tymeless

Got this from the book that Betty's reading. Some quotable quotes from the book "Audition" by Michael Shurtleff.

- To go into acting is like asking for admission to an insane asylum. Anyone may apply, but only the certifiably insane are admitted.

- It’s filled with ironies, the profession of acting. Most people go into acting to get out of themselves, to get away from their everyday humdrum selves and become someone else who is glamorous, romantic, unusual, different. And what does acting turn out to be? Using your own self. Working from what’s inside you. Not being someone else, but being you in different situations and contexts. Not escaping you, but using yourself naked and exposed up there on the stage or the silver screen.

- There’s only one person like you in the entire world. Trust yourself to use that with truth and imagination.

- As soon as an actor puts such a limitation on his work, he’s being less than himself, imprisoned in a straitjacket of don’ts. With so little freedom to feel, how can an actor give a good audition? Put aside the limitations that instant characterizations inevitably instill; allow anything to be possible; make choices that give you the maximum possible involvement.

- There are two important physical aspects of readings that actors tend to forget: being seen and being heard.

- What do the auditors expect from a reading? An opening night performance. That’s all. Directors and producers will deny this, of course.

- Creating relationship is the heart of acting. It is basic. It is essential.

- Until you expand your concept of what love is to include the various peculiar and perverse forms it can take in human relationships, you’re going to have a hard time as an actor finding an emotional commitment to the scenes you’re trying to act.

- The desire for love, to give it or receive it, and preferably both and simultaneously, is the chief propellant in human beings. An actor had best learn that love comes in all forms, and in many more forms than only those he himself admires.

- An actor must make the most active choice possible for every scene.

- An actor is looking for conflict. Conflict is what creates drama. Plays are not written about our everyday lives or the moments of peace and placidity but about the extraordinary, the unusual, the climaxes.

- Maximum conflict is what you should be looking for.

- That’s why there’s so little romance in our world now: everyone thinks romance is weak. Yet romance is everyone’s secret dream – it’s why we’re alive. Never distrust romance; nothing could be stronger.

- We never knew for sure what you might do next. I think that makes acting most interesting.

- Humor is a relaxation to me. It means you stop for a minute to see how ridiculous you are or she is, how absurd this situation we’ve got ourselves into.

- But refusing to use your imagination isn’t dealing with the problem. It’s being defeatist; it’s limiting you in ways you don’t need to be limited.

- Attractions to someone don’t get “used up” – not if they are love, not if they are needful, not if they are emotional rather than just sexual. Attractions that are emotional grow.

- There are opposites in every scene. The actor may have to dig for them, for the playwright may well have implied them under the surface of the character and not have written them into the dialogue at all; but they are always there for the digging. They are well worth digging for; they result in the most interesting kind of acting: the complex.

- Actors need to work from real-life situations, not literary or character concepts. Most often the discoveries aren’t written on the surface of the script; the actor has to dig in the subtext to find them. They come out of the actor’s own life questions.

- Acting is supremely a task of communication. It is not enough for the actor to feel, if that feeling is not being communicated.

- The most successful actors are those who are able to project what they are feeling to someone else. This sending of feeling to another person becomes so strong that it is projected to an audience.

- Plays are not concerned with this everyday behavior of ours, but with the unusual moments in a person’s life when his need to communicate is at its greatest. These are the needs the actor must furnish.

- Receiving the feelings of another is even harder than sending out feelings of your own. It requires sensitivity, a heightened awareness of another person. It requires the investment of real caring; otherwise why will you undertake thee formidable task of opening yourself up to true communication?

- Receiving requires that we be open, willing. How can we receive it we are closed up? Being open is an act of both generosity and selfishness: generous in opening yourself up to receive another’s needs; selfish in the greed of wanting to know another person, for there is power in knowing another.

- There are occasions when we need to know another person, where it is difficult for us to live unless we do know them.

- Unselfish motivations lead to passive, saintly, and very dull acting.

- Communication is the desire to change the person to whom you are communicating.

- No one wants to admit he is competitive in human relationships of love and friendship. But without competition between the characters, drama is dull indeed, since it feeds on conflict and dies with agreement.

- I hammer away at it: an actor must compete, or die.

- Plays are written about the most important moments in people’s lives, not about their everyday humdrumness. If they featured the humdrum, who would leave home to go see a play?

- People live for their dreams, not for the oppressiveness of truths.

- The truth is not enough for a play unless it is invested with sufficient emotion to make it important.

