Cheater, Theater

Everyone knows that I've been pretty much watching what I eat because as we grow older, our metabolism tends to slow down and yes! I am a sizist. I do not care for big bellies at all. Of course, it would be nice to pair up my conscious dieting with calorie-burning activities but I'm too much of a wuss to engage in anything physical (except dancing).

In any case, I decided yesterday while I was at the mall that it was going to be my cheat day. I've been a good boy for quite a few weeks actually and successfully cut my beer and rice intake down, so I thought why not. So I got a pair of Hawaiian pizzas from Pizza Hut, a regular serving of curry-flavored fries from Potato Corner, a donut from Gonuts Donuts. The encore was a Miguelito's Fried Ice Cream, which I've been curious about for years but never tried. What I thought was a meager conservative serving at P40 turned out to be this:

That's "fried" chocolate ice cream with chocolate sprinkles, some choco chip cookies, and solid slabs of white chocolate all topped with oozing caramel syrup. I couldn't finish it. I wanted to puke halfway through. I was pretty disgusted at myself.

In other news, I caught Atlantis' production of the Tim Rice/Elton John musical Aida last Thursday night (right as the storm was brewing) courtesy of my good friend Ingrid.

To be honest, it wasn't that good a show as I expected. Don't get me wrong: The musical performances were still great, but coming from someone familiar with the soundtrack, that's to be expected. I guess I enjoyed it because I was experiencing one of my favorite soundtracks live. I'm not certain if anyone not familiar with the music would appreciate it as well.

Ima Castro had the vocal chops, sure, but I never once believed that she was an enslaved Nubian princess. Nor did I believe that Myke Salomon was an Egyptian military commander. Nor did I believe that they were ever in love with each other. Of all the main players, I only believed that Rachel Alejandro was a ditzy Egyptian Queen who eventually comes into her own.

Alas, even the supporting cast didn't fare any better with the exception of Alys Serdenia who was very captivating as Nehebka (She would've made the perfect Aida IMHO). Rachel's own father Hajji failed to convince me that he's a diabolical architect. Also: There was one note from one of his character's repertoire that I was really looking forward to hearing live (which, done right, would've had the same impact as Wicked's Defying Gravity). That fell flat, but that was far from the most unforgivable part of the show.

That honor fell to Josh Santana as Mereb whose performance kept making me cringe in my seat. Everytime he speaks, I felt like I was watching some campus play, which would've offended me if I paid for my ticket. Same goes for watching the male chorus members dancing as Egyptian soldiers. I can't tell if it's the choreography or the execution because the Nubian scenes (which involved the same actors in dual roles) were performed quite beautifully.

I guess the spectacular set design and the rousing vocal numbers (The Dance of the Robe and The Gods Love Nubia come to mind) were the saving graces of this show, which is not really saying anything because I've always known Atlantis to be uncompromising. Well, I hope they ironed the kinks out. That was their very first show anyway, which was more for the benefit of the press.

Lastly, I caught the matinee of The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber earlier today. Again, thanks to Ingrid. My first time to watch anything at the CCP Main Theater and I have to say: Anywhere you sit there would be okay. The sound carries through and you can still make out the performers' faces even if we were seated to the side 4-5 rows from the back.

Pic c/o Ingrid

We got in a tad late and missed the first song, but we saw everything else. Eight performers did select songs from Webber's long repertoire, among them Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Phantom of the Opera, Sunset Boulevard, among others I'm not quite familiar with (which I shall now rectify). My favorite part was the Cats medley, which closed Act I to roaring applause.

The show felt short for a revue. I wanted to hear As If We Never Said Goodbye and Ingrid wanted to hear Unexpected Song but I guess it's okay. We had a couple of encore performances, which left my palms quite numb from all the applauding I had to do.

So that's been my stormy last few days. My only drama was my laptop's power brick dropping to the floor as our house got flooded (again). Yes, it was charging. Yes, it short circuited. Yes, it's now useless. Yes, I got a replacement already.