From the Ledge » Personal

Back in Commission

francis — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 20:54:53 +0000

No, my dear readers, I didn’t run off to Canada to get married to Ryan Reynolds (yes, People’s Sexiest Man Alive is indeed Canadian, but he’s already taken by that wench, ScarJo…grrr!). I was super busy with my day job flying all over the country beginning in late October, and then I went off and racked up more airline points in Asia to do the same meetings over there during the past couple of weeks. I haven’t been in the Asia-Pacific region, where I grew up, for more than a decade, so there was a lot of exhilaration but also quite a palpable sense of dislocation on my part. More on that in a later blog post. But now I’m back (and un-glamorously jet-lagged) in the frozen tundra that is Chicago in December, and I promise to catch up on all the blogging I’ve missed the past couple of months. On the theater front, I’ll be catching two major openings in the coming week: Steppenwolf Theatre’s hotly anticipated mounting of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with acclaimed ensemble members Amy Morton and Tracy Letts in the roles Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton infamously made their own, and the Hypocrites’ tantalizing production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, directed by Artistic Director and Chicago treasure Sean Graney. I’m also planning to catch several plays that opened while I was away: Backstage Theater Company’s Memory, XIII Pocket’s Cash, and the Artistic Home’s Sweet Bird of Youth (allegedly being brought to Broadway next year by Chicago director David Cromer, with Nicole Kidman, her forehead, and the new object of my and the country’s lustful obsession, James Franco). Oscar season is also in full swing, so it’s also the time of year when I catch up on my Oscar hopefuls. I’ll be traipsing along to The Black Swan, Daren Aronofsky’s All About Eve-in-tutus opus and 127 Hours, or the amount of time I want to spend in a hot tub with James Franco, oh, oops, wrong subtitle. I need to still write about David Fincher’s The Social Network, my current bet to lead the Oscar nominations, and about two wonderful books that recently came out about the Philippines, it’s culture, it’s people, and it’s psychology – Miguel Syjuco’s emotionally conflicted Illustrado and Rafe Bartholomew’s exciting, intriguing look at the Filipinos’ national obsession with basketball, Pacific Rims. Did you guys miss me?

Here Lies Ambivalence

francis — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 23:27:12 +0000

I never thought a photo of Imelda Marcos would ever grace (sully?) the pages of this blog. I grew up in Manila during the height of the Marcos authoritarian rule in the late 1970s and 1980s, so, like many Filipinos who were subjected to their unique brand of dictatorial, mercurial, and outrageously self-indulgent rule, I’m not a fan, to say the least. But I have always had, again like many Filipinos of my generation, a slight tinge of ambivalence towards Imelda Marcos. With the infamous pairs of shoes, the co-ruler and co-indictee status, the foolishness and delusion, she was infuriating. But one also had to admire her chutzpah and her fervor in flirtatiously but decisively arm-wrestling the world to take the Philippines, a small archipelago in Southeast Asia, seriously, on a level footing, on it’s own terms, and for the most part, to be successful in doing so during her heyday. She was, and continues to be, while now living in Manila, seemingly forgiven by a country that threw her out into exile, larger-than-describable-life, and that’s alluring and fascinating. And for some reason, maybe because of this larger-than-lifeness, not to mention the campiness and the unrepentant divaness, she has definitive gay icon status. So when I heard that David Byrne (he of Talking Heads fame) and Fatboy Slim were releasing a “concept album” of a possible theatrical piece called “Here Lies Love: A song cycle about Imelda Marcos & Estrella Cumpas” containing twenty-two songs devoted to the life of Madame and her erstwhile housekeeper/governess, Estrella, I was so curious I had to run out to my favorite Boystown music store stat! (of course, I knew those gays would have a stash of this CD!). I’m still listening to the music, but I’m already blown away by the caliber of the mostly female artists Byrne has asked to be on the album, such as Tori Amos, Natalie Merchant, Cyndi Lauper, Martha Wainwright (Rufus’s sister). I’ll be writing a more detailed blog post, containing not only my impressions of the album, but also my point of view on Imeldific as a theater subject, in the next week or so. In the meantime, why don’t you guys take a look at this extremely well-written piece on the creation and evolution (five years in the making!) of “Here Lies Love” from the Times of London, which also contains some interesting points about Imelda’s current “weirdly iconic” status in the arts world. Oh, and I guess New York’s Public Theater is supposedly playing a part in developing this theatrical piece. Can someone help me get some jaw reconstruction surgery, please?

