MARIAN RIVERA PLAYS A MAN IN THEATER DEBUT
The top GMA star is vice president Kreon to a strongman president in a contemporary, pandemic times version of Rolando Tinio’s Tagalog adaptation of the Greek tragedy ‘Oedipus Rex’
Marian Rivera was in a light mood as she talked about her role as a male character in a new stage production of the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex.
The play, whose contemporary stylized title is password: 03d1pu5_r3x, will be mounted online by Tanghalang Ateneo (TA) on 22, 25, and 27 February (www. ticket2me.net/).
Tweaked from National
Artist for Literature Rolando Tinio’s own adaptation, this version is set amid a pandemic, with Oedipus as a strongman president. Marian will play Kreon, the vice president. Though her theatrical debut was announced as early as September 2020, it was only recently that the top GMA star got to discuss it in video conferences.
It coincided with rumors that her husband Dingdong Dantes had gotten a young GMA talent pregnant.
Asked by the showbiz media to comment on the rumors, Marian sounded facetious: “Sabi ko nga sa asawa ko, ‘Beke nemen eke ne eng sesened meng mabubuntis!’ (I told my husband that I might be his next victim.) On why she agreed to act on stage, Marian turned serious. “I decided to get over my fear and cowardice. I would also want to tell my kids, when they’re old enough, about my adventure in theater,” she said in Filipino. Recalling how the project came her way,
Marian quoted Dingdong, who said he thought he was the one being offered a role.
The play is directed by Ron Capinding, who was Dingdong’s teacher at Ateneo.
“They want you,” Dingdong told Marian.
She said she was worried that she won’t be able to hack it, especially upon learning that her character was originally male.
That must’ve been the reason that initial publicity for the play didn’t mention her role. It was simply announced that Marian was making her theater debut.
I thought she’d be playing Jocasta, queen of ancient Thebes in Greece who marries her own son, Oedipus, after he unknowingly kills his own father.
At the play’s time and setting, the queen and Oedipus have a son and a daughter, Antigone.
At the media video conference, nobody asked Marian if she had a hard time tackling her male character.
Casting females as male characters is nothing new in theater productions. Before the pandemic, Delphine Buencamino, Liezl Batucan and Monique Wilson portrayed Apolinario Mabini in the Tanghalang Pilipino musical Mabining Mandirigma.
What was daunting for Marian was that Kreon is practically in every scene in the play, and that her lines are kilometric.
She first underwent one-on-one rehearsals with Ron online, before proceeding with the rest of the cast.
The play also features Tanghalang Ateneo alumni Yan Yuson (Oedipus) Miren Alvarez-Fabregas (Jocasta), Katsky Flores, Gabe Mercado Marlon Rivera.
Marian took the opportunity to joke about the fabled Blue Eagles-Green Archers school rivalry: “Hala, sige, De La Salle ako, Ateneo kayong lahat!”
Marian studied Psychology at De La Salle University in Dasmariñas, Cavite.