By Jemuel Cainglet Salterio
Broadway star, Tony winner and Sir Lawrence Olivier awardee Lea Salonga, who shares the stage with Golden Globe nominee for best supporting actress Dolly de Leon in the play, “Request sa Radio,” was asked by Tony award-winning costume designer Clint Ramos how the actresses were bitten by the acting bug.
The ladies recalled how they started to make their respective names for themselves. The two actresses, who got the chance to perform abroad in a number of plays, films, musicals, are working for the first time onstage.
“I started doing theater before the bug actually bit me,” Lea shared. “That made sense. It was weird, because I started so young, seven years old in ‘The King and I’ for Repertory Philippines.
“At that time in my life, I didn’t have the ambition yet that I wanted to be in theater. I wanted to be onstage. My cousin, who was with Repertory Philippines, told my mother (Ligaya Salonga), to make me audition for ‘The King and I.’
“I remembered being taught a speech at the end of the show. There was a microphone at the floor of the CCP (Cultural Center of the Philippines) that goes up. I recited my speech into the mic even when there were a lot of people in the theater.”
Lea didn’t make the decision yet that theater would be her life until she went to join “Miss Saigon” when she was 18. She originated the role of Kim onstage in London’s West End.
She was a first year Biology student at the Ateneo de Manila University. “Miss Saigon happened,” shared Lea. “That became my mindset, sign and confirmation that I would do theater.”
Lea experienced working with the likes of Zeneida “Bibot” Amador yelling at her. But she never took it personally.
“I heard that yelling so much,” Lea said. “I was very young then. I learned a lot from watching Bibot Amador as an actor as well as a director. But maybe, some callouses built up. When I started working in New York, I was saying, ‘Oh my God, they are not yelling?’”
The same thing happened to Dolly. “The bug never bit me until I was in college,” she said.
“It was a lot of fun and games doing theater. I didn’t know I could make a career out of this.
“The first play that I watched in college was ‘Isang Dulang Panaginip’ by Rene Villanueva. I was a costume mistress and all my batchmates were performing onstage. I was crying at the back because I wanted to do that. ‘Why am I here?’”
That was the time Dolly realized she wanted to become an actor.
“I was in UP already and I knew that was what I wanted to do. I’ll never forget my first play. It was incredible for me to be acting for the first time in a student production, with director Tony Mabesa, written by Floy Quintos.”
Her only line with three words at that time was “Tigang ka talaga.” Yet, that was a hit with the audience.
“Ang sarap ng feeling that people were reacting to you in real time. It’s a high. Ang sarap ng ganu’n. So I said, ‘This is really what I want to do’.”
Dolly has since acted in more than 30 productions, ranging from Shakespeare, Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett, earning accolades for her performances here and abroad.
Dolly welcomed the name calling or screaming she experienced from her directors. “That’s the very thin part of shaping us to who we are today.
“I’m not saying that is the best method, but it made me strong and made me manhid. I will forever be grateful to my directors. That shaped me to the person that I am today.”
The hardest that they did onstage was “Sweeney Todd,” for Lea, who’s returning to Broadway in March. “That (‘Sweeney Todd’) was rewarding,” she said. “The challenge is multi-level. One is the dialect, the Cockney accent.
“I made sure that is correct. I gave myself anxiety every night I had to perform ‘Sweeney Todd.’ It helps for me, in a way, just to go through the lyrics as a seed exercise to make sure my muscle memory has it.”
For Dolly, the most challenging that she has done was “Three Sisters” by Anton Chekov.
“Maria is someone who doesn’t have much of an angst among the three characters, although she’s going through a lot,” De Leon said.
“Request sa Radyo” is a play by Franz Xaver Kroetz, with Bobby Garcia as director and Clint Ramos as production designer.
Lea and Dolly will perform solo pieces in scheduled, alternating shows from October 10 to 20 at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater in Makati City.
