Once upon a December

Saturday night in Saipan was some enchanted evening, if I may allowed a mix of musicals, with the Mt. Carmel Theatre Club production of “Anastasia” on stage at the Diamond Hall of the Saipan World Resort. The sight of young people artfully prancing and dancing on stage is always a winner in any clime, more so in an island that is normally devoid of disciplined and crafted performances.

Along with “Anastasia,” the MHS auditorium also hosted the visiting Liaocheng Acrobatics Troupe this weekend. With Glushko’s ballerinas in last weekend’s Brilliant Star School Holiday Bazaar, and “Swan Lake” concert of ballet stars coming up this weekend, “Anastasia” producer Galvin de leon Guerrero quipped: “Who said there is nothing going on in this town?!?”

Mt. Carmel Theatre Club’s 10-year anniversary rendition of “Anastasia” gave us a piece d’resistance, a vibrant and comedic performance with an equally accomplished accompaniment by the Guam Territorial Band.

Leading lady Anastasia was played graciously by Nicollete Lopez cum braces, and an oversized royal dress that manifestly presented a teasing challenge to Nicolle’s bodice. The musical relates the story of a young Romanoff (Xandra Peter in an opening cameo) surviving Russia’s Bolshevik revolution to later claim her rightful royal place with grandma Grand Duchess in Paris. The two were separated after they were assisted by a young kitchen helper escape the royal massacre through a hidden door on a deceptive wall.

The famed mad monk Rasputin who ingratiated himself to Nicolas and Alexandra’s family in the waning days of Byzantine Russia’s Romanoffs, figures prominently in the story as one who cursed the family to total extinction. Thirteen-year-old Ryan Ortizo’s Rasputin is at once monstrously menacing and hideously hilarious, a performance that almost stole the limelight from the main characters. Obsessed with cursing the royal family, his sidekick Bartok, played by Jesse Boyer, gave what was one of the best lines of the evening. After one of Rasputin’s ranting, he finally exclaimed: “Forget the curse. Get a life!” Immediately, I thought of five perennial ranting analysts and commentators on island who I thought should hear that line!

Caisha Sablan as Marie the Grand Duchess carried her regal airs well. Lanky Dimitri as the kitchen helper who helped the royal duo escape and would become Anastasia’s love interest in the end, is assisted ably by Joaquin Duenas’ Vladimir. Save for their diatribe against women, which is cute at the start but got stale after a while, the two managed to carry the story along. Kudos to all the performers and the props personnel. A salute to young Cyd Xyrene Tribiana, who courageously directed the Theatre Club’s Christmas production. Hats off to producer Galvin de leon Guerrero who somehow managed to slip out of the demands of the school principal’s office to arrange for movable screens, projected animated features, fog machines, and a lighted majestic Eiffel Tower. Max Ronquillo’s young colleagues stepping into the dance floor with their spirited moves and luminescent strobes to accentuate Bartok’s “get a life” line was no mean trick. Choreography married to symphony seems to be an additional band expertise. Do Yi Lee’s tutu was icing on the cake!

In this season of the last of the Ber-r-r-r holiday months (in some places, shadows of Christmas start looming in September!), Anastasia’s celebrative performance and hope-filled message fits exactly to the requirements of the hour and the spirit of the times.
Ben&Tim, elected and upcoming Commonwealth executives, were invited and were expected to grace the last performance. Uncle Ben is a Mt. Carmel alum, but the duo must still be busy fanning prospective CNMI investors elsewhere, and someone at their offices somehow forgot to repondez s’il vous plait. It would bode well for them to hear the show’s finale words in song:

Starting out on a journey
Life is a road and I wanna keep going
Love is a river I wanna keep flowing
In the end I wanna be standing
At the beginning with you.

In this light, even Gov. Juan N. Babauta’s much maligned and widely misunderstood 2005 State of the Commonwealth’s line, “The economy is still darn good!” make sense. A perfectly nuanced statement where “still darn” is often understood to mean, “it could be worst,” was literally misinterpreted as a measure of attainment against ideal conditions. Compared to the doom-and-gloom projections during the 2001 campaign and its aftermath, the fact that lights have yet to be turned off the garment factories negates the doomsayers. JAL notwithstanding, planes still fly in and out of the airport more frequently than comparably sized islands elsewhere. New buildings are cropping up from all over the place. There is a quiet Hangkok-ization of the food distribution and retail store network.Former Chinese garment workers are providing cheaper agricultural products and other services. Ditto for Filipinos, Bangladeshis, Thais, and others. Admittedly, investors are not of the massive get-rich-quick type that breeze into town with outlandish designs, and quickly marches out again soaking up capital and profits along to move to another vulnerable field in a globalized economy where investments can literally move on the hour every hour to all the world’s time zones! Small investors of many nationalities who are already here have hankered down to establish roots where floating was the only option before. Ownership is being claimed on this place. This should serve as a loud and clear reminder to Article 12’ers that if they do not utilize their privileged position in the local economy, somebody else will. And it is only a matter of time when the “affirmative action” effect afforded them by the Commonwealth Constitution will wear off and be gone, as it Americanly should.

There is a sense of having started out on a journey, albeit different from the boom days of the early ‘90s. This makes one scream to contemporary Rasputins to “get a life,” and move on. It is easier to rant and whine, blame and complain. It is another to build on the rubbles of collapsing structures, and rise again.

Once upon a December, the transition process from one government administrative dispensation to another is taking place. To restate Galvin de leon Guerrero’s query, but with a broader application, “Who said there is nothing going on in this town?!?”