‘You almost died to entertain us’ By Bart Guingona Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 23:06:00 05/24/2008
MANILA, Philippines - You know how sometimes you have an experience of singular intensity that it threatens to change you forever?
Last Sunday I had that experience. My coactor in the Repertory Philippines production of the two-hander play “Tuesdays With Morrie” collapsed onstage just as he was about to take his curtain call.
In full view of a full house, I ran to where he lay and found him stiff as a board, eyes glazed and defocused. I was horrified. I thought the worst had happened. I thought he was gone.
Strangely, I had my own life flash in front of me.
When I turned to the audience to call for a doctor in the house (a phrase I never dreamed I’d use one day; I mean how clichéd is that?) I was faced with an uncomprehending audience, glued to their seats. I later learned that many had thought it was all part of the show.
Mari’s family rushed up onstage, his daughters near hysteria. When they sat him up, he vomited what looked like at least a bucket of blood.
I yelled instinctively. I’m not sure if it was in horror or fear, or panic, but at that moment, the very real prospect of losing my friend hit me like a gale-force blow to the guts. Mari! I gave in to my tears.
Earlier that afternoon I picked up Mari as I always did for our shows. I was late picking him up, but I figured 30 minutes to Alabang from Makati on a Sunday would be a reasonable travel time.
This particular set of performances was a repeat of a highly successful initial run at Onstage last February. The play, based on the best-selling autobiographical book by Mitchell Albom is about the life lessons learned from the sickbed of a former mentor who is fatally stricken with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Jose Mari Avellana, playing the dying professor Morrie Schwartz, is so convincing that his generous and loving performance invariably has the audience weeping at the end of every show. For my money, he has got to be the most brilliant actor alive. The show’s initial run was so successful that it had been picked up by producers in Cebu where we did six performances in two days, and then in Angeles for an additional four.
This particular short run in Alabang for a Zonta benefit was to lead up to another show in June, a three-show weekend in July (both sets in Makati) and then more shows in September in various cities around the country. We clearly had a smash hit on our hands.
Grueling
In the car on the way to Alabang, Mari and I exchanged stories about what he was up to since the Angeles performances. He was heavily involved in an ongoing film production as assistant director/production designer/scriptwriter. It’s a foreign co-production and schedules were tight and grueling.
Conditions on the mountainous, rocky location were less than ideal given the rains, and in addition to a bad knee, he had twisted his ankle on a slippery rock a few days before. He tried not to complain, but I could see he was in pain.
Knowing he had to begin the play dancing, he was worried the pain would detract from his performance, so he had with him some over-the-counter anti-inflammatory paracetamol/ibuprofen, which he learned later was the most dangerous thing to take if you had bleeding stomach ulcers.
Confident
Before the show, we were both relaxed and confident, having received a rousing standing ovation the night before. It was hard to imagine anything going wrong with a play we had done so often and with such comfort. We were so relaxed we both nodded off into quick catnaps backstage while the audience was being seated in the auditorium.
About 15 minutes to curtain time, I heard him tell his maid (whom we had taken along to assist in his costume changes given his infirm leg) to massage his hand. He was feeling a bit queasy. Nerves, I told myself as I waited to step into the light.
What I learned later was that nerves had nothing to do with it. He had taken his painkiller and it was causing a massive amount of bleeding in his stomach.
At first, the show seemed to go smoothly. You can tell when the audience is with you and they were with us that afternoon, reacting to every punchline thrown. Then, a third into the show I began to notice he was sweating profusely. He started mumbling his lines, dropping cues.
At one point, alarmed at the profusion of his sweat, I took a piece of tissue and dabbed his face. I consciously barreled through the play with my lines, hoping to end it sooner than usual. I was beginning to really worry.
By the play’s final stretch, as Morrie lies in his “deathbed” tying loose ends with Mitch, I noticed that Mari could no longer focus. He could hardly keep his eyes open and seemed to be gulping down bile to keep from throwing up. Just before we were to take our bows, he collapsed.
Insanity
It was only as I was making my way home after spending hours in the emergency room with his wife Cora, daughters and granddaughters, and Rep staffers, that the weight of the entire experience hit me.
Mari finished the show! In extreme pain and with a possibly fatal condition, he actually forced himself to make it through to the end!
Would I have done that? I think I might have. And this is what made my own life flash in front of my eyes. I saw myself in him. An artist working himself to the bones to make ends meet, living a hand-to-mouth life to entertain and edify others.
Is it worth it? There’s too little money in it. Little or no fame. Yet some of us continue to do it and some of us die doing it. Most of us know there’s no financial security in it and only get by on its promise of spiritual certitude. Are we insane?
On the other hand, in defense of our seeming irrationality, when faced with the choice of living for the accumulation of things versus the accumulation of wisdom, of making a living versus actually living, many of us artists know where we stand.
In the end, it is the truth that we truly feed upon. This unquenchable, even extreme thirst for truth that makes artists seem insane, is at the same time what makes them seem chosen.
Semi-happy ending
There’s a happy ending to this story. Well, semi-happy. There are bills to be paid after the ordeal. And work to finish even through recuperation. I worry about Mari (knowing how he is) plunging into work before he’s truly healed.
But let’s think about that later. The important thing is, he’s out of danger for now.
Yesterday Mari sat up slowly when I visited him. In a cracked basso profundo he joked, “Wasn’t that a great publicity stunt?” I laughed wrily. He quoted Morrie Schwartz, “I get to be a baby again! They’re bathing me, putting me to bed...”
And then he turned more serious, “First thing this taught me is, I have so many friends!”
And why not, I thought to myself. You are generous beyond imagination. You almost died to entertain us. The least we can say is bravo!
Actor-director Bart Guingona is one of the country’s most lauded theater practitioners.
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