A few days ago, The Romance of Magno Rubio made it to the newly released list of nominees for the 33rd annual LA Weekly Theater Awards honoring the best work on our small stages from 2011.
A critically acclaimed and multi-awarded play, The Romance of Magno Rubio was nominated for 5 LA Weekly Theater Awards: Best Ensemble, Actor, Choreography, Fight Choreography and Director.
Written by playwright Lonnie Carter, The Romance of Magno Rubio is a majestic adaptation of Carlos Bulosan’s (1911-1956) short story about a love-struck Filipino migrant worker in 1930s California. It employs word play, rhythms and Philippine love songs (“kundimans”) to depict the migrant workers—“Manongs”—the immigrants who came from the Philippines to America in the 1920s and ‘30s.
Carlos Bulosan was one of the most influential Asian American writers of his time. A Filipino immigrant, he worked in the fish canneries of Alaska and on farms in Washington and California. He eventually became an activist in the labor movement. The horrendous working conditions of Filipino laborers were fictionalized in his best-known work America Is in the Heart (1946). President Franklin D. Roosevelt commissioned Bulosan to write the essay Four Freedoms in 1945.
Set against the backdrop of the central valleys of California in the 1930’s, the play features Magno Rubio, an illiterate Filipino farm worker who has a pen-pal courtship with Clarabelle, a white woman from Arkansas who advertises in the back pages of a “lonely hearts” magazine. Believing he has found the woman of his dreams, Magno fantasizes about their life together, only to soon realize that reality and dreams do not always align.
The production showed how Filipinos at that time had to band together to make a home within a land that was often quite hostile to their presence. The discrimination Filipinos experienced then was highlighted during the showing of the play. When audiences walked in the theater, they were greeted by a huge, hand-painted graffiti as the dominant backdrop, evoking the iconic discriminatory signs posted in many American establishments in the 1930s: ‘No Dogs and Filipinos Allowed.’
The play was first mounted by the Ma-Yi Theater Company in 2002. Ma-Yi, the original cast, creators, and director Loy Arcenas racked up 8 Off-Broadway Theater Awards (OBIE Awards) in 2003. The annual Obie Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. As the Tony Awards cover Broadway productions, the OBIE Awards cover Off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway productions.
Since then, the show has delighted audiences in Chicago (Jeff Award Best Play nomination), New Haven, Laguna Beach (OC Award Best Play and Best Ensemble nominations), and Manila (ALIW Award winner for Best Play).
Last Nov 4- Dec 11, The Romance of Magno Rubio was presented by PAE Live! in association with the Good Shepherd Ambulance Company. There were performances in English and in Tagalog at the Ford Theatres.
The ensemble featured Jon Jon Briones (Magno Rubio), Antoine Diel (Prudencio), Elizabeth Rainey (Clarabelle), and Muni Zano (narrator), who appear in both the English (E) and Tagalog (T) casts. The rest of the casting included Giovanni Ortega (E) and Frederick Edwards (T), who shared the role of Nick; Erick Esteban (E) and Gelo Francisco (T) as Claro; and Eymard Cabling (E) and Jet Montelibano (T) as Atoy.
The production staff included Gelo Francisco (musical direction), Peter De Guzman (choreography), Felix Roiles (fight choreography), Akeime Mitterlehner (sets), Rani de Leon (sound), Gerry Lindangan (lights), John Geronillo (projections) and Dori Quan (costumes).
The LA Weekly Theatre Awards ceremony will be held on April 2. The five categories Magno Rubio received nominations, together with the category’s list of nominees are:
Direction
Lindsay Allbaugh, 100 Saints You Should Know, Elephant Theater Company
Bernardo Bernardo, The Romance of Magno Rubio, PAE Live/Good Shepherd Ambulance Company at [Inside] the Ford
Andrew Block, Small Engine Repair
Robin Larsen, Blackbird
Paul Plunket, Endgame, Sacred Fools Theater Company
Ron Sossi, Way to Heaven
Ensemble
The Crucible
Hermetically Sealed, Katselas Theatre Company at Skylight Theatre
9 Circles, Bootleg Theater
Small Engine Repair
The Romance of Magno Rubio
What’s Wrong With Angry?, Celebration Theatre
The War Cycle: Gospel According to the First Squad
Leading Male Performance
Jon Jon Briones, The Romance of Magno Rubio
Matthew Goodrich, Camino Real
Jim Hanna, Othello, The Production Company at Lex Theatre
John D. Johnston, Dirt, Rogue Machine and Firefly: Theater & Films at Theatre/Theater
Brian Norris, The Woodpecker, Mutineer Theatre Company at Studio/Stage
Leon Russom, Endgame
Norbert Weisser, Way to Heaven
Choreography
Cynthia Carle, Re-Animator The Musical
Peter De Guzman, The Romance of Magno Rubio
Ameenah Kaplan, Bash’d
Ameenah Kaplan, Camino Real
John Todd, Gypsy
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Weekend Feb 18-21, 2012 Sec B pg.1)
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