Back!

francis — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:54:51 +0000

The new decade arrived somewhat inauspiciously last week, but who would have thought on January 8, 2000 that on January 8, 2010 I would be heading into the third year of writing an energetic Chicago arts and culture blog? Certainly not me. It’s been a busy couple of weeks between holiday madness, recuperation from a nasty fall on Christmas Eve (don’t worry, dear readers, no broken bones!), and a business trip during the first week of the new year. But I’ve been catching up on my potential Oscar-contending films (look out for an upcoming blog post with capsule comments on those I saw over the holidays) and planning my cultural expeditions for the next month (which may include a trip to Minneapolis to “experience” the cutting-edge theatrical piece, Call Cutta in a Box: An Intercontinental Phone Play by the German performance group Rimini Protokoll, part of the Walker Art Center’s “Out There” theater series). The most exciting news I heard this week was the confirmed off-Broadway transfer of Kristoffer Diaz’s The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, whose Chicago world premiere last fall was my pick for the Best Theater of 2009. There’s no announced casting yet, but with Chicago director Eddie Torres, Artistic Director of Teatro Vista, taking the helm of the Second Stage production once again, and with the Chicago designers from the Victory Gardens production already confirmed to participate, I think the possibility of New Yorkers’ socks (and underwear, belts, scarves, lucky amulet necklaces, and all) being blown away by Desmin Borges’ stunning lead performance is a pretty real one. So who’s still contradicting my vehement assertion that Chicago is the theater capital of the US?

Slower Pace

francis — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:57:49 +0000

In my day job as a business and organizational transformation consultant for a major consulting firm, I’m proud of the fact that I always seems to be at the right place at the right time. Everytime I’m wrapping up a client project, a Chicago-based project seemingly miraculously appears. Although I tell the candidates I interview for the company that our management consulting jobs are 100% travel, I really haven’t been on the typical Monday-Thursday consulting travel grind since late 2003. The cliche “good things never last” is a cliche, yes, but it’s true! Last week, I started a client project that will have been travelling to the great Buckeye state for the next six weeks. I’ll only be in Chicago from Friday to Sunday, which will mean less opportunities to go to arts and culture events, which will translate to a slowdown on blog posting. It’ll be an adjustment (especially since summer in Chicago is quite lively with the Grant Park Music Festival, the season wrap-ups of the theater companies, etc.), but it’s the right move for me in terms of where my “real” career is right now and where I want it to be. I’ll still try my hardest to post at least once a week, and if it’s not on an arts and culture event, it could be on my perspectives regarding things I’m reading, hearing, thinking about. I’ll also be attempting shorter blog posts as compared to the novella-like lengths that I sometimes go to. I’d like to continue the dialogue and engagement with you my dear blog readers, so please feel free to continue leaving comments. It could be a slow summer….but it’s not going to be a lifeless one.

Out of Commission

francis — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:01:02 +0000

Yep, blog posting has been sparse since the beginning of June, unfortunately, since I seem to have jumped on a careening, brake-less Metra train between dealing with lots of organizational transitions going on at my day job, helping the rest of the Board and the company of TUTA Theatre Chicago put on our annual fundraiser benefit (which we successfully pulled off last Sunday, June 7, yay, despite lots of anxiety and hairpulling, de rigueur for non-profit fundraisers of all kinds, I’ve come to find out), and co-chairing this year’s Steppenwolf Theatre Red or White Ball (which benefits the theater’s educational outreach, the Steppenwolf for Young Adults Program). The Red or White Ball is tonight, and boy, if I was exhausted last year after the event, I’m not sure what state of physical and mental being I’ll be in tomorrow. Putting up a fundraising event of this scope and scale is pretty intense, with lots of hard work and time commitment required, but I think it’s going to be a spectacular event for a cause I’m passionate about – as my blog readers know, I feel very strongly that the arts can only survive if we are able to successfully enthrall, convert and immerse new audiences. I’m psyched! Despite all kinds of crazy busy schedules though, I still have a lot of things on my mind, so I’d like to give a shout out to these below (and there’ll be more blog posts starting next week!)