- Peacefulness and the avoidance of trouble won’t help him in his acting. It is just the opposite he must seek.

- The truth we seek in acting must be a highly selective truth, not an everyday, ordinary household variety.

- What an actor must look for in a play is something unusual. Something important.

- Important does not necessarily mean significant to others. It means emotionally important to you at this moment. We make trivial things important to us at the moment, even if a day later we will have forgotten them. Important things are made even more important to us.

- Make the stakes in each scene as high as you can. Look for the maximum importance. Add importance. If you don’t, no one will be listening to you.

- Every play is about love. Sometimes it’s about hate, which is the reverse. Hate happens when a person is deprived of love. That’s why you hate your mother; you never had love from anyone. The more you are deprived of love, the more you are in need of it.

- A play must move, it must progress, it cannot stand still. Events make a play progress; character or behavior alone will not do that. Something has to happen to move the narrative forward.

- Clearly, actions are always more interesting than mere talk.

- The immediate reality of a bare stage is a real down; an actor would do well to lift himself up, with a place of his own.

- Since an actor is free to choose any place he wishes in which to do his reading – for it is he who provides the place in his imagination – it would be wisest for him to choose a place he knows well.

- Install a lover, and when he leaves, you’ll hate the place you liked before. All the same place, but how you feel about it changes depending on the emotional events that take place there.

- Once you have chosen the place, once you see it clearly in physical terms, then you must look for how you feel about it. The feeling is most important. That is what will elevate your use of place into emotional value.

- You played your judgment of a nun. That isn’t going to help me give some dimension to the role. A nun doesn’t feel she’s a disagreeable taskmaster. You’ve got to show opposites, not just one side.

- Play to win. Play to get what you’re fighting for. No one in all this world plays to lose. Not even the self-destructs.

- Usually there’s an exception to any well-kept secret, which is one of the fascinating things about secrets: sooner or later you tell someone. Human beings can’t seem to bear keeping a secret totally to themselves, not forever.

- Consistency is the death of good acting.

- And remember, once more, that it is more important at an audition to show the auditors the extent of your emotional equipment as an actor than to illustrate your understanding of the script.

- The terms of loving. This is a highly important concept for an actor. Most scenes in plays (as in life) are negotiations of terms between two people, whether they are lovers or enemies. Attempts to come to some agreement whereby one can hold onto one’s own and so can the other person. This is conflict. Conflict is drama.

- A lot of actors roar their protest when I say friendship is competitive. They conceive of competition as not nice, as aggressive and unattractive. One would not compete with one’s friends; that would be a dreadful state of affairs.

- But we do compete with our friends. It’s one of the major reasons we have friends: stimulation. You can’t stimulate each other unless you compete.

- Competition is healthy, yet actors (as do most people) regard the word competition with horror, thinking it only connotes cutthroat business or aggressive countries at war with each other. Of course, competition can be aggressive and warlike, but it can also be a healthy stimulus, such as wanting to play tennis with a partner who is as good or as better than we are.

- Friendship is perhaps the only relationship of equality we have in our lives.

- We don’t like to do things we don’t do well; we don’t like failure; we like success. It wouldn’t matter to us if we succeeded or failed if we didn’t compete.

- There is an acceptance in friendship that enables us to relax and enjoy competing. Friendships – good ones, true ones, basic ones – tend to last longer than most other relationships. It’s because there is trust, freedom to compete, freedom to criticize and to receive criticism – freedom because we are accepted and therefore honesty is possible. No other relationship in our lives is likely to be as honest as our close friendships. No other relationship is able to relax into competitiveness that is acceptable on both sides.

- Actors are very worried – rightfully so – about being truthful in their acting. The tendency is to prize truth even when it’s tiny, mundane, everyday truth. But that’s not enough. What good is truth if it’s dull and boring? Exciting truths can be truthful, too. Learn to prefer those.

- You should embrace melodrama, not run away from it.

- “I didn’t want to be melodramatic.” Why not? Who gave melodrama a bad name? People are melodramatic in life every day.

- It’s investing melodrama with belief that makes it work. It you decide it’s melodramatic in order to withdraw from it, you can never fulfill it. Withdrawal is just another inhibited actor being uninteresting; the woods is full of ‘em. Plunge in. Give us actors who are willing to take the risk.

- The purpose of a reading is to show who you are.

