Sheila Francisco on doing justice to Justice Hernandez
At the height of the typhoon, I make my way to a coffee shop in BGC to interview Sheila Francisco, the veteran theater actress who has also made a mark in film for starring in the 2022 Sundance Film Festival Jury Prize winner “Leonor Will Never Die.” I’ve watched this incredible actress in various plays and musicals from as far back as 2014 when she was part of the cast of The Sandbox Collective’s “The Boy in the Bathroom.” She was marvelous there, acting alongside Topper Fabregas and Caisa Borromeo.
I’ve always been a fan of hers, even back then, and I’ve always told her that whenever I saw her in the many shows I’ve attended since—the most recent being GMG Production’s “Come From Away” and Barefoot Theatre Collaborative’s “Bar Boys: The Musical.”
The latter show will be doing its third run this October at the Hyundai Hall at the Areté in Ateneo de Manila University, where Francisco will be returning as Justice Hernandez, the tough mentor of the four aspiring lawyers in the show.
A force to be reckoned with
Though we know of each other, we’ve never really sat down to talk. Far from the strict mentor she plays in “Bar Boys: The Musical,” Francisco is warm and friendly in real life. Halfway through our interview, the questions just disappear and we find ourselves having a conversation about theater and politics while the typhoon rages on outside the cafe.
I’ve seen both runs of “Bar Boys: The Musical” and Francisco is a force to be reckoned with. She comes in much later in act one, and by then, we’re introduced to the four aspiring lawyers, Erik, Chris, Torran, and Josh, played respectively by Benedix Ramos, Alex Diaz, Jerom Canlas, and Omar Uddin (who are all returning to their roles), and the other teachers before they all face the toughest one yet: Justice Hernandez.
When Francisco enters the stage, there’s a stillness in the theater. She’s a commanding presence and she not only fills the character with so much wisdom and power but also with so much heart.
“There’s a lot of Justice Hernandez in me,” she says. “That’s what I’ve learned. Justice Hernandez can be quite hard on her students.” Prior to acting, Francisco was a producer in advertising and she recalls those days when she expounds on her relationship with her character. She recalls that when she was a producer, she always “expected the best from my staff.”
“I never compromised because I am answerable to my client. That was my mindset and I found that again in Justice Hernandez,” she says. “I’m hard on you not because I don’t care, but because I want you to be really good so that when I leave, you [can] take over. The people that I’ve trained as production managers and young producers… I want them to be excellent.”
What is clearly evident in having a conversation with her is how close Francisco is to Justice Hernandez’s softer side. “The motherly concern, the heart of Justice Hernandez is large,” she says. “It’s so large. It’s so loving and caring and it’s what I feel. It’s who I think I am. So it wasn’t so difficult to find Justice Hernandez [in me].”
“You fight, you lose, and you fight again”
It’s a difficult character to perform. The way that it is written—in the hands of a lesser actor—could be played corny or one-dimensional. It could even be comedic.
I tell her that it’s a role that can easily be caricatured and she agrees, saying, “It has to come from truth otherwise it will be caricaturish. Even the way it’s written; it will get its laugh but will it hit you hard? You gotta find the balance, that truth, that compassionate heart even at the start… [like] when she’s being hard on her students. When she really communicates to her kids that it’s not about you, whether you’re right or you’re wrong, that it’s about the people whose lives are affected eventually… it’s so real now.”
We begin to talk about the timeliness of the show and the politics surrounding all the show’s productions with the current political climate in the country. The first show coincided with the discovery of Vice President Sara Duterte’s unaccounted-for confidential funds when she was the Department of Education (DepEd) secretary. Now on its third run, the show can somehow galvanize people once again after the discovery of the immensity of the corrupt practices that have transpired at the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the ghost flood control projects.
Francisco and I talk about how the power of the play has gotten students who failed the bar exam for lawyers to find inspiration again and return to take the test. “But [it’s] not just for law students,” she says. The message of the play resounds strongly with anyone; she stamps it with lines from the play, echoing how “You fight, you lose, and you fight again.”
A change in scenery
Currently, the production is rehearsing, having done the full run-through of Act One at the rehearsal space. I ask her if she’s going to do anything new with the character on this run. She answers, “Maybe I won’t discover it until I’m on stage. So far, in my armory: I know who she is and [I] know I can do it. [But] it really changes [from] when you are in the rehearsal studio to when you get on that stage. The space element, the lights… that’s gonna change.”
“So I’m excited to find out,” she adds. “I’m not planning anything. I want to be able to feel it when I get there.”
What has changed, though, is the staging. “It’s [the] proscenium,” she explains. “It’s very different. The energy, I feel, will be different. Just recently, in our run-through of Act One, Mikko (Angeles, the director) was saying, ‘I don’t know what you did, Tita, but it’s so different!’ and I said, ‘I’m sorry but I’m thinking proscenium now.’ I always think in consideration of what the stage is going to be. So when we did it in Blackbox, siyempre, you can’t go crazy with your energy (because the audience is on both sides). You have to adjust.”
She recalls her start in theater: “I started theater in Meralco and that’s huge. Really huge. So when I started to do smaller venues, I had to be pulled back. My director had to pull me back. I don’t believe in marking kasi. I have never marked in all my life, even in rehearsals. In my mind, I have to condition my physical self to be able to reach the last person at the end of the theater. That’s always in my mind. If I rehearse, that’s a hundred percent of me. I think I was trained that way.”
Making her mark in theater
That training has paid off because she’s being recognized everywhere she goes. Part of our conversation leads to other shows and she tells me that I should watch “3Upuan” and “Pingkian,” while we both marvel at “Dagitab.” When she visits these shows, she’s approached by fans who want to take photos with her and are excited to tell her that they already bought tickets to the October restaging.
Now that she’s made her own mark in the role, I ask her if she ever saw Odette Khan’s performance in the movie before essaying the role or did she stay away from it and she says, “I stayed away from it. I just want to find who she was in the musical. And then I watched.”
She then shares about the time that Khan had come to watch the show. “It was a wonderful experience to meet Odette Kahn. She enjoyed it, she said. She hugged me tight and she didn’t have to say anything. The Hernandez of the movie and the musical are different, but we were coming from the basic truth of that person which can be manifested in different ways. It was an honor to meet Odette.”
Truly from one icon to another. Before I leave, I ask her if there’s any role she still wants to play. She shares that she’s always dreamt of playing Mama Rose in Gypsy. “Though I’m afraid I might be too old for that part,” she says laughing.
But what an idea that would be. A character so polar opposite of Justice Hernandez. Now I hope someone thinks about it and makes it happen.