I am very stoked for my theater viewing this weekend. On Saturday night, I’m off to see The Hypocrites’ version of Oedipus, directed by Artistic Director and sexy beast god of all things theatrically exciting Sean Graney. Promenade staging, three actors playing all the characters, a punk sensibility, an original music score – of course the Hypocrites will put their indelible, unmistakable stamp on Greek tragedy. On Sunday night, I’ll be catching Keith Huff’s play Mud People at Mary-Arrchie, directed by my friend, talented hyphenate actor-director Carlo Garcia. I’m a huge Keith Huff fan, so I’m as excited as Speidi on a plane out of Costa Rica to see what Carlo and the rest of the rockin’ Mary-Arrchie crew have in store for Keith’s play. And hey, he’s going to be HUGE after A Steady Rain premieres this fall on Broadway with Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig playing Chicago cops (speaking of huge…suspension of disbelief…get your minds out of the gutter, people!), so this is a great time to experience Huff’s writing before all the hype sets in.
Speaking of hype (and all in a good way), the cast of the touring production of Steppenwolf’s August: Osage County, playing the Oriental Theater (no, not the Steppenwolf Main Stage) February 2-14, 2010, has been announced. We always knew that Academy Award winner Estelle Parsons, who replaced our very own Tony winner Deanna Dunagan on Broadway, will anchor the tour as matriarch Violet Weston. What’s great though is that there’s a whole tribe of Chicago actors joining her on the tour: Shannon Cochran, who co-starred with Michael Shannon in the original off-Broadway production of August author Tracy Letts’ Bug, and last seen in Chicago at Writer’s Theater in The Lion in Winter is taking on the role of eldest daughter Barbara, which catapulted Steppenwolf ensemble member Amy Morton to New York theater stardom and a Tony nomination. This pairing should be kick-awesome. Other Chicago actors on the tour include Steve Key (love him) playing Little Charles; Amy Warren (loved her in the Goodman’s Rabbit Hole and Steppenwolf’s When the Messenger Is Hot, still kicking myself for missing her in the original Next Theater production of Adding Machine: The Musical) as the youngest daughter Karen; Jeff Still as Barbara’s husband, Bill; and Marcus Nelson as the Sheriff. Go Chicago!
NEOCON, the big international design convention that Chicago hosts every year at the Merchandise Mart is back next week. Of course, there will be a slew of hot, hip, artsy events going on all over the place; my email box has been inundated with invitations and announcements for the past several weeks. I’m going to some of them, but for me there are two unmissable events: first up, on Monday, the 15th, off the NEOCON beaten track, the Mighty Bearcats and the Object Design League, two groups comprised of really hot, young, rising artists and designers we’ll be seeing a lot of in the near future (including the unassuming, but mega-talented, and blazing hot, metaphorically and otherwise, Steven Haulenbeek) is holding an Opening Night reception for their show ”The Promise of this Moment” at a raw space in Bucktown (2035 W. Wabansia). I’m not sure what installations and art pieces will be on view, but given the eclectic tastes of the artists who will be exhibiting, I think the show will be out of this world. Fifteen “you have otherworldly great taste” points to those who make it on Monday night! On Tuesday, the 16th, I’m off again to the Guerrilla Truck Show at the Fulton Market warehouse district. I’ve written about it in the past - I think it’s a uniquely fabulous Chicago summer event. Great weather, great art and design, free booze, hypnotic music, U-Hauls, hey what a combo ha!
I am off to Sonoma for a reunion with my college girlfriends during the week of June 22. But I’ve been pinching myself black and blue for a week already (and trying to self-administer some panicky, last minute liposuction- ha!) for getting a French Laundry reservation on the 24th (well actually, my friend Dulce’s husband Greg, who runs Gourmet magazine’s West Coast operations, got it for me, so I didn’t have to go through all the convoluted reservation hoohahs on FL’s website; he has officially joined Francis’s pantheon of deities that shall be unconditionally worshipped on all fours with forehead on the ground!) I am really, really excited, exhilarated, inspired…name any positive emotion, I got it! I’ll be sure to post (hopefully with photos) on my French Laundry experience. In the meantime here’s a couple of interesting blog posts from various kinds of foodies- read them here and here.