- You’re not at an audition to do the scene right, but to show the auditors who you are. Give yourself a chance. Worry less about the material and more about what you would do and feel if you were in that situation. The play gives you a situation; your job is to put yourself in it.

- Always take into account what’s different. Use your imagination, your instincts. Rigidity is death in an actor’s life.

- Acting is seeing. We see our entire lives in images.

- We see everything that way: not an isolated close-up of a face, but a person in a specific environment.

- Acting is about what we do, not what we should do.

- Acting is predicated on the ways in which human beings behave, not the way they should behave.

- Acting is doing what people do. It is not a moral act.

- Actors rarely pick revenge as the goal they are fighting for, yet revenge is one of the most important motivations in human nature. When we are deeply hurt, we want to hurt back.

- If you’re going to be an actor, you’ll have to start exploring the intricate, hidden, and frequently unfair behavior that is caused by our need for revenge.

- Many a self-made important executive is the result of being overlooked as a child.

- Many creative people are “getting back” at being considered untalented or uninteresting.

- Some Hollywood beauties are proving to the world they can be wanted, after a childhood of neglect and rejection (the classic, and typical, example is Marilyn Monroe). These are all acts of revenge. Keep in mind that revenge is not harmful or destructive; frequently it is highly creative, an enormous life force driving people to prove their worth.

- Isn’t all our creative work the achievement of revenge against all the doubting Thomases who said we couldn’t? There are always the dubious standing in the sidelines to say we can’t achieve our ambitions. If we show them we can, we get our revenge.

- After all, we do know about any human being can act like shit, but what we’re looking for in most actors is likability, warmth, and feeling.

- For even the seducers are seeking love. They guise it from themselves (and more contemporary people do it than ever before) and insist they just want to get laid, but they do want to be wanted, and that is wanting love, even if you have no intention of giving it. The actor is always better off making the choice, then, of seeking love rather than seduction.

- A maxim for actors. Use what you know. Don’t worry about what you don’t know.

- The action of being shy is wanting not to be shy but to be confident, bold, aggressive. The shy person dreams of being the opposite of what he is. His entire effort is to overcome his shyness.

- Listening is not merely hearing, it is receiving the message that is being sent to you. Listening is reacting. Listening is being affected by what you hear. Listening is letting it land before you react. Listening is letting your reaction make a difference.

- Listening is talking while you are being talked to, not out loud but creating silent dialogue that answers what is said to you. This is active. Active listening is answering.

- The more specific your silent dialogue answers, the better your listening.

- When an actor hates the character, there is usually a profoundly personal reason. Sometimes because it’s revealing a trait the actor doesn’t like in himself; or it re-creates a real-life relationship that is so uncomfortable the actor wants to run away rather than deal with it (hating is a way of running away). We rarely have such a strong reaction as hatred unless it involves us deeply.

- A curious fact, I find, is that actors get in trouble when they love the character, also. Their favorite role in their favorite play is sometimes the one for which they give the most unsuccessful readings.

- All human beings love to suffer. The reason people love to suffer is that it makes them right.

- What’s the good of suffering if no one else knows?

- Fear is what we don’t know. The solution is to know what it is you are afraid of; then you can deal with it.

- But most of the time our fears are groundless: we don’t know why we are afraid.

- Through the years, I have found most actors are terrified of the audition. They don’t know why. It is a nameless, unspecified terror.

- Learn to function, instead of being prey to your undefined fears.

- Actors should react on the line, not in between.

- Physicalizing is a strong way to express feeling. Physical expression is not a substitute for feeling but an extension of it.

- Learn to use all levels of awareness. Actors feel they are really in a scene when they are totally unaware of the audience or of anything except what’s going on between them and their stage partners.

- Acting or writing or directing in theatre or television or screen is only for the irrevocably diseased, those who are so smitten with the need that there is no choice.

- If actors would use life as their source rather than stage convention, they’d find the answers to everything that happens in a play.

- One great missing ingredient in current acting is romance. Everyone secretly wants romance, but in these harsh, “realistic” days, no one will openly admit it.

- People are motivated by dreams, by visions of what might be, not by realities and harsh views of what is.

- The actor’s process is the distillation of complexities. The simplest choices are the most telling. When you put it all together, find simplicity.

- Most actors fail not because of lack of talent but because 1. They don’t work hard enough. 2. They aren’t disciplined. 3. They are literal rather than truly imaginative. 4. They are victimized by their limitations and prejudices. 5. They are ruled by their negative side. 6. They are not persistent.

