MANILA, Philippines?It?s been weeks and weeks after Mother?s Day, but for some serendipitous reason, moms are all over the small and big screens this season.
On TV, mothers get to choose their children?s dates in the US reality show, ?Date My Mom,? Jaya showcases celebrities? moms in ?One Proud Mama,? Lani Mercado-Revilla and her co-hosts do mother-related features and interviews in ?Moms,? and Gladys Reyes also focuses on mothers in her own program.
And, in the new ABS-CBN program, ?Wonder Mom,? shown every Saturday and Sunday morning, Karen Davila features one celebrity mother a week, using each mom?s relationship with her children to illustrate problems and issues that an expert helps clarify and solve.
To date, we?ve caught the show?s telecasts featuring Jodi Santamaria-Lacson and Rosanna Roces. The Jodi show dealt with hyperactivity and discipline issues, while the feature on Rosanna focused on the single mother and celebrity mother syndromes.
The two telecasts were quite different from each other, illustrating the scope of parenting issues that the program aspires to encompass. So far, so good?but it may be better if the expert could be brought in earlier in the show?s process, so that her or his views and remedies could more directly be made to bear on mom-child relationship problems as they initially emerge.
Musical celebration
On the big screen, ?Mamma Mia? musically celebrates not just Meryl Streep?s character, but all mothers and their life-giving vitality, as well.
Locally, the latest mother movie on view is Annabelle Rama?s comeback starrer, ?Monster Mom.? In the comedy film, Annabelle plays a single mother who gives her first baby up for adoption. The child grows up in the States, but comes home (in the person of Ruffa Gutierrez) when she?s already in her 20s.
By this time, Annabelle?s character has become well-off, and has two other children, now teenage boys, by different fathers. More pertinently to the movie?s theme, she has also become a domineering, manipulative and loud-talking mother?the ?monster? mom of the film?s title.
Her sons have learned to take her the way she is but Ruffa can?t stand her! So, she and Annabelle are soon on a collision course, and the inevitable crash is a major bone-crusher.
Happily, it also turns out to be a big ego-crusher, with both feisty mother and daughter finally learning how to adjust to, respect and love, each other. That?s an agreeably upbeat denouement, so that?s all to the good.
Stiff performance
Less on the up-and-up is the title portrayal by Annabelle Rama. She?s colorfully brassy and sassy, but her performance otherwise comes off as too stiff and studied.
She may be yakking away a mile a minute, but her eyes and other facial features aren?t as lively as they should be. This suggests that the otherwise diverting actress lacks interiority, a lapse that she should work on in her next screen performance.
Instructively, Ruffa?s performance also comes off as stiff and rather monotonous. Like mother, like daughter? Perhaps Ruffa?s problem is that she banks too much on her beauty, so she, too, needs to work on her interiority and her eventually monotonous delivery of lines.
In full-length features, for actors to sustain viewers? interest and involvement, beauty and feistiness aren?t enough.
Opera season
The Philippine Opera Company (POC) will open its second season in September with ?The Magic Flute,? deemed by some as Mozart?s most irresistible opera. The opera will run from Sept. 19 to 27 at the CCP Little Theater.
On Oct. 3, 4 and 5, Puccini?s ?La Boheme? will be staged at the CCP Main Theater, with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra being conducted by Helen Quach.
The 2008 season closes with a repeat staging of Terrence McNally?s ?Master Class,? about the legendary diva, Maria Callas (to be played by Cherie Gil). Performance dates at the RCBC theater are on Oct. 9-12, 17-19, 23-25. Call 892-8786.
