I was lucky enough to catch the first staging of Spotlight Artist Centre’s Dirty Old Musical last September. A first alerted me to the production around February last year when she showed C and me this poster.
Immediately I was intrigued. How can anyone not be? Not only was the title so tongue-in-cheek, but also that was one powerful cast line up.
Directed by Myke Salomon, the play is about a fictional male boy band in the 80’s named The Bench Boys. The y really can only boast of one song that became a hit but they had a pretty strong following back in the day. They disbanded after a short while in the spotlight, mostly because of differing opinions on things and the drama from an in-band love triangle. Fast forwarding to the present day when band members Freddie (John Arcilla), Spanky (Nonie Buencamino), Eugene (Robert Sena), Stan (Michael Williams) and Greggy (Bo Cerrudo) are forced to work together again when they learn that their sixth member (Ricky Davao) needs help in raising funds for a medical procedure. The five members decide to stage a reunion concert and hires Frankie (Fred Lo) to be their musical director. Unresolved problems from the past reemerge as the boys try to work together and the drama reaches an all-time high when Rose (Ima Castro), Frankie’s mother and the Courtney Love to Freddie and Spanky’s Curt Cobain and Billy Corgan. Adding to the complication is Spanky’s significantly younger lover Jeza (Kitkat) who isn’t going to take any of the crap from the middle aged rock and rollers lying down.
I guess schedules didn’t work out because the posted made it seem like Ricky Davao would have a significantly bigger role in the production.
We managed to snag tickets directly from the production company for the September 10th afternoon show, so we managed to get away without paying for the Ticketworld.PH surcharge. Luckily we had scheduled overtime at work that weekend so it was only a matter of driving from BGC to Greenhills for me, which I prefer because it’s infinitely easier to go from Taguig to Ortigas than to go from Laguna to Ortigas. I was actually kind of surprised that the Music Museum got as packed as it was; it wasn’t a full house but there were very few empty seats. I guess people go freaked out by the extremely short run time (I think they were on for three weekends last time?)
All in all I liked the show. The story was original and hit that perfect balance of being funny while still touching up on the hardships that normal people usually go through when aging. The cast was superb but I have to give it to the ever-great Michael Williams for stealing the show. Although there probably really was no contest; after all, he was playing the gay guy and everybody loves the token gay guy. Most of the songs were medleys of local hits, new and old, which worked to the show’s favor by adding a little bit of nostalgia in the mix.
The only downside I can think of is that the Freddie character was too hardheaded and that it didn’t seem realistic to me that he had the change of heart when he did.
Dirty Old Musical will be on its last week this weekend – full schedule and ticket prices can be found on the Dirty Old Musical Ticketworld page. I heartily encourage you to see it.
*Production photos are from the Dirty Old Musical Facebook page.
