A boat ride, whether in Johannesburg or Mandaluyong…
The Mandaluyong version with a mermaid and a gondolier, but also with a chandelier for good measure.
The celebrated plunge of a huge chandelier from theater ceiling to center stage has got to be the moment of moments in “Phantom of the Opera,” right?
Well, maybe not for all 130 million people around the world recorded to have seen the beloved Andrew Lloyd Webber-Cameron Mackintosh musical. My vote goes to the boat ride.
That’s when the Phantom spirits Christine away to his lair beneath the opera house, navigating a smoky lake lined with candlelit posts and more candles… on the water? Hard to see. It’s the prelude to the big seduction scene.
Johann Kupferberger, company manager of the South African touring company that will stage the play in August at the CCP, told Filipino journalists who watched “Phantom” in Johannesburg recently: “A lot of racket went on backstage during that scene— so much noise.”
He showed us how the boat was made to “glide” across that wooden stage in Teatro Montecasino. “You just couldn’t hear it because of the music,” Kupferberger said.
I told him and resident director Anton Luitingh about a knockoff of that scene in a theater bar in Mandaluyong, Metro Manila. Their eyes… uh, sparkled?
PRELUDE TO SEDUCTION “Phantom of the Opera” abduction scene as staged in Joburg.
The Mandaluyong bar is Club Mwah, which has made theater-fare-based impersonation its staple attraction, with performers who are a mix of gays, girls and transgenders. The knock-off number is part of the long-running revue, “Bedazzled.” However, as seen in photo at right, some elements are a little askew— a mermaid, for one. And the abductor is dressed as a gondolier. But look, there’s a chandelier over the balcony!
And when the music starts, it’s “Be Italian,” from the movie “Nine.” Whatever. When I let the South African production’s lead star, Jonathan Roxmouth, in on the joke, he implored, “Oh, please, we’ve got to see that!”