- It should be a cardinal rule of an actor’s life: Always audition.

- Half an actor’s life is auditioning, half is performing. Why stint on the auditioning half?

- The actor must always know more than the character does.

- Literary choices are not dramatic. Make your choices from emotional need rather than intellectual understanding.

- Silence is a form of communication that is an alternative to verbal communication. It is a way of saying something to someone else. Silence is silent dialogue.

- Every moment, every move, every silence must speak.

- Conflict, not contemplation, is dramatic truth. Save contemplation for philosophic essays or for sitting on the toilet all by yourself.

- Pursue the answers until they lead to more questions that require turmoil and the deepest parts of your awareness to answer. Acting hurts.

- Your everyday life is not the criteria of what you are. Your fantasy life is who you are. Everybody’s fantasy life is richer than reality.

- An act of imagination is what makes being alive possible.

- Love is not always ideal. It takes peculiar forms sometimes. Don’t be so idealistic in your concepts. You overlook a lot of the strange places where love occurs, a lot of the strange, bizarre images that can be above love, too.

tymeless

The title were the words that popped in my head when I was in the music studio yesterday.

So David had assigned himself as my new teacher. But when I arrived early at the studio, Patrick was the one there, so he was the one who vocalized me before Dave arrived. Ano ito, tag team ang mga teachers ko, hahaha.

So anyway, because I haven't gone back in ages, I was so out of shape. Dave was a different teacher than Patrick, and his loud tenor voice filled the room and most likely even the next unit. Parang mas soprano pa sila sakin right now, ahehe. So there we were, and during the entire hour (I think we even extended), I realized that I still had so many bad habits. I had shed them off for a while when I was taking lessons last year, but now they had returned. Arg.

I guess it's still like acting. Like Miss Tess had said on the very first day of our workshop, you have to learn then unlearn before you become a good actor. Learn new techniques and unlearn all those bad habits that you had picked up along the way. For some reason, I can open my mouth really wide when I'm acting, but when I'm singing, everything closes up. May hiya pa rin daw ako sa paglabas ng boses. But interestingly enough, even though Dave hated that I immediately went to falsetto, he actually liked the sound of it. Or did he? Hahaha. Dave, I know you're stalking my blog.

Wahaha, after the evening's lesson, Dave showed me all those packages that were for the world competition next year. In July. Oh my. Should I? (Hey, that rhymes, hahaha.)

tymeless

Went to Atlantis last Wednesday at lunch to celebrate Ate Sally's birthday with the office staff. The whole gang was there, even Ate Janine. Plus Karen, who had already dropped by earlier that day. Yay, there was the usual pancit and barbecue from Ineng's, and Lawyn and Claire got Ate Sal this yummy chocolate cake.

Hahaha, considering it was Claire's birthday the day before, and Kuya Boni's on Sunday, we made each of them blow the candle that was on the cake. After that, it was finally time to eat, yay.

Bobby had arrived at around 1pm, and it was so funny when people had said that it was Claire's birthday the day before, as everyone was already teasing her to her current object of infatuation. When the phone rang, who else could it be? Speaking of the devil, it was her crush, calling to greet her a happy birthday. We all burst out laughing, loud enough for the chiquita to hear. Wheee! Happy birthday to y'all!

I love celebrating birthdays in Atlantis. I have at least 2 memories of best birthdays with that company. First was Richelle's during our first year working. When her birthday was drawing near, she had said that she had never celebrated her birthday ever. So Ate Sal and I gave her a little surprise party during lunch on the day of her birthday, which made her cry. Aw.

Of course, the other best birthday was mine last year. The moment I found out that we also have an evening show of Avenue Q scheduled on the day of my birthday, I was pretty upset that I wasn't going to have any time for myself on my birthday. Anyway, I bought lunch for Lawyn and Kuya Boni, and by the time we arrived in RCBC, I got a surprise phone call from Ate Sally in Dubai. And of course, the best thing that night was Tad's surprise visit in the theater, complete with flowers, cake and birthday gift, hahahaha!

Just sitting in the office the other day made me miss working there. I have yet to write an entry about that. I'll do so another day when I find the time.

tymeless

Hahaha, another entry today? I'm on a roll.

My cousin David just called. Mostly about rescheduling his meeting with Kuya and Ate Maui to discuss the choir's repertoire. Then as usual, there was the invite to join the GAP choir, which is always inserted in our every conversation, haha. And as always, I decline, even though I really want to because it would help me learn.

