Monday, October 13, 2008

West Side Story

When my friend CC invited me to watch West Side Story at the Meralco Theatre in Pasig I immediately said yes. I like trying out new things and if someone had invited me to go bungee jumpng or jump off a plane then I would have agreed ina heartbeat. That is if I have the extra money and time. Being it my first play, I was expecting too much which was good since my 1000 bucks would have been laid to waste if I set the bar too high.

Anyway, the play startd 45 minutes late which was also a good thing because I arrived late. I had my laundry done and watched the movie version which won an Oscar Best Picture in the 1950s. Since the movie was still fresh from my mind I knew the scenes beforehand but that didn't spoil the play for me. Christian Bautista and Karylle, who play the ill-fated lovers Tony and Maria, were competent. My friends were very impressed by Gian Magdangal who play Tony's best bud Riff but i was more impressed by Rowena Vilar (pictured below with Karylle) who played anita, Maria's sister-in-law.

During the curtain call, both of them (Gian and Rowena) were the most applauded and deservingly so. Overall, it was a satisfying ending of a rather busy weekend where I went out with three different set of friends - company sportsfest with my teammates, Tropical Thunder with my bowling buddies, and the play.
I hear that they plan on re-staging the show next year. That's no surprise. The play was a big hit.

4 comments:

Visual Velocity said...

People are saying that the supporting actors are better than Christian Bautista and Karylle combined.

The girl who played Anita was unanimously praised. :)

Ely said...

no plans of watching,hehe, but i'm curious why it's called, West Side Story?

atticus said...

narinig ko nga iyon. medyo awkward a raw ang acting ni karylle. pero bakit siya ang nasa lead role?

hay, showbiz. siguro para mas maka-attract ng viewers kasi girlfriend siya ni dingdong. hehe.

The Scud said...

andy > i think christian did better than karylle. ang galing nga talaga ni rowena.

ely > ang setting ata nyan is on the west side ng NYC. ito ang sabi ni pareng imdb

"The script was originally intended to be a Catholic boy falling in love with a Jewish girl. The working title was East Side Story. After a boom of Puerto Rican immigration to New York in the late 1940s and 1950s, the story was changed."

atticus > hindi ko ata napansin yun. dahil siguro walang solo si karylle - palaging meron ka-duet or kasama sa scenes niya.