A SESSION WITH THE JOY LUCK CLUB.....

The Mothers Of The Joy Luck Club.....
















And Their Daughters.....















The Moon Lady And Houyi, Her Archer Husband.....






Stealing The Pill Of Immortality.....






Heading Towards The Moon.....







It came as a surprise to me that Repertory Philippines' initial offering for 2011 will be scheduled this February. The stage group normally opens its calendar year with a performance in January and not this month. Checking out their website for the line up and schedule of their performances, it seems like they have another play to stage on March (Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps), a different one on April (Shakespeare in Hollywood) and a musical for August until December (Seussical). All of these are going to be performed at Greenbelt One in Makati. They also are going to perform at the Meralco Theater from September to October as they present Peter Pan.

Back to the present though. For the start of this year, they are presenting The Joy Luck Club. Written by Susan Kim and based on Amy Tan's novel of the same title, The Joy Luck Club is the tale of 4 women who all come from China then moved to the US as immigrants and their 4 American born daughters. In 1949, the elder women meet one time at the First Chinese Baptist Church in a mah jong session and became friends, calling their mah jong group The Joy Luck Club. Each mother recounts her past and the kind of relationship that they have with their daughters and reveals the events that shaped up what they are now.

The play is directed by acclaimed Filipino professor in the theater arts Anton Juan and the cast includes Pinky Marquez, Rebecca Chuaunsu, Jay Glorioso and Frances Makil Ignacio as the mothers with Lily Chu, Ana Abad Santos, Jenny Jamora and Cris Villonco as their daughters. The play runs from February 4 to 20, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 pm, Saturdays and Sundays at 3:30 pm at Onstage Greenbelt One in Makati.

One thing I noticed about the cast is I am not familiar with the 3 elder female leads. Pinky, Ana, Jenny and Cris belong to a stable of Repertory talents who I am quite familiar with. Part of Ms. Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo's thrust is to make the cast more "open". Perhaps being open means employing theater actors outside of Repertory Philippines' pool of actors.

Repertory Philippines is ongoing a sort of transition at present. Ms.Lauchengco-Yulo is the new associate artistic director and has replaced Ms. Joy Virata. Her vision for the theater company is to make it more up to date by presenting newer plays that has never been shown to Philippine audiences and increase the number of stage play performances, reasoning out that Repertory did start as a stage play ensemble.

I am looking forward to these subtle changes that Ms. Lauchengco-Yulo has done for Repertory. And I do hope that more and more Filipinos will come out, will appreciate and will enjoy these performances.