“Into the Woods” runs August 7-31 at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater in Circuit, Makati.
Teetin Villanueva and Carla Guevara Laforteza (Photo by Liana Garcellano)
Carla Guevara Laforteza and Teetin Villanueva were ecstatic when Theater Group Asia (TGA) contacted them last year to say they’ve been cast in the Philippine staging of the American musical Into the Woods. For Carla, it would be a “wonderful reunion with friends” who’d worked with the late theater director-producer and TGA co-founder Bobby Garcia.
Carla plays Granny and voices the Giant: “…As a character actor, I can do so many things with Granny and the Giant. Maybe I can voice the Giant with a French accent!”
Actually, she’d wanted to play The Witch— “It’s the role that got away,” she says—and was feeling dejected until she was told that Olivier- and Tony-award winner Lea Salonga is playing the part, marking Lea’s return to the Philippine musical stage after six years.
“I was so fine with it! I’d worked with Lea in concerts, but now’s a chance to work with her in a musical,” says Carla in a breakout interview with TheDiarist.ph after the Into the Woods media briefing last July 31.
That Carla’s delighted in working with Lea is obvious: “She opened the doors for us. She’s an inspiration and fun to work with. She’s the coolest!”
In the same interview, Teetin says she cried when she was told because it’d been her childhood dream to be in the musical since she watched it on YouTube. She would have gladly auditioned if TGA held one, but as serendipity would have it, she was cast as Little Red Riding Hood. It was surreal, she says, because she originally thought she would be an associate choreographer when she and TGA first talked.
Teetin’s emotions were roiling, she says. Her excitement went through the roof after she learned that Lea would be in the musical, but she was also on tenterhooks because she couldn’t tell anyone about it. “We were told to keep everything confidential,” she recalls.
Carla says working with Lea in a concert and in a musical are different experiences. In their concert, they rehearsed on their own and they got together only during the show. But with Into the Woods Carla is in the theater hall with Lea, witnessing her process acting and singing, eight hours a day, six times a week. She finds working with Lea in the musical amazing because, she says, the star is “an absolute pro,” having the lyrics and lines down pat every rehearsal.
Cast of Into the Woods (L-R) Back: Mark Bautista, Jamie Wilson, Sarah Facuri, Kakki Teodoro, Niño Alejandro, Ima Castro, Jillian Ita-As, and Jep Go; Front: Eugene Domingo, Joreen Bautista, Nic Chien, Nyoy Volante, Mikkie Bradshaw Volante, Chari Arespacochaga, Clint Ramos, Lea Salonga, Josh Dela Cruz, Arielle Jacobs, TGA executive director Christopher Mohnani, Carla Guevara Laforteza, Teetin Villanueva, and Rody Vera (Photo from TGA)
In the media briefing, Lea says the process for Into the Woods has been fun, but challenging in “finding the logic of the music.”
The director Chari Arespacochaga staged the production in two weeks, which, Lea says, is a feat, giving them a lot of run-throughs and allowing them to own the material. “That’s how I remember it with Bobby—stage it quickly and give actors a luxury of run-throughs,” Lea relates. (Chari flew to Manila to direct the musical. She’s based in Florida where she’s a professor at the School of Theater of Florida State University and director of the MFA Directing Program.)
Teetin says working with Lea is very encouraging, but she confesses to feeling intimidated by her in the beginning. She says she became more confident when she saw Lea “rooting for everyone.” She is astounded that someone of Lea’s stature would “boost (my) confidence and have fun… at rehearsals.”
Lea Salonga and Eugene Domingo with the cast during media meet (Photo by Liana Garcellano)
Carla chimes in: “Lea’s down to earth.” Eugene Domingo, speaking at the media briefing in Filipino, describes Lea as a genuine person who frequently swears and isn’t above gossiping. Eugene makes her musical theater debut in Into the Woods as Jack’s mother.
Eugene Domingo (Photo from TGA)
Before the interviews, the host asks the cast members to tell the person to their left what they learned from him/her. Teetin says she’s a fan of Ate Carla, from whom she learned persistence, preparedness, and fierceness. She narrates that Carla’s nickname is “piranha”— courtesy of Bobby—because Carla was tenacious in memorizing lyrics and lines even if they weren’t part of her role.
Continues Teetin: “Carla will step up if given the opportunity. She’s fierce as a woman, but she’s also motherly and inspiring as a person.”
Carla is in awe of how TGA blended the theatrical mindset and training outside of the Philippines with local theater practices
Carla and Teetin have had impressive backstage experience. TGA is “so generous” casting local actors alongside international actors and flying in homegrown and overseas designers, says Carla. She’s in awe of how TGA blended the theatrical mindset and training outside of the Philippines with local theater practices to be able to showcase the Filipino talent.
Teetin is astonished by the early costume fitting. It was a first for her in all her years in theater. “It helped us a lot in developing the characters, specially Red, who wears a cape with a hood,” she explains. “We tried on our costumes to know how to move with them and to break in the shoes, which changes your movements on stage.”
