Cory ng EDSA, a Filipino Musicale at SM North EDSA

Glory Ann Nacional as Cory Aquino

I’ve had my second viewing of Cory ng EDSA, a Filipino Musicale when the Philippine Stagers Foundation invited me to catch its run over at the SM City North EDSA. I was a bit tentative coming in to the cinema since I knew that I’d be watching among students who might not be the best audience to watch a play. Fortunately, these students were at their best behavior which left me impressed.

This time around, the lead roles of Cory Aquino and Peter were played by the alternates Glory Ann Nacional and Patrick Libao and I was very interested to see how they tackled their respective roles. The first thing that I noticed was that Glory Ann Nacional had a very powerful and dramatic voice. And I was very surprised when she shifted to an operatic voice and a soprano at that during one of the soaring numbers late in the program wherein the whole company sang. I also noticed that her dancing was a bit lethargic and she seemed to be behind a bit with the choreography but then I found out after the show that she was sick and yet the show must go on. Her movement may have been hampered by sickness but her singing was still spot on. It was a bit odd at first to see a Cory with such conviction in her singing but I guess that this was balanced by the more laidback vocals from Patrick Libao. I think that it would be too much vocal power if Nacional was paired with Vincent Tañada, the other Peter who is also the show’s writer and director.

There were some things that I’ve noticed during this run that was different from the performance that I saw before. First, there were some scenes that were cut and the pacing got noticeably faster. I guess that they’ve decided to trim the show down into two hours. But in the process, I felt that pauses and moments of silence had to go in order to quicken the pace. There was a scene when Edsa found the truth about his parents and it was a sad realization. The audience wasn’t given the opportunity to take that moment in and also feel sad for the boy because the next scene came rushing in.

Patrick Libao as Peter

Another thing that I noticed was the reaction of the audience composed mainly of kids. They responded positively to the jokes and the pick up lines delivered by the actors. Personally, I think that I am already too old for these kinds of jokes and I was left cringing on how cheesy they were. But the kids also responded well to the other parts of the play like after the end of each musical number and especially during the finale when a portion of Bayan Ko was sung as Cory’s coffin was being carried. And I agreed with the kids on these parts since they were indeed highlights of the show.

I am grateful to Philippine Stagers Foundation for allowing me to see this musical again. The performance that I saw ran smoothly and I think that they’ve gotten over the bugs and kinks of the production since they’ve been staging this for at least two months already. I still couldn’t get over knowing that they sometimes have up to five shows a day and that having just two shows means a light day for them.