Mabuhay!

francis — Tue, 26 May 2009 03:36:54 +0000

Manny Pacquiao wins the title of World Light Welterweight Champion and is selected by Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the world. Kalamansi, a small, tart, lime-lemon-orange-type fruit indigenous to the Philippines and a staple of Filipino food and drink has started it’s ascent as one of this year’s fine dining ingredients du jour – Chef Curtis Duffy at the Peninsula Hotel Chicago’s five-star Avenues restaurant pairs it with king crab and steelhead roe and sends foodies into paroxysms of ecstasy. Then, on Sunday, at the closing ceremonies of the Cannes Film Festival, arguably the most important cinema event in the world, Brillante Mendoza cemented his growing reputation as one of the future bright lights of world cinema by winning Best Director at the Festival for another divisive film, Kinatay (The Execution of P), his second time out at the Main Competition, beating out heavyweights such as Quentin Tarantino, Ang Lee, Pedro Almodovar, Alain Resnais, Jane Campion, and Lars von Trier, in a dream-team competition slate that film pundits had dubbed the auteur’s festival. So is everything Filipino the new black??? Seriously though I am very very proud of Mendoza’s win, the first for a Filipino director, despite the fact that the most internationally-renowned Filipino director of all time, the late Lino Brocka, also competed for the Palme D’Or twice in the 1980s (for Jaguar and Bayan Ko). From all accounts, Mendoza’s win was the one that caught everyone by surprise (and was allegedly booed by some attendees at the closing ceremony), since Kinatay, an unflinchingly violent tale about the abduction, rape, murder, and dismemberment of a prostitute by a gang of corrupt Manila policemen had been universally reviled at the Festival. Roger Ebert called it the “worst film ever shown at the Cannes Film Festival”, even worse than The Brown Bunny, which he had previously, and famously, pronounced as the worst ever, causing the notorious media war with it’s director Vincent Gallo. Variety called it “unpleasant” and “banal”. I remember seeing Mendoza back in 2005 at the Chicago International Film Festival, nervously and inarticulately leading a talkback after the screening of one of his first features, The Masseur, which I found then (and still do) to be derivative and exploitative. He has made quite a name for himself since then, though, winning major festival acclaim in Cannes and Toronto for his subsequent features, Tirador (SlingShot) and Foster Child. Last year’s Cannes main competition entry Serbis, a jawdroppingly outrageous story of a family running a theater which functioned as a meeting place for underage male hustlers and their gay johns, complete with explicit gay and straight sex, a boil on a lead character’s ass being popped in extreme close-up, and a goat chase through the theater, equally repulsed and delighted cineastes. I personally really, really liked it, and found it to be a mature, socially-conscious, intricately-structured work. I can’t wait to see Kinatay, which, with it’s Cannes win, will probably be highly visible this year in the film festival circuit and in art film theaters across the country, and really, why should I give a rat’s ass to what Roger Ebert thinks, right? But, more importantly, as a Filipino and an arts and culture lover, I really would like to celebrate Brillante Mendoza – he has loudly and deservedly claimed his own exalted place in contemporary world cinema, but he has also, almost single-handedly, demonstrated the talent, imagination, sophisticated vision that Filipino artists have, and has made the world sit up and take notice of the Philippines once again. The country has an abundance of talent and a rich history of artistic innovation, sometimes overlooked by a world which has devoted its Philippine-related headlines only to failed coup d’ etats, Imelda Marcos histrionics, or governmental graft and corruption. It’s about time to change all of that. Here’s a list of 2009 Cannes Film Festival winner, led by the Palme D’Or for Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon. Photo: Oh my, Mendoza receiving his prize from Terry Gilliam! Faint and fall with a thud.

Congratulations, Mike!

francis — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:02:07 +0000

After years of Oscar-watching, soothsaying, trend-spotting, kvetching, and celebrating, I FINALLY know someone who is up for an Academy Award. And in a major acting category at that. Here’s a heartfelt, awe-inspired congratulations to Michael Shannon, A Red Orchid Theater founder/ensemble member, for his nomination in this year’s Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role category, for his terrific, film-stopping performance as Kathy Bates’ mentally unstable son in Revolutionary Road. I’ve been volunteering with A Red Orchid Theater over the years through the Arts and Business Council of Chicago and it’s a Chicago theater company that is very close to my heart. With Mike’s nomination and soon-to-be widespread name recognition, I am equally thrilled for Red Orchid since it was on their stage that Mike brought a lot of indelible performances to life such as the lead role in the original production of Tracy Letts’ Bug, as well as his first directorial effort, Ionesco’s Hunger and Thirst. Although Mike is now an Academy Award-nominated movie star, I still think of him as a Chicago theater actor through and through, so his Oscar nomination is also fantastic for the city’s theatrical community. Very, very cool!

