On the heels of the battering of my political hopes for the country, I heard about Miguel Faustmann passing in his sleep a few days later. For a while, my grief was a mix-up of intentions for the political loss, the loss of an old, dear friend, and in many ways the loss of the final strands of my innocence.
By the time I entered Repertory Philippines in the early ‘80s, Miguel Faustmann was already a certified theater star. He had joined during Rep’s fifth year and I entered in its 13th year.
Until then I had only seen him on stage and in the broadsheets and was a little in awe of him. The mestizo with the Roman nose, hooded eyes, set jaw and enviable stature, he came across as an actor with real gravitas, speaking in a smoky baritone (smoky, I learned later, because he incessantly smoked). He was everyone’s idea of a leading man except he was also an exceptional character actor.
When I finally worked with him, I was already about a couple of seasons into my career with Rep (about a year) because I was cast (as most newbies were) in the large ensemble chorus of the big musicals, while the intimate “straight plays” (as non-musicals were referred to) were staged with the “veteran” actors on the Insular Life Auditorium stage, to which he was more often assigned. I might add that the “straight plays” were the meatier plays, with roles that honed actors’ skills and stretched their artistic boundaries. It was the stage we all aspired to work on, and Miguel Faustmann was its certified male star.
He spoke in a peculiar hybrid of languages that I think might be accurately called ‘Spangaloglish’
The Insular Life Auditorium had two dressing rooms backstage—one for the women, the other, accessed through a spiral staircase, for the men. The men’s backstage room had a large mirror where about four cast members sat side by side (sometimes squeezing in as many as five, if it was a large cast), and the rest of us were scattered about on chairs floating across the space. Miguel always occupied the far end of the mirror by the farthest wall—a prized position because one had enough room in the corner, underneath the counter, to rest the large duffel bags or backpacks we theater actors were predisposed to carry. It was a corner from which he dispensed his often corny jokes, his incessant complaints, his occasional nuggets of real and surprising wisdom.
You see, Miguel, I was to learn, was light years away from the persona he often projected onstage. For the first time in my life, I felt as if I’d actually met a person for whom the label “man-child” was invented. He was innocent and unabashedly childish one moment, seemingly unable to dispense malice—by turns silly, embarrassing, annoying, and incorrigibly irresponsible—and then wise and insightful the next. He spoke in a peculiar hybrid of languages that I think might be accurately called “Spangaloglish,” or Taglish liberally sprinkled with Spanish, or was it Spanish liberally peppered with the other two?
I always thought that he was the vessel through which Zeneida Amador could express her masculinity
He was one of those actors with a chameleon-like ability, always instinctive, always accurate. He and Zeneida Amador were a formidable tandem. I always thought that he was the vessel through which she could express her masculinity. When she directed him, she sometimes dispensed with lengthy explanations about character and motivation, and acted the scene for him to copy. He would then instinctively understand exactly what she wanted and would mimic her, magically transforming himself into this intellectual giant, or heroic lionheart, or comic genius.
The Lion in Winter by William Goldman: from left, Jaime del Mundo, Monique Wilson, the author, Miguel Faustmann
One evening, after a show, my friend and I went to Oar House, the small Malate bar where all the younger Rep actors and staff were regulars. Over beers, my friend remarked that he was a fan of Miguel since having seen him in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing. He gushed, “What a mind! What an intellect! Genius!” Miguel, you see, had been playing an intellectual playwright who was a thinly masked stand-in for the author Stoppard himself. And then Miguel walked into the bar and joined us for a while. He cracked insipid jokes, complained about the backstage air conditioning, and then walked off to the bar to get a beer and join other members of the cast. My friend was stunned and speechless. He could not believe the person who had joined us was the same one he had seen onstage. I laughed, “Now, that’s an actor!”
I didn’t remember that I had said it until Roselyn Perez, in a tribute to Miguel on Facebook, quoted me as saying that “Miguel was one of the few people who lived life without an agenda.”
Thinking back on those boozy nights spent after rehearsals and shows, I think about how we would all gather around a table or two at Oar House and talk craft. Miguel, bored with the conversation, would play bumper pools (a variation of billiards with “bumpers” sticking out of the table), would drink with the other habitués and loudly tell jokes and laugh at them loudly, sometimes only by himself. He was a bon vivant for whom living meant constant partying (I guess most young people during the ‘70s were like that—boozy, druggie, discophile party animals).
This child-like ability to absorb life in all its garish color was admirable
After Oar House, in the wee hours, he would travel to the far end of M.H. del Pilar street, then the thriving red light district, and consort with the “regulars”: the pimps, the call girls, the midgets, the colorful, exotic occupants of night-life Malate. Some of us would occasionally join him for a beer or two. He was equally comfortable chatting up a call girl as he was with the ambassador at some cocktail reception. I often looked at him and thought two things: 1) this child-like ability to absorb life in all its garish color was admirable, and 2) this lifestyle couldn’t possibly be sustainable. He had absolutely no thought about the future, he lived life without an agenda.