Then David mentioned that he'd give me voice lessons. He'd be my teacher for free. Hahaha. So of course I said yes. Then again, with the offer of joining the group, hahahaha! They're joining a world competition in China, and enticed me with the all-expenses-paid trip. Oooh. Tempting.

I hope I can start the lessons this week. Time to bring out my Solfege book again, yay.

tymeless

Hahaha, feeling lang ako, as I'm the only bridemaid around the bride right now. Anyway.

"I have a whole list of stuff I want to write about," I had said.

After looking at a couple of articles that I had submitted to a couple of 'zines, I realized that I had missed writing like that. I remembered how easy it was to write, as if I was merely blogging about what had happened during a particular day. In my notepad just now, I had listed down all those I want to write about, but haven't had much time to do so.

Hopefully I'll find the time to write soon.

So what have I been up to lately? Mostly I've been tagging along with Kuya and Ate Maui as they go about their wedding preparations. I've been helping Ate Maui add a few touches on their wedding invitations, and even after last night, we haven't finished yet, hahaha. Then last Friday, our family went out to lunch at this Korean place we used to eat at before (now it's under new management and has a new name). Hahaha, the manager watched in awe as my brother ate all those chili peppers as if it were candy. Then we went to Fernbrook to check out the venue of the wedding. Well, there wasn't really much to see, as there were a lot of workers in every place that we went to, doing repairs, watering the plants, all that stuff. Oh well, I hope everything will turn out pretty good on the big day itself.

Yesterday, Ate Maui, my mom and I went to the dressmaker for our first gown fitting. When Michelle had whipped out both my mom's dress and mine, the three of us knew that something was way off. All the colors were wrong! My mom's dress was supposed to be silver, and what was in front of us was cream-colored gown which made her look older. The dress Michelle had made for me was in blue-green, when she was specifically told that the color was supposed to be navy or midnight blue. And she had claimed that I gained weight. Kamusta naman. If I had gained weight, then I wouldn't have even zipped it up. The zipper managed to go up past my ribs, and stopped at the chest area. So ano yun, pumunta lahat ng taba sa chest area ko? And there was this ugly bulge in the front, as if it was made in a hurry.

I was already making side comments that only my mom could hear, just in case Ate Maui was fine with the color. But as it turned out, she didn't like everything at all because Michelle didn't follow what she had said. By the time we had left Michelle's and arrived at Kuya Roger's (for the barongs), Ate Maui had made phone calls both to Kuya and Jack (their wedding coordinator) about what had happened, then decided to buy the fabric in the color she had preferred. Kasi naman, one of the things Michelle had insisted was that she couldn't find taffetta in the shade of blue Ate Maui had wanted. Uhm, it was BLUE. Just look for DARK BLUE, diba? It's an easier color to find that BLUE-GREEN.

Last night, Kuya, Ate Maui and I put our heads together as we tried to figure out how they would do their AVP. We each had bits of suggestions that would work, but I hope we can put them together. Then they mentioned a magic word, "ballroom dancing." Hahaha, well, not really. They just wanted someone to teach them how to dance ballroom for their first dance. Ate Maui had also suggested adding a bit of crazy to their dance, and I really really really want to be part of it. I hope they'll let me, just so I can dance ballroom, hahaha.

In the past, you've had to contact me to set your own custom domain. This is no longer the case - I've added a new page in the control panel (Settings > Set Custom Domain) which lets you set your own domain name. I've updated the documentation page with instructions on how to set-up your Tabulas to use a domain name.

tymeless

Typing in this in my brother's work laptop. Thank goodness we had set up his router on the first morning after their arrival. Hahaha, so he can work here at home, and Ate Maui can surf to her heart's content using her own laptop as I waste all my time on the Internet with my own PC. Still hoping I'll inherit Kuya's laptop before he leaves, hehehe.

Anyway, Kuya, Ate Maui and I went to David's music school this evening. David had called the day before to invite us to one of their choir rehearsals so we can check out the current repertoire they're working on for the wedding. So after our family had gone out to dinner, we just waited for the time then the three of us headed to the venue. It was fairly smaller than the old place, and the choir was crowded around the small main area.

I loved listening to the choir. Though I can't help but agree with Kuya and Ate Maui that there's something missing in their sound that night. Well, maybe it's because they weren't complete, as David had said before their rehearsal began.

