Go here for an introduction, I'mma cut to the chase.

Banaag at Sikat, A Rock Musical was originally a Sarswela/Zarzuela. I expected something refreshing, given the mix of modern music and traditional text/material, kind of like Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet. They tried to do a 'Spring Awakening'---and fell short.

This is a musical. The major major problem is the music.

It was hardly Rock, please, not every song that uses an electric guitar is Rock. Some sounded like those old videoke favorites with all its synthesized glory. Lyrics were redundant. Songs were just too much. The "rock" music enters abruptly. And actors who are adept in classical singing crooned to guitar rifts. Awkward.

It also lacked focus. Sarswela has a formula: Rich girl falls for poor shmuck and they battle it through against the milieu of poverty. The play had all these, yet executed in a manner where some scenes were unnecessary and almost pointless, almost independent of the whole story. Acts ended without a narrative-punctuation, a big production number did that. The two running conflicts (that between the Capitalists and Socialists, and, that between the lovers and their societies) were supposed to be parallelized. It was more of a broken line, to say the least. I couldn't figure out the general graph and objective of the play as it was running. Just when you think it's the climax, the actors stop short and narrate what became of their characters. Then the finale song plays.

I also found it funny that the finale had the actors relaying the history of labor unions, Socialism, and the rise of the poor working class against the ruling when most actors are OF the Bourgeoise and famous for it. By the by, I believe the actors under-utilized, mis-casted. There was not much room for them to show their talents, a shame since Banaag at Sikat had a great cast.

The saving grace though, is the nice set and lighting design.

Still, I applaud the cast and most of all the attempt. Snap snap snap.

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