Celebrating its 30th season, the enterprising Ma-Yi Theatre Company has decided to introduce a significant first—an off-Broadway musical created by Filipino Americans, Felix Starro. To create the ground-breaking production, the well-known novelist and playwright Jessica Hagedorn (check out her accomplished oeuvre) has written the book and lyrics; Fabian Obispo provides the music for this adaptation of Lysley Tenorio’s short story, also called “Felix Starro.”
Tenorio and now Hagedorn are calling disturbed attention to a Filipino phenomenon, widely popular in the Philippines during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s but perhaps little known in the United States: psychic surgery (sometimes termed bare-hand surgery), whereby practitioners, using only their hands, seemingly healed patients with serious illnesses.
The activity, apparently still practiced, has never been proved anything other than an outrageous fraud. For the supposed process, the self-proclaimed psychic surgeon uses packets of blood and other phony paraphernalia to give the impression he (usually psychic surgeons were men) would not only invade the body for various extractions but miraculously close the incision when completing the operation.
[Read Michael Sommers’ ★★★ review here.]
Quite a prickly topic for fictional examination and surely for musical treatment. Of course, it may be that handled by the right people, Tenorio’s story (which I haven’t read) could be turned into a more than viable tuner, as might any touchy subject if expertly taken on.
Which leads to the unfortunate part of the Hagedorn-Obispo Felix Starro, which Ralph B. Peña directs and Brandon Bieber provides occasional provides choreography. Put bluntly, the tuner is not very good. Hagedorn’s book is clumsy and confusing. Her lyrics are prosaic.
It’s as if she merely wrote out unrhymed passages for Obispo to set on music, whereupon he did so with melodies that give the impression of what it might have been like had Kurt Weill decided he wanted to be known as a power-ballad king. A nicely cracking off-stage band, under Ian Miller’s musical direction, does what it can to invigorate the tunes, but only so much can be done.
To be specific about the book: the plot takes place first in the Philippines and then in the San Francisco of 1985. Felix Starro (Alan Ariano) is a star in the former locale and has come to the latter locale to expand his clientele. He’s brought with him a relative/assistant, whom he calls Junior (Nacho Tambunting) but who is actually a second Felix Starro.
The two Felixes represent part of where Hagedorn sets herself up for trouble. Both are unhappy with their lot. The elder Felix seems to believe he’s actually a miracle man, while at the same time intent on training the younger Felix to learn the tricks of the trade for eventually taking over the practice. The younger Felix, discovering San Francisco and the possibility of a new life there, is eager to get out from other the elder Felix’s sleight-of-hand thumb.
While in the hilly city, the elder Felix treats credulous patient Mrs. Delgado (Francisca Muñoz), who has a lawyer son (Ryan James Ortega) who isn’t credulous at all and makes threats on which he follows through. In the meantime, the younger Felix is alternating romantically between two young women (Diane Phelan, Caitlin Cisco), one of whom becomes pregnant and seeks the elder Felix’s help.
At the same time and behind the old Felix’s back, the younger Felix has had enough of the elder Felix’s flim-flammery and, contemplating starting over completely, engages the help of florist Flora Ramirez (Ching Valdes-Aran), whose shop is a front for her sub rosa (pun intended) work as a procurer of fake identity papers. By the way, no blame need be placed on the actors, although the singing isn’t uniformly strong.
If the clashing plot twists sound cumbersome, they are. On top of that, they aren’t ameliorated by the cumbersome, sickly-green set Marsha Ginsberg has designed that requires cast members to push walls, beds and other elements around in order to create different spaces. The most frequently visited space being the dingy San Francisco hotel somewhere either on, or near, the city’s Grant Avenue. (Patrons familiar with the Oscar Hammerstein-Richard Rodgers Flower Drum Song may hear Grant Avenue mentioned and start recalling Pat Suzuki singing “Grant Avenue.” Fight the urge to carry on a score comparison.)
Left unclear in the script are answers to questions raised about the grip that psychic surgery had/has on the Filipino populace. Exactly why is the elder Felix so sold on himself? Is it due to his pride in pulling off his hoax? Or has he actually fallen for his assumed powers. Were some of the unwell undergoing the phony process truly cured? If so, were their ailments real or psycho-somatic? Just asking.
Felix Starro opened September 3, 2019, at Theatre Row and runs through September 15. Tickets and information: ma-yitheatre.org