Carla adds: “They’re efficient. With the costumes, they ask you, for example, how the shoes are, how the fabric feels on the skin, etc. We have a say on the fit and comfort because we have to be comfortable on stage.”
Another plus is that TGA provides everything—down to the makeup for the media briefing, says Carla—making it easier for the actors to concentrate on their lines. Teetin says everything is organized so that “we come prepared for rehearsals because we’re told in advance” of the scenes to be done. The setup, in turn, allows them to attend to other aspects of their lives. She says she appreciates TGA’s respect for the artists’ time, i.e., ending rehearsals at the stipulated time even if they’re not yet done with the scene. No worries—they’ll just pick up the next day from where they left off.
The director is the final factor that makes being part of Into the Woods unforgettable. Carla says Chari’s a director and teacher who allows them to explore. “She’ll give us the blocking and then have us make sense of it. She teaches us to develop our character.”
And Chari, Teetin adds, gives them a safe space to do what feels right onstage, to try without disparagement. “She’s very sensitive as a person and won’t force anything on anyone,” Teetin says, pointing out that Chari observes the actors’ body language, such as if someone wants to walk a certain direction, and allows exploration of movements.
Chari says directing Into the Woods ‘is not an ‘I’ situation.’ ‘We need to work together’
In a separate interview with TheDiarist.ph, Chari says directing Into the Woods “is not an ‘I’ situation.” She adds: “We need to work together to get things done. We need everyone to own the show. I can’t do it by myself.”
To prepare for her roles, Carla says she does mostly “vocal prepping.” However, given that, as she puts it, she’s cast in the strangest roles, “I have to be in the room with my co-actors, know the director and the dynamics with the actors, (to) be able to deliver.
“I’m an instinctive character actor,” explains the veteran thespian who played Kim and Gigi in Miss Saigon in London in the 1990s.
For Teetin, playing Red is a challenge, with Chari making Red a teenager. But Teetin has risen to the challenge with aplomb, drawing from her theater experience that goes back to her playing roles in PETA’s Children’s Theater, Dulaang UP, Atlantis Theatrical, ABS-CBN shows (Oh My G!, Maalaala Mo Kaya, and #BoysLockdown), and in the musicals Rak of Aegis, Rock of Ages, Ang Huling El Bimbo, and Mula sa Buwan.
There’s a vast age gap between teenybopper Red and 36-year-old Teetin, so adult Teetin doesn’t let her personal experiences interfere with Red’s character. “Red’s young and doesn’t know the dangers of life,” Teetin points out. “I clear my mind at the start of the day and think that little girls will watch the show (and) they must be able to relate to her.”
Teetin says Red is a symbol of innocence and that she plumbed the mindset and emotions of a young person in portraying her. “I’m excited to show people the heart of a little kid—her fears, doubts, and discoveries,” she says.
Written in 1986, Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods weaves several Brothers Grimm fairy tales into one narrative exploring the dark side of wishes and quests. TGA’s Philippine production combines the fairy tales Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Rapunzel, which, Chari insinuates at the media briefing, will delve into the Filipino condition.
‘The definition of Filipino is so vast (and) we wanted to create a cast that brings it all together’
“As a Filipino, we’re storytellers, and that’s our way into it,” she says. “We live in a mythic existence and we want to highlight the condition, history, etc. The definition of Filipino is so vast (and) we wanted to create a cast that brings it all together.”
Joining Lea, Eugene, Carla, and Teetin are Arielle Jacobs as Cinderella, Josh Dela Cruz as Prince Charming/The Wolf, Nyoy and Mikkie Bradshaw-Volante as The Baker and The Baker’s Wife, Nic Chien as Jack, Joreen Bautista as Rapunzel, Mark Bautista as Rapunzel’s Prince, Tex Ordoñez-De Leon as Cinderella’s stepmother, Sarah Facuri and Kakki Teodoro as Cinderella’s stepsisters, Jamie Wilson as Cinderella’s father (offstage he’s the assistant director), and Rody Vera as narrator.
Clint Ramos and Chari Arespacochaga during media meet: ‘We aim to foster more creative dialogues between global theater artists of Filipino heritage based abroad and talented local artists in the Philippines’ (Photo by Liana Garcellano)
TGA was the force behind last year’s theater breakout show Request sa Radyo that Bobby himself directed. Clint Ramos, TGA creative/artistic director, says that TGA is committed to exalting Filipino artistry. “We aim to foster more creative dialogues between global theater artists of Filipino heritage based abroad and talented local artists in the Philippines,” he declares.
“It is about learning from both ends and presenting world-class theater by Filipinos for Filipinos. This is an earnest goal we shared with Bobby.”
Into the Woods runs August 7-31 at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater in Circuit, Makati. (Sadly, tickets are all sold out.)
