‘Para kay B’

National Artist Ricky Lee’s first novel, Para Kay B, a heady brew of real-life and imaginary characters figuring in real and imaginary events, will come to life in a full-scale stage play next month at Ateneo de Manila University’s Doreen Fernandez Theater.

“I have always imagined that the novel will become a movie but not a stage play. It is difficult and challenging to do Para Kay B as a stage play. I am glad that there’s now a full stage play adaptation of the novel,” Lee intoned mostly in Tagalog at the recent media conference for the production held at the studio in Quezon City of one of the companies producing the play. (The company is Fire and Ice Live.)

The novel was written mainly in Filipino in 2008 yet. About 5 to 10 percent of the novel is in English. It’s undoubtable that Lee can speak English; after all, he has degree in AB English from no less than the University of the Philippines in Diliman. But he deliberately prefers to speak and write mostly in Filipino anytime and on any occasion. Lee seems to be a very rare AB English graduate who writes in Filipino and wins at the Palanca Memorial Awards, acknowledged as the most prestigious writing contest in the Philippines. 

Lee began to publish his writings in Filipino when he was still in high school in Daet, Camarines Norte where he was born and grew up and completely orphaned when he was in Grade 5. (Lee turns a very mobile and lucid 77 years-old on 19 March).

Lee writes notable plays himself but the Para Kay B stage play was written fully by Palanca Award-winning playwright Eljay Castro Deldoc who first wrote an adaptation of the novel staged at University of the Philippines-Los Banos (UPLB) in 2012. “Pero nakasentro du’n sa mga babae lang na main characters ang unang adaptation ko. First attempt ko pa lang kasi ‘yon na magsulat ng dula, (The adaptation centered only on the main female characters. It was my first attempt to write a play),” Deldoc disclosed at the media-con. 

Deldoc further recalled that he and his UPLB group dared to send a letter to Lee inviting him to watch their adaptation. None of them was known to the would-be National Artist. 

Lee replied “yes”— and showed up body and soul. He even signed a copy of Deldoc’s adaptation and wrote in the dedication “You should write more.” It was among the rare times Lee wrote a (laconic) dedication in English. 

Deldoc did write more and by 2017 began winning in the Palanca-Filipino play category. His opening salvo was Pilipinas Kong Mahal With All the Overcoat, which clinched first prize in the one-act division. He has so far earned three first prizes in the Palanca. 

Deldoc’s latest adaptation most likely has Lee’s informal and sporadic guidance. Deldoc joined Batch 15 of Lee’s free scriptwriting workshop traditionally held at Lee’s residence in a middle class subdivision in QC. 

A lesbian mother with a gay son, a travel inn worker who bore a son fathered by her older brother, a woman from a fictional place, and a nymphomaniac are four of the five main women characters of the novel. 

The nymphomaniac is the “B” in the novel’s title. The letter stands for Bessie, an actress and TV host. 

The novel actually has male characters, too: the men whom the women fell in love with and who variously left them (the women). However, one male character — Lucas — was mostly rejected by B and it is Lucas who writes the novel about the five women, so B would love only him. It is only in the middle of the six-chapter novel that Lucas is introduced. 

If, like us, you had speedread the novel many years ago, you may have totally missed the Lucas character. In the stage play, Lucas will be played by the seasoned theater-indie film actor Nicco Manalo. 

In the media huddle, Manalo sweetly bragged about how vital his role in the play is, so we grilled him about it because we had totally forgotten about the machos and the male gay in the novel. Manalo happily indulged us and elaborated who in heaven’s name Lucas is in the novel. 

Lee, as omniscient Lucas in the novel, wrote not only about the physical actions of the characters but even their imaginings some of which lead to the occurance of a physical event. Those mental events are fascinating and we’re wondering now how much of those imaginings can be shown to the viewers. 

In the novel, the incestuous sex takes place several times in a bodega with a whirring electric fan. No women character has no sex scenes in the novel. Even the lesbian couple have them. And so is the gay son of the lesbian. The lesbian lover is a housemaid who has a husband and children. She, too, has sex scenes with her husband. 

So how many sex scenes will the stage play have?  How many fantasy scenes occur in the minds of the main female characters (who will meet only at the tail end of the book’s sequel,  Sa Lahat ng B, published in 2011).

Lee is well-known and well-loved for his strong social consciousness which in the novel is not embodied neither in the characters’ dialog nor in their thoughts and fantasies but in the comments of the author. How will the play’s director, a certain Yong Tapang, present Lee’s social consciousness? How many hours the play has to be to make it both engrossing and substantial? 

The LGBTQIA couple Liza Diño and Ice Seguerra (formerly first-named Aiza) are among the stage play’s producers. Moreover, Diño will play the lesbian mother with a gay son. It wasn’t clear to us if Gold Aceron will play the cross-dressing son, but among the male actors presented at the media huddle, only Aceron looks young and androginous enough to play a trans. Aceron, of course, has never identified himself as gay. Several male actors will portray more than one character in the play and among them are Jay Gonsaga and Wency Vencilao. Many of the actors (including females, such as Divine Aucina and Yesh Burce) have appeared in plays, indie films, and TV anthologies in supporting roles). 

We do hope that after the already scheduled 15 stagings of the play, the actors will become as familiar to the public as Diño and Seguerra are. 

Another producer of the play is Tungo at Liwanag sa Teatro Inc. 

The show will run from 14 to 30 March, with tickets priced from P1,800 for free seating and P2,000 for reserved ones. 

Tickets are now available at ticket2me.net. 

There are other plays (drama and musical) showing next month.