Musical Review: SILVER LINING

SILVER LINING is an ambitious and well-intentioned original Filipino musical that gave itself a tall order: present the political and personal struggles of two generations of Filipinos, highlighting their similarities to bring boomer parents closer to millennial offspring.

And while we can’t help but applaud the effort, there is a lot of polishing and work that the musical needs. One hopes that in future reruns of the show, the plot can be further revised.  

From the very start, the show was tainted with triviality. The very frame narrative was problematic. The limited nature of the stakes in “let’s put up a musical for our 50th school anniversary reunion” set the bar very low in terms of emotional investment from the audience. 

And this tendency to trivialize every meaningful sentence that even bordered on depth or gravitas was particularly evident in the script, not even allowing the audience a breath to appreciate the nuggets of intergenerational wisdom being exchanged, before a snarky comment would be uttered.

There was an attempt to present the sheer scale of the troubled decade that was the ‘70’s, as well as the painful tribulations of failed marriages, drug addiction, and the financial troubles that plague every family. But it seemed that SL focused more on the flirtations of boys chasing pretty girls engaged in political movements, and not so much on the human rights abuses that necessitated activism in the first place. 

SL also focused more on the play-within-the-play, using it as a metaphor for true-to-life historical revisionism (in the reunion’s play, an actor is determined to take out important scenes or rewrite endings). SL assumed everyone knew that Martial Law was bad, and didn’t bother spelling out why until the very end of the musical. By then, however, we had stopped caring about a central character, because her portrayal made her hardly sympathetic, no matter how pretty she looked, nor how prettily she sang.

It gave this audience member mental whiplash in some parts, as the script in Act II made illogical leaps as actors spoke lines jumping to conclusions, uttering emotionally-laden phrases seemingly out of nowhere, lacking context that would have grounded the lines and plot in real life.

The silver lining in the show can be found in the silver hair of the older veteran actors, whose joy in singing and dancing was so apparent, it filled the auditorium. There was wit to spare in Act I’s many humorous lines, and the soaring vocals of Raul Montesa, Krystal Brimner, and Jep Go infused the songs with more warmth and charm.

With the hodgepodge of good elements that lacked the cohesion of a watertight plot, and the script's confusing seesaw between comedy and gravitas (sometimes in the same breath), it seemed as if we were watching a golden anniversary reunion musical, except with a grander budget (evidenced by the number of talented singers and dancers in the cast). But audiences looking for a musical shedding light on a dark period of our country’s past (either in the ‘70’s and the more recent pink political movement) won’t find it here.

At least, in the show’s current form.

We look forward to a rerun that will correct the first iteration’s plot holes, that currently make it seem like one grand nostalgia trip. One of the joys of watching live theater is that it’s never the same, twice. 

I read a similarly themed play some years ago, and couldn’t help but compare SL to SOLOMON’S CHOICE by Azucena Grajo Uranza. 

Both plays had similar themes of families being torn apart by politics, and a missing girl during Martial Law.

It is not a theme to be taken lightly, and we hope that SL embraces the weight of the dark in its rerun. To borrow a line from SL, “kung nais mong makita ang ilaw, yakapin mo ang kadiliman.” Sometimes, the light of the dawn shines brightest after forcing the audience’s gaze on the dark of dusk.