Sean Lorenz F.

Distor
11- Marx

INSTRUCTIONS: Let us test your reading skills and see how much you understand the text below.
After reading the selection, answer the questions on the next page in a separate piece of paper.

“Ang Huling El Bimbo” is an elaborate elegy

Rafael Cancino
The song that spawned the musical ‘Ang Huling El Bimbo’ is a loaded lyrical narrative. Estranged
lovers and a life cut short made for Eraserheads’ arguably most iconic single. It may even be
OPM’s most well-known tragedy. More than two decades since its release, the song is elaborated
into a musical, hinged on reminiscence and regret. This time, the focus is shifted to ‘Joy’—the girl
who resembled Paraluman—and her eventual undoing.

Through a reworking of Eraserheads’ wildly diverse repertoire (directed by Dexter Santos, with
musical direction from Myke Salomon), ‘Ang Huling El Bimbo’ unraveled in two timelines: present-
day cynical Manila; and Manila two decades prior, filled with youthful idealism.

Three men are shaken from their established albeit problem-riddled lives when a phone call brings
them to a local precinct. The reason? A woman on the drug watch list has been found dead, and
on her phone were missed calls to the three men. For months, Joy (Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo)
had been reaching out to her closest friends—Hector (Gian Magdangal), Emman (OJ Mariano),
and Anthony (Jon Santos)—in futile attempts at reconciliation. After what happened one
unfortunate night twenty or so years ago, the three men had grown up and grown more elusive to
her.

After the trio’s untimely reunion, writer Dingdong Novenario brought audiences back to where,
and when, it started: the premiere State University smack dab in the middle of the ‘90s–and a fully
realized mise-en-scène it was, with on-point costume design by Marlon Rivera and scenic design
by Gino Gonzales.

Set to Eraserheads’ ‘Minsan’, the UP experience was distilled into one larger-than-life montage;
unmissable were the protests, the annual Lantern Parade, the UP Fair, and even the infamous
Oblation Run. It established the three young men–Hector (Bibo Reyes), Emman (Boo Gabunada),
and Anthony (Phi Palmos)–and their initial taste of freedom in the university.

Then came along Joy, played by the auspiciously endearing Gab Pangilinan. Joy is the
hardworking niece of Tiya Dely (Sheila Francisco), the owner of the three young men’s favorite
diner, Toyang’s. They met her at one of their military trainings, when their commandant Arturo
Banlaoi (Jamie Wilson) introduced her to the platoon and asked them to buy the snacks she had
been selling.

The four easily became textbook best friends with Joy eventually growing to be more than just
friends with Hector. She eagerly supported Emman with his own romantic pursuits, and wholly
accepted Anthony’s sexual orientation with no reservations whatsoever. It was a palpably tight-
knit friendship, and the undeniable chemistry between the four actors helped flesh this out.
Four years pass and they find themselves overlooking Antipolo days before the three men’s
graduation. They were on one final joyride before they had to eventually part ways. But what
conspired soon thereafter, they vowed to keep under the covers—necessarily putting an end to
their four-year-long friendship.
Not long after the three had left university, Toyang’s had to convert into a KTV bar, all thanks to
Banlaoi. This left Joy with much spite, evolving into a literal contradiction of her name—a perfect
demonstration of Pangilinan’s versatility. From this point forward, the narrative only grew overly
melodramatic, all while she gradually lost sight of herself. With gravitas, Lauchengco-Yulo
portrayed a Joy who had already grown desensitized of her personal calamity.

The three men, on the other hand, are caught in the present with their own dysfunctional
relationships. They manifested this through mash-ups of different Eraserheads songs, which while
feeling disheveled, had its message loud and clear—they had grown into lives as chaotic as
Joy’s.

Salomon’s brilliant musical direction proved vital to the production; he rendered Eraserheads’
many hits apt for their respective scenes: from a ‘Pare Ko’ resembling a military march, to a more
emotionally balladic ‘Ang Huling El Bimbo’.

The musical effected a similarly, if not more, loaded narrative as the song that birthed it. Director
Dexter Santos funneled all the nostalgia he could into the first act, essentially paralleling the
song’s penchant for reminiscence. His take on her downward spiral in the second act may have
seemed overdrawn, but it worked as vivid emphasis on what she had gone through; it is filled with
the same regret, of things that could have gone otherwise, as was in the musical’s eponymous
song.
In Ang Huling El Bimbo, Santos managed to conjure an elaborate elegy for Joy—and perhaps
every troubled woman she stood for.

____________________________________________________________________________

1. What is the text all about?

The text is all about the regrets in their past that they wished they have alter and
given an action that could save joy.

2. What are the details that support your answer?

“They manifested this through mash-ups of different Eraserheads songs, which
while feeling disheveled, had its message loud and clear—they had grown into
lives as chaotic as Joy’s.” It is written in this text that they lives has grown more
chaotic with joy being in it, the three men regretted it because they were being
ignorant of the true value of their friendship.

3. What social issues are presented in the text? How are they portrayed according to the
writer?
The social issue that is presented in the text is how friends have different path than
ours, how gender has so much impact on the society and those who are around
you, how a one little regret can make big consequences because of you ignorance.
They only realized their wrongs when joy had an unfortunate life.

4. If you are the scriptwriter of the play, how would you present the theme of the story? Why
will you present it that way?
 - I will present it the way that my readers and listeners can understand and reflect
how it affects their life. I will write it and present it that way because it also had a
big impact on me, I want my readers to know how it affects me and how I cope
and faced it.

II. Scan again the theater/play review “Ang Huling El Bimbo” is an elaborate elegy and try to
identify the critical approaches used in the text.

Let us see if you can provide the part which supports your answer/s. Use the template given as
your guide in answering.

Critical Supporting Details

Approach
Formalist The main focus of the text is how the three men remained ignorant
Approach even though their friend joy has a having a hard time dealing with her
life and all the decisions that make her life even more ruined.

How joy was pressured to make a family because she was a woman,
Feminist her family and the society thinks that a woman should bear a family
Approach