Naty Crame-Rogers, mentor and legend

I was enticed to continue my (now aborted) masteral studies in the second semester of 2004 when I spotted a poster inviting enrolled students to audition for the UST Graduate School Academic Theater (GSAT) which would stage Nick Joaquin’s “A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino.” The line “preferably with a US VISA”—something I had at that time—was my main motivation to go for it. A few months later in early 2005, I would meet the other newcomers, the GSAT heads, returning cast members, and the director, Prof. Natividad Crame-Rogers, or “Ma’am Naty.”

It took a few weeks before I realized that she had been my classmate at the Instituto Cervantes in the summer of 2002. As a college student then, I was unaware of her stature as a Philippine theater luminary, and considered her as just another classmate (the most senior) like the 15 or so other people in our Level 1 MWF class. She was dignified and warm, but mostly kept a low profile as she focused on learning the basics of Spanish like the rest of us.

Meeting Ma’am Naty for the second time in 2005 under different circumstances allowed me to experience her magic as a director. Having played the co-lead character Paula Marasigan on stage many times as well as in the first film adaptation in 1965, plus the other lead Candida Marasigan later on, Ma’am Naty could direct “Portrait” in her sleep.

During our Sunday afternoon rehearsals in the succeeding months, she emphasized to us, especially the younger cast members, the need to restrain our very uninhibited modern-day actuations and mannerisms, which starkly contrasted with the more reserved demeanor of people in 1940s Manila, where “Portrait” was set. It was a piece of advice I took to heart as the alternate for the character of Bitoy Camacho, whose beautiful oratorical lines opened each of the play’s three acts and gave it a dramatic closing.

That advice of hers came back to me some months later in November when we, the entire cast, stood on the stage of the Anna Maria Ciccone Theatre at Bergen Community College in Bergen County, New Jersey (our first of five stops in our 15-day US east coast tour), as an audience member complimented two of our co-actors during the post-performance open forum. As our excellent Candida and Tony Javier each answered that audience’s question about how they internalized their respective roles, I thought that a great deal of the refinement of our acting was attributable to the masterful directing of Ma’am Naty, who had lived through the 1940s as a young woman.

My association with Ma’am Naty continued in the next several years as she invited me to join the Philippine Drama Company Sala Theater in her Pasig home. There we staged “Portrait,” “Why Women Wash the Dishes” by Filomena Colendrino, and Severino Montano plays like “Sabina,” “The Love of Leonor Rivera,” and “Parting at Calamba,” among others.

In the Sala Theater, I experienced and witnessed more closely how she brought out the best in us, her mostly inexperienced “actors,” with much emphasis on how we should deliver our lines. From her I picked up a number of valuable dramatic reading techniques, which I have passed on to my elementary and high school students, my co-lectors, and a group of public school teachers these past several years.

This brings me to one of the things I admired most about Ma’am Naty—the way she spoke English. She was very eloquent, erudite, effortlessly powerful, crisp and clear, and had what my voiceover peers and I would describe as a clean accent. I admit that many times, as she regaled us with anecdotes about her life, I would listen more keenly to how she enunciated her syllables rather than to the main point of her story. I guess that’s the English teacher/voice talent in me.

But above all else, what made those experiences with the great Ma’am Naty very memorable and special for me and many others was how she lovingly welcomed us into her home and treated us like family. Her loving nature, together with her directing and acting prowess, was her drawing power, contributing greatly to the success of the plays she produced and directed, and strengthening the many lasting friendships she fostered over the years.

I will miss you, Ma’am Naty. Rest in peace.

“To remember and to sing: that is my vocation.” —Nick Joaquin

——————

Claude Lucas C. Despabiladeras teaches English at JASMS-QC and is a voice talent for TV and radio commercials, English and Filipino-dubbed foreign and local telenovelas and animes, and for ABS-CBN’s the Jeepney TV Channel.