It is not every day tickets magically fly and land on my hands. As fate would have it, a timely invite for “Rivalry the Ateneo Lasalle Musical” came. I hurriedly zoomed to the theatre to catch it. I came, I saw. . . . but did it conquer?
In my head, going original is always a plus plus plus multiplied to the tenth degree. Our theatre needs to see new material . Its the only way artists and audiences can mature. However, the risk is always there as expectations are always kept high . Just like that critical shot in the last two minutes of a game, there is no middle ground, it’s either a hit or a miss. For me Rivalry, was a winning shot.
The story of the this musical revolves around the historical 1968. It capitalizes on the rift between Ateneo and Lasalle , a rivalry that has survived decades. Being a LaSallite myself, I did have pre-conceived ideas of how the musical would play out . And boy am I glad it was Ed Gatchalian and Jaime Del Mundo who created this Musical. My version would have stunk and sunk. I’m glad it was not merely a collection of jokes, cliche’s and stereotypes. Yes it did fabulously immortalize the “Puta Pare Im Conyo Lasallite” and the “ Dude, Eagles Soar Atenista” , but the musical was more than a glorified joke. The story was quite simple two alpha male universities were drawn to the opium of competition. Eventually, everyone loses sight of what each university really did fight for in the beginning . Years pass and generations follow suit blindly fighting for that SOMETHING. Two families representing years of rivalry are on centerstage. The younger generation fighting for more than the ball , they fought for the girl too. Then comes the expected theme, battle of the colors. Pulse quickens from the tug-0-war. People stand on their feet and cheer on their heroes. Egos enlarge to gigantic proportions. But who wins? Who gets crushed? . . . . . In this musical everybody is crushed at one point but IDEALISM WINS. The message of this musical (at least to me) is that sometimes egos crush the very essence of people. They seize to become people and act as chickens without heads following the noise that commands them. People lose sight of the BETTER WAY of doing things coz they keep on thinking how BETTER they are compared to everybody else. I love how this message was perfectly package in such a fun musical.
I must admit that the opening scene did worry me a bit , because I thought i signed up for a boring history lesson . The scenes progressed and the musical quickly redeemed itself. I must make mention about how en pointe the staging of both Lasalle and Atenista stereotypes were done. As I said I did imagine a mush of conyo language . The characterization was quite distinct and consistent. Kudos to Maco Alonzo who represented the Archers as Tommy Basilio was convincingly slick and carefree . OJ Mariano was indeed a good match as the high-almighty calm and cool atenista dude Paco Valencia. Tone, diction was so accurate , it made all the scenes super relatable . The audience clearly responded warmly. Laughter filled the theatre all night simply because the playing out of stereotypes was hilarious. Particularly memorable was the kolehiyala scene. It was girl after girl delivering witty lines. I thought that scene could go on and on and people wouldn’t have minded. Red Concepcion as Quito Valencia nerdy brother of the hot shot atenista , was brilliant. I’ve seen Red several times perform similar characters and I know that comedy comes easy for him. I was pleasantly surprised though to find him digging deeper. He dealt with this role with much sensitivity . I don’t mean he cried like baby. I just found his performance real. I was always quite drawn to him in all of the scenes he was in. I felt (as an audience) that he involved me in his jokes during the punchlines and he shared his story during the emo moments. Just a beautiful performance overall by Red. Ashley Imler who portrayed Rina San Jose the shy kolehiyala from Maryknoll. All I can say is, she has a lovely voice. It doesn’t hurt that she’s quite pretty. But her voice alone made her memorable. Though everybody did their parts well, undoubtedly the star of the show was theatre veteran Noel Trinidad with his musical dance number. It was a “This-is-how-its-done moment” . No need to expound, he’s a star brighter than everybody in the cast combined.
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