Romeo and Julio

The first time that I played a role was when I was still in the Ateneo. Our Jesuit mentor told us to do a short skit about one Filipino legend about any animal, as he intends to put it side by side biology. I played the young, handsome yet narcissistic man in the Legend of the Firefly. The skit was not that serious, that it was almost a joke. We and our professor, though, had fun watching each others' skits.

In Europe, I again played the role of a young and handsome man -- Shakespeare's Romeo. Our class had to produce Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in the end of the semester as a final requirement. The moment I was assigned the character, I fondly wondered why the young-and-handsome-man role always fall (fittingly) on my lap. Anyway, when I read the script, I was amazed about how profound Shakespeare's words are. The rhymes and rhythm, matched with the theme were just perfect. One cannot help but to get inspired upon reading the script. Yet, I just cannot completely be despite the number of charming ladies in Europe. This is because most of them are home-schooled. Very few study in universities and out of the very few, still fewer are the truly pretty ones. In our class, all of us were men. Therefore, my Juliet is actually a man. Yes, a man. And he is taller than me.

Of course, it was very awkward from practice until the last curtain. Can you just imagine how we would have done THE scenes? During practice, I had no problems in memorizing my lines, the blocking and drawing emotion. I tell you, I can completely relate with my character. I had a really hard time though, in delivering those lines and the emotion considering the recipient is more Julio than Juliet. There even came to a point when the director and I had a quite nasty argument about my and my partner's delivery. He angrily complained about it, saying that it is sloppy. He warned us of telling the professor and demoting us to a less significant role. Nobody wants to be demoted. I would rather play Romeo with a male Juliet than play Romeo's horse. And so, I rose up to the challenge. In the end, the production day came and we managed to pull it through. And excellently, I must say. During the first act, we were a bit stiff. We were having Act-One jitters, our concerned director told us. But we went on a roll in the succeeding scenes. Everything were delivered on que and as planned.

After the last curtain, everybody applauded and nobody found it queer having two men as lovers. It was purely academic. Perhaps they were used to watching such situations. But on the other side of the theater, we were clenching our fists, bumping our chests, and giving high-fives in the backstage. Unlike our short skit in the Ateneo, we felt sheer relief more than fun, more than anything in the end.

- Pepe (Cabrera, Paulo 060521)