Passion in motion

His stage imagery is symbolically brilliant from script to score. And the stage business and blocking are smoothly transitioned and paced.

This new production is complemented with moving soliloquies and glaring scenes.

After Stephen Sondheim saw Italian Ettore Scola’s film Passion d’Amore in 1983, he came up with the visualization and realization of writing a stage musical about the manipulative Fosca. Sondheim’s characterization about Fosca was not about how she was going to fall in love with the pensive Giorgio, but how he is going to fall in love with her.

Passion, with book by James Lapine, the one-act Risorgimento operetta and the shortest-running musical ever to win the 1994 Tony Award for Best Musical, opened on Broadway at the Plymouth Theatre on 9 May 1994 after 52 previews and closed on 7 January 1995 after 280 performances.

With significant musical and script revisions, the West End production opened in 1996 at the Queen’s Theatre that ran for 232 performances and had its revival in 2010.

Usually presented in one-act with no intermission except for the London production, this Sondheim adapted piece was translated in German, Swedish and Dutch languages for staging and recording releases.

In the Philippines, it was first staged by the premier theater company Repertory Philippines in 1984 (28th Season) and was revived 12 years after in 1996 (53rd Season).

Jasmine Fitzgerald as the beautiful Clara.

VIEN King as Captain Giorgio Barchetti and Shiela Valderrama-Martinez as Fosca.

After 23 years, Philippine Opera Company (POC), the only opera company in the country that produces regular opera productions since 1999, opened a brand new production of Passion to celebrate its 20th anniversary on 14 September and will run until 29 September, with a 16-piece orchestra playing in all performances similar to the original Broadway production as required by the book.

Responsible for directing one of the most complex Sondheim musicals is Gawad Buhay award-winning director and 9 Works Theatrical Artistic Director Robbie Guevarra.

Guevarra’s journey with his most favorite Broadway composer started, as soon as he joined the professional theater. His first Sondheim theater experience was Into The Woods introduced by Jaime del Mundo. And directing Passion was his fantastic dream come true, though he revealed that it is his most challenging and most difficult show that he directed. In A Christmas Carol, Disney’s Newsies and Eto Na! Musikal nAPO, Guevarra’s approach was dramatically exciting and thrilling.

Passion marks Guevarra’s first Sondheim directorial debut with high expectation of course. In the musical, Guevarra was able to slice and squeeze passionately the soul of the Sondheim masterpiece.

His stage imagery is symbolically brilliant from script to score. And the stage business and blocking are smoothly transitioned and paced. Maestro Daniel Bartolome conducting the orchestra at the pit is impressive from melodramatic to energetic shifting of tunes with great timing and emphasis. Guevarra and Bartolome tandem put Sondheim’s melody its right sounding.

This current staging of Stephen Sondheim’s deepest, thrilling and most powerful musical masterpiece is scorching with sensuous emotion theoretically and subjectively. The trio class act of manipulative Fosca (Shiela Valderrama-Martinez), pensive Captain Giorgio Barchetti (Vien King) and attractive Clara (Jasmine Fitzgerald) is passionately soaring as soon as the curtain opens.

Vien effectively transformed into a king of musical theater in his lead stage debut, a revelation indeed. His sadness and glances through his eyes is stirring with both seductiveness and lustfulness during “Happiness” and “Is This What You Call Love?” He was very good in the rising and falling intonation and shifting of emotion continuously. His loving and caring character is conscientiously beautiful and deceitful that he manages to execute very well during “I Wish I Could Forget You” and “No One Has Ever Loved Me.”

Martinez is convincing as a woman with medical phenomenon and hysterical convulsion making her perfect for the role. Her song rendition and line interpretation are deep, pure and intense. Even a man seated at the orchestra center reacted by saying, “Paasa (Tease)” with a sarcastic tone, during a scene with Giorgio, indicating how expressive and effective her characterization.

Martinez has always been consistent in most of her roles but as Fosca, she nailed it, in every songs and scenes. Her intruding character is somewhat judged and forced with underlying tone of happiness and sadness. Her character may be annoying but it speaks of truth and beauty by nature.

Fitzgerald is such a beauty, sounding like a song bird, resonating with everyone inside the auditorium. She’s very beautiful in all of her nine costume changes, adding to her provocative and flirtatious aura singing operatic tunes during reading letters scenes.

King and Fitzgerald create sinful chemistry as well as Martinez. They each have a perfect meaningful moments during solo, duet or trio performances.

This new production is rich in physical connection and full of psychical interpretation, complemented with moving soliloquies and glaring scenes, that will bring happiness for an hour and 50 minutes with no intermission. Passion is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International New York. It runs from 14 to 29 September with 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. shows at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Makati City. Call TicketWorld at 891-9999 or Philippine Opera Company at 0917-6452946 for showbuying, sponsorship and fundraising opportunities.