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News that Lea Salonga will appear in a CCP production of Rodgers and
Hammersteins’ Cinderella made me dig up my Columbia vinyl of the
soundtrack of the 1957 CBS TV special. This, the only musical
written by Rodgers and Hammerstein for television, premiered live on
CBS TV on March 31, 1957.
In 1960 Jovie de la Cruz Bunao, then a DJ at
DZMT (the radio station of The Manila Times), used to play the whole
album quite often because listeners were phoning her to do so.
Jovie’s husky voice made a lot of people want
her for a phone pal. She still has that voice quality with something
of a young mother or sister’s comforting rhythm and none of the
salesman pushiness of some broadcast icons. The late writer Dave
Bunao was Jovie’s husband. Dave was the younger brother of the
poet, editor and wit Godofredo Bunao, who was the managing editor of
The Times’ Weekly Women’s Magazine.
I last spoke to Jovie last year. She was calling
old friends to help assemble the now US-based Godo Bunao’s poems
for publication.
Before I became an OFW, I left The Times to join
J. Walter Thomson and Dave and I became coworkers. He was a
copywriter. I was in account service and later became PR director of
that wonderful company which was then No. 1 worldwide in billings
and in having the topmost multinational companies for its satisfied
clients.
I love this Cinderella. My favorite is the song
“In My Own Little Corner.” Also a great song is “Do I Love You
Because You’re Beautiful?” (Don’t confuse it with the cartoon
Walt Disney film, which is also good.)
Youthful discontent
Young people are always dissatisfied with their
condition. Great thinkers from Plato to Montaigne and Francis Bacon
in days of old, and many notable writers of our time, have analyzed
the youthful feeling of discontent. When it coincides with a young
person’s real need to improve his present temporal situation by
escaping to a better place, “In My Own Little Corner” has a
forceful resonance—even to a male soul.
The words of the song, the innocent simplicity
of its melody and the pure voice of the young Julie Andrews affected
me deeply.
The intro verse says: I’m as mild and as meek
as a mouse / When I hear a command I obey. / But I know of a spot in
my house / where no one can stand in my way.
Here are some of the main lyrics:
In my own little corner in my own little chair /
I can be whatever I want to be. / On the wings of my fancy I can fly
anywhere / and the world will open its arms to me.
I’m a young Norwegian princess or a milkmaid.
/ I’m the greatest prima donna in Milan. / I’m an heiress who
has always had her silk made / By her own flock of silkworms in
Japan.
I’m a girl men go mad for, love’s a game I
can play / with a cool and confident kind of air. / Just as long as
I stay in my own little corner / All alone in my own little chair.
She can be a queen in Peru, or a mermaid dancing
upon the sea, or a huntress on an African safari but only when
she’s all alone in her own little chair.
Millions of Filipinos who feel trapped where
they are intensely feel the sentiment of that song. Many young
fathers right now are deciding to seek employment abroad not just
because they want “to be whatever they want to be.” More
important is to find the means to spare their little Cinderellas
from a future of having no option but to cope with their sad reality
by living in a world of dreams.
Global market
Rodgers and Hammerstein agreed to do the book
for the CBS TV Cinderella because they were delighted to write
something for Julie Andrews. My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison had made
her Broadway’s brightest star.
Cinderella was later adapted for the stage. In
1965 a TV remake was produced with Lesley Ann Warren. Then in 1997,
Brandy starred in another TV remake, with the part-Filipino Paolo
Montalban as her Prince.
I hope the CCP has enough money to have Lea
Salonga’s Cinderella properly filmed or videoed. There is a global
market—including the USA—for it.
rqb@manilatimes.net
rq_bas@yahoo.com
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