an illumination and not the usual superfluous and terrific effects each concert musicale would appeal in tangent with live music (where an effective band-play was executed). Ace Philippine lights designers John Neil Ilao Batalla and Voltaire de Jesus might agree on the idea of concert-effect lighting. Several lighting cues of Esteva should have had hundreds of lighting cues in this kind of dramatic-material.

The only effective element used in the production was the band-play (music notation) headed by Jojo Malferarri (Musical Director / Conductor / Keyboardist and Repetiteur). Again, unfortunately, because of the direction, the band was not seen entirely which defeated the very purpose of a musical concert. Why? What was the purpose of it? It really did not work efficiently in the production.

Finally, the performances of the actors-singers were partially effective. Definitely, there were attempts to exaggerate hilarious scenarios which should be, since this is a presentational (musical) staging. However, only Red Concepcion (played the role of Mark) and Reb Atadero (played the role of Juan) contributed to its obvious genre.

PJ Valerio (played the role Matthew), Ryu (played the role Luke) and Chevy Mercado (Abraham) lacked bigger and theater facial expressions and nuances. Most of the production dance numbers were too tamed and ordinary, nothing to brag about on its movements and patterns of dances (choreographed by Jason Zamora).


To sum the production, it really lacked POWER.

The power to build, power to tear down; power to hasten, power to delay; power to inspire, power to frighten; power to give, power to withhold; power to love, power to hurt; power to do good, power to do evil.

These different approaches and uses of power should somehow be the initial guiding principle of the production.


"ALTAR BOYZ" needs to fuel-up more POWER!