Forty Carats

francis — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:37:24 +0000

I remember the very first play I went to. I was ten years old, and it was Annie, staged by Manila’s pre-eminent English language theater group, Repertory Philippines, and it starred an eight year old Lea Salonga, pride of the Philippines and future Tony winner (for Miss Saigon). I remember being awestruck through it, as well as inspired and uplifted. I remember keeping the show program for years, a habit that I continue to have to this day, just to keep on reminding me of the magical experience of that evening. My mom brought me and my brother Judd to see it, because she loved musicals and live performance. I fell in love with the theater that night, and it has been a full-time love affair ever since. My mom also loved looking at paintings and sculptures, and one of my most vivid memories is the two of us silently walking, inspired and immersed, among the Philippines’ national artist Juan Luna’s works in the National Museum in Manila, and staring open-mouthed at the splendor of his most famous work, the Spolarium. Every year that my mom came to visit me in Chicago from Manila, we would have the MCA or the Art Institute AND a musical on the agenda (one year, we gushed all over Chita Rivera, when she was doing The Visit at the Goodman, and we told her we also both saw her in Kiss of the Spider Woman in New York oh so many moons ago). Passion for the arts isn’t acquired overnight, it’s nurtured, cultivated, deepened over the years of continuous exposure to theater, or film, or art, or music, opera, literature. It’s built upon a sense of intellectual curiosity, an open-mindedness to new experiences and to soak them in like a sponge, an ability to reflect and construct and deconstruct honed continuously and regularly. I owe a lot of who I am today to my mom who was tireless in shaping her son’s life with new, interesting, different experiences; who encouraged interest, curiosity, and endless questions. My mom passed away more than two years ago at 66 years old. She never saw this blog come into being, but I think she’ll be pleased and tickled pink with it - she was always convinced that I could write exceptionally well, and was so proud all those years ago when I contributed feature articles to the Philippine Daily Inquirer as a lark, and when I wrote plays in high school and college that actually got staged and won awards. Today, the day I turn forty, is a day for reflection and gratitude. Thanks Mama!

Glorious Day

francis — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 16:21:32 +0000

I am taking a break today from the arts and culture focus of From the Ledge to irrevocably, unequivocally express how proud and hopeful I am, as an immigrant, as a gay person, as a person of color, as someone in the 40 and below demographic, as a citizen of the world, as a Chicagoan, that Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States of America. It’s a difficult, anxious, chaotic world we’re living in today, but with President-elect Obama, I sincerely, truly, feel that we have the inspiration and the confirmation that there is a very real opportunity for America, and the world, to change for the better. That’s not hyperbole, that’s heartfelt emotion.

Paper Gifts

francis — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:27:54 +0000

I think it is so apt that my 135th blog post, written twelve months to the day of From the Ledge’s unveiling to the world, was about Kafka on the Shore, since Murakami wrote a beautiful, sensitive, impactful sentence that Frank Galati wisely preserves in the play: “In dreams begin responsibilities.” Having a blog was a dream that lay unrealized for many, many years, as I wandered through the busyness of life, as I second-guessed myself, lost confidence, found excuses not to write about what I’m passionate about. It really was not “do I have something to say?” since I thought I did, and I had a responsibility to articulate and share it, but “is anyone willing to listen?“. I really do feel that a blog can only be as good as its readers – it’s a channel for personal expression, yes, but it should also be an avenue for conversation and provocation. It has been quite a year for me and for From the Ledge, with more than 12,500 hits, coming from people not only in Chicago, or the United States, or the Philippines, where the critical mass of my friends and family are, but from places far and wide such as Germany, Brazil, India, Japan, Belarus, and Norway. It was a year of strongly advocating for Chicago’s talent and artistic life: for August: Osage County and Steppenwolf Theater, for Sean Graney and the Hypocrites, for Keith Huff, for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNow series, for the Chicago Opera Theater, for the Court Theater, TUTA, Strange Tree Group, the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Chicago International Film Festival, Art Chicago, and the Grant Park summer music Festival- all of them essential and irreplaceable. But it was also a year to reflect and challenge: on the lack of artistic appreciation among my demographic group, on disconcerting hints of Chicago arts parochialism, on the responsibilities of bloggers and blog commenters, on the tension between playwrights’ and directors’ artistic visions. Most importantly, it was a year of making connections and starting conversations, both on the blog, and via email, of discovering readers, of listening to other people’s points of view, of taking feedback seriously. A big thank you to everyone, and here’s to another year of delightful dialogue.