But as lovable as Miguel could be, he could also be pretty exasperating. When he directed me in Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam, he would do what Amador used to do—that is, act out the scene for me to copy. I would ask him for motivation and character and he couldn’t articulate verbally what was needed of me. It was maddening. He would demonstrate a piece of blocking for me and I would ask him why, and he wouldn’t give me a coherent reply. “Basta!”
Faustmann and the author in The Sunshine Boys by Neil Simon
There were a couple of instances when I threatened to walk out, a couple of instances when we engaged in shouting matches, a couple of instances when I pleaded with him to articulate a clear direction. When I directed him, I found myself, at times, losing my patience with him. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, he played the judge. During the intervals when he had no lines, I’d catch him napping. Onstage. During a performance. Eyes closed. But then he would come in with his cues and say his lines on time. I would berate him backstage and his response, in classic Miguel fashion, would be something like, “H*der! It’s so hot kasi on stage! C*ño! Can’t you tell them to turn up the aircon?”
But there were times I directed him when I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything in the world. In Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, I played the lead and directed the play. He played my father. He brought such depth and emotion to the role I thought he and tita Joy (Virata) ran away with the show. In a couple of other shows, Woman in Black and Tuesdays with Morrie, he had to step into Jose Mari Avellana’s shoes. These were two-handers, so I would be filled with dread at the thought of anyone replacing the great Mari. But Miguel surprised me. He brought a different feel to these roles, interpretations all his own, heartfelt and true.
One of the last times he saw a play I directed was, in fact, the last play I directed for Rep, Pielmeier’s Agnes of God. He sat beside me in the audience and started off with a complaint, “The stage is too big for this play! This theater is not intimate enough.” During intermission, we both stepped outside for a smoke. We didn’t talk about the play. I just expressed alarm, “You’re still smoking? Why?” You see, he had suffered a heart attack in Australia about two years prior and he was supposed to be strictly off nicotine and alcohol. He just shrugged and said, “I’ve cut down na!” I just shook my head and we went back to the theater to finish the show. At the end of the performance, I glanced at him and he was wiping away tears, “Ganda!” was all he could muster. Apparently he had forgotten that the play was too small for the theater.
From all I’ve said so far, it might seem like I thought of him only as this annoying co-actor for whom I had little affection. But the opposite is true. I loved Miguel because he was guileless and had neither vanity nor malice about him. His child-like openness is something I remind myself of, up to this very day, when I have to tackle a role that requires more than I think I can give. He was gentle, patient, and funny. He was a constant friend, unwavering in his affections. As tita Bibot (Amador) once pointed out, “That man hasn’t a mean bone in his body.”
La Cage Aux Folles with Bernardo Bernardo
I often wondered and worried about how Miguel was able to make a living out of what he did, which was, I thought, living exclusively off theater. But then, I would hear his voice on the radio in an ad, then on TV, and that answered my question and somewhat assuaged my worry. He was the epitome of the freelance gig-economy practitioner who lived from one project to another. It suited his personality to a T. No worries, no thought for the future, just the here and now, and total trust that the future will provide for itself. It’s what made him attractive to many, male and female alike. He was a man, he was a child, he was sexy, he was dorky. His serial monogamies were unsustainable because he refused to ever become a fully formed adult. But you see, this is exactly what made him a brilliant actor—his fearlessness and utter trust in his own instincts, like a child jumping off a table believing he’s Superman.
It took me quite a while to write this tribute to Miguel because he’s one of those people who flit into your life, whom you get to know intimately, learn to love in the way one loves a sibling, annoyance and all, and then disappears for stretches at a time.
When I needed help with my Spanish dialogue for the movie Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis, he readily asked to meet me in a cafe in Greenhills, enthusiastically jumping at the chance to “direct” me. My first thought was, “What a generous person Miguel is!” And I was actually excited to see him and do some catching up. But midway into the session, I half wanted to strangle him for being as fastidious and unforgiving as he was. It seemed he was fully relishing his role as mentor, no matter that I had told him I just wanted to record him saying the lines for me to parrot. But he went into detailed explanations of what the lines meant, how to say it, and then again in typical Miguel fashion, would change his mind about whether the line meant this instead.
I was exhausted by the time we finished. I told myself, “That’s my Miguel quota for a few months.” It was then I realized, with real sadness, that I had outgrown him and that part of my life that he had occupied. Writing this was as difficult as finally releasing the last strands of my own innocence.
Miguel represented my days of innocence, when possibilities were boundless, and the adventures onstage and at the bars at night opened my eyes to the wonders of the world. His irresponsibility, his kindness, his child-like wonder, the same qualities in me I wished I could hang on to forever, are lost. It’s as if he finally took them with him when he passed away. Thinking of Miguel fills me with so much sadness.
Biloxi Blues by Neil Simon
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