David had once mentioned that he and Patrick (my voice teacher last year) were thinking of inviting me to join the choir. Dave asked me again this evening, but I declined. As much as I wanted to join, I still don't think I can yet, as I had stopped my training.

I miss singing. I miss taking lessons. I actually liked the challenge of learning how to sight read for the first time because Patrick had said he wanted all his students to be sight readers. I want to go back to taking voice lessons, but I don't have sufficient funds to do so. Kuya, sponsor mo muna ang voice lessons ko, hehe.

tymeless

Betty wrote an article about our Nemesis experience and posted it on Facebook. Thought I'd re-post it here in my blog.

The drama behind the drama
Dedicated to Mimay Maog, Hogi Cadlum and Opaline Rae Santos
By Betty Uy-Regala

She had gone missing for two days when, after losing Alan, she lost Margaret. She sent disturbing text messages to me prompting calls she wouldn’t answer which led me to send text messages to Ayn and Carme. Carme, a replacement for Margaret, replied: She’s okay. Carme was our classmate in a 2006 acting workshop in CCP. Ayn followed suit: she’s here. Ayn is her long-time friend and her house Villa Dimaya, as she called it, was our rehearsal venue. Knowing she was safe and to give her that proverbial space to sort things out on her own, I stopped the texts and the calls.

Mimay, my young friend who went AWOL on us, chose to stage Nemesis, Peter Wilson’s one-act play, to complete the requirements for her directing class under Jose Estrella. The time was summer of 2007, 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on weekdays and whole days on weekends. The place was Villa Dimaya. The music was Korn (MTV Unplugged) or at least that’s what I was listening to en route to the rehearsal venue.

Alan and Margaret are characters in Nemesis. Margaret was played by Hogi whose mom tore up to pieces the Nemesis script in a fit of fury, which I only discovered recently. Hogi abstractly explained that her mom is anti-theater. My guess is Mrs. Cadlum only wants a stable career for her daughter by acquiring that college diploma once and for all and land a 9 to 5 job. Barbara is another character which I played.

During that time, I was waiting if I made it to the Actor’s Company having been short listed after the audition with a panel composed of Sir Dennis Marasigan, Paolo O’ Hara and Mayen Estanero. I participated in the required three-week intermediate acting workshop. I think it was Dandy who remarked in class that although we didn’t want to compete, it felt like a competition. There were only six or eight slots available and there were 20 or so of us who wanted to get in.

Since it was a workshop intended for AC apprenticeship, the participants are all good. Some of my former classmates here in Facebook include Uleb Nieto, Dandy Duane Ramos, Ron Jansen Solis, Sheenly Gener, Kathlyn Castillo, Joan C. Palisoc, Hazel Orencio, Riki Benedicto, and, ehem, Chrome Cosio.

I also had my own share of drama at work. I was preparing for events in my former office for its 10th anniversary and dragged another friend to help me build a second exhibition space. While Deo and the other workmates were meeting downstairs, I was up in my office sitting very comfortably and laughing my ass off while talking to a friend over the phone. When my officemate told me what happened during their meeting, I apologized to Deo on behalf of the people who did him wrong.

I don’t recall the specifics but I do remember that Deo and Kleng walked in on me crying. Not knowing what to do with a female in tears, Deo left after muttering, “Ano wag na natin tuloy?”. It was Kleng who stayed and gave me a hug. I was hesitant to tell Mimay this particular drama saying she would not understand a complicated thing called office politics or maybe she would since its synonym is high school anyway. Understand she did and even related a similar circumstance regarding some relations.

This was after Nemesis 2007 fell through. I wasn’t chosen for AC. I chose to stay at the former office. We did not talk about Nemesis though I mentioned it once to Mimay. She said she wasn’t ready to delve into it until the play became a taboo topic.

Many outings later, – our videoke date where Mimay confided her fears of failing while waiting for Mervyn and his friend; my dropping by the hotel room of Mimay and her family a few hours before they left for the US and; others which I don’t recall now – 2008 came upon us.

When Mimay returned sometime in March this year, Hogi and I just enrolled for the rehearsal techniques workshop under Sir Dennis. In May, after the workshop, Mimay told us that she decided to do Nemesis for her directing class notwithstanding what she had been through for the play the previous year. I was surprised and glad at the same time.

Tad, Hogi’s boyfriend, was to play Alan’s part. Since he had rehearsals for another show, I only caught him once during our rehearsals. Tad, the third actor for Alan, eventually bailed on Nemesis. After three or four days of desperately searching for an Alan, Mimay finally found Alan in Alvin Castro. Alvin, a high school teacher in La Salle Greenhills, was Mimay's classmate in CCP's 2005 musical theater workshop.

After early dinner, we would discuss the play in Ayn’s dining room with me occupying the same chair throughout the rehearsal period. Dinner was an assortment of KFC and Jollibee takeouts, Mimay’s carbonara, Lucky Me Pancit Canton, chips, bread, Nutella, and coffee for me after. Mimay with the help of Ate Tess graciously tended to us.

Discussions of the script had been serious. “Why would they (Alan and Margaret) fuck in my house?,” I asked, “that’s the height of kakupalan.” “Alan has a low level middle management position, he is a marketing manager. He has a sense of humor which attracts the ladies,” we decided. “Margaret had a two-year secretarial course bent on becoming rich by hooking up with a well-off guy,” Hogi offered.

Bantering punctuated our script analysis sessions. Because Opa was initially quiet, she naturally became the target of our teasing from her coming in late to pairing her romantically with Leo, another friend of Mimay’s from film school. Leo was also the art director of our pictorial. It did not take long for Opa to open up to us telling on other people’s dreams complete with facial reactions which drew rounds of guffaw.

Hogi met Opa in 2007 when they were both stage managers at the Virgin Labfest, a showcase of new plays performed at Huseng Batute. Opa was the SM for Nemesis. She was our savior for forgotten lines and blocking, and I frequently needed redemption.

I did the homework, I made a research on the playwright, read two of his essays on religion, and read No Exit aside from the usual character sketch for Barbara’s profile. Yes Mimay, I applied what I learned from the workshops.

We breezed through the rehearsals and the pictorial for the poster and program although we crammed in producing these printed materials. I did the copy for the program until 4 a.m. and had to prepare for work two hours later, a day or two days before the actual show. Every rehearsal day, Hogi and I would engage in a screaming match to the consternation of carpenters working late in Ayn's garage.

I felt Mimay deserved a little something for pouring her heart on the play so I bought flowers primarily for her, and the rest of us. On show day, Hogi and I goofed around while the lighting and design people were at work. I was calm enough during the DTR and actual show, and had that performance high after. I read Mimay’s blog the following month relating belatedly how much Nemesis meant to her.

Nemesis meant a lot to us too Mimay. I was with friends and we had fun – the dramas in our respective lives temporarily muted while rehearsing at Villa Dimaya. It made the three of us closer, and I gained a new friend in Opa who now regularly attends art exhibit openings with me whether she likes it or not.

I am grateful to acting for a lot of things. Acting sharpens the instincts, it deepens empathy and cultivates fearlessness. Acting helps me navigate through life. More importantly, I am grateful to acting because I developed/am developing friendships with people involved in it who are mostly more open and less judgmental of other people and situations.

In a conversation with Boss Hermie, Literary Arts Division chief at the CCP where I helped produce the CCP Gawad Para sa Sining folio, I told him I am more of a writer than I am an actor. In retrospect, maybe I am neither, maybe I am just an office person who appreciates the arts. Whatever the label, I am just happy to be part of a community of creators.

When Mimay uploaded the recording of Nemesis on YouTube, I was ready for some serious notes-taking. Watching with a critical pair of eyes, I still found myself enjoying it. Although there were notes, Hogi, Opa and I agreed that it was actually a good show worthy of a commercial run. I sent an email to Mimay about our collective view two weeks ago. She has not replied yet.

While waiting for her reply, I am enjoying the increasing number of views Nemesis has been getting on YouTube since it was uploaded three weeks ago, and Peter Wilson’s providing a link to the videos on his web recently.

Thank you again Mimay for Nemesis.

Yes, Mimay, thank you indeed.

I'm itching to write a separate blog on my complete Nemesis experience, but I haven't found the time yet. And I want it well written as well for Mimay, Betty and Opa.

Anyway.

The bruise on my left knee has turned purple and blue, and it's as big as my hand. Yes, you read that right. HAND. As in hindi lang palm of my hand or fist. An entire hand. Waaah.

My brother and his fiancee arrived from Canada last night, yay. Lots of things to do before their wedding next month, my oh my. Haha, first thing my brother and I did this morning was set up the router so he can go online anywhere with his laptop.

Congrats to Tad for his Gawad Buhay Citation! Darn proud of you for that. I love you! Mwah! =)