IF you chance upon his four-year-old Friendster account, you’ll learn that Michael King Urieta has 489 friends who were more than happy to give him their glowing testimonials. But there’s more than friendship in the huzzahs. Because Urieta is one of Gantimpala Theater’s brightest stars.

Entertainment columnist Billy Balbastro noted how fans screamed not only for Wowie de Guzman during a recent production, but for Urieta as well. And in a review of the summer musical theater production of Dalagang Broadway, staged in 2005, Manila Standard staff writer Rowell Capuz called Urieta one of the “seven torches of Philippine theater.”

Urieta, who comes from Valenzuela City, began his theater career four years ago as part of the ensemble in the Independence Day parade produced by Gantimpala Theater.

The company was formerly known as Bulwagang Gantimpala ,one of the original dramatic arts companies of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (the other one being Teatro Pilipino with the late Rolando Tinio, National Artist for Theater as its artistic director). Now on is 30th year, Gantimpala is headed by its founding president and artistic director Tony Espejo.

It reigned for 10 years at the CCP and experimented with plays that mirrored the life of the Filipino. The stage productions were the talk of the town, made money at the box office, received the critical acclaim, and became the benchmark of excellent Filipino theater.

When it moved to the Manila Metropolitan Theater, it staged the Big Four – Ibong Adarna, Florante at Laura, Kanser (Noli Me Tangere) and El Filibusterismo – a boon for high school students who are were in the thick of studying these classics. In addition, Gantimpala embarked on the National Artist Production Series, mounting productions based on the works of National Artists for Literature and Theater.

While theater is woefully under-represented and under-funded in the Philippines, Gantimpala became known as a “marketing phenomenon.” To its predominant market of students, it brings its year-long season with little financial grants. Ticket sales are marketed aggressively from school to school. Special events, both local and international in scope, help keep Gantimpala Theater in the black.

Flourishing

It was his work in the Four Classics and his involvement in production work for Gantimpala’s experimental arm, TheatreNow, that helped Urieta flourish as a theater actor. So far, he has portrayed Basilio in Kanser (Noli Me Tangere); a boy toy in Despedida de Soltera; the narrator in Florante at Laura, Antonio in the ALIW Awards Best Play The God Stealer/The Queen’s Jewel, Ernesting in recent, critically-acclaimed Forever/Call Me Flory.

“What I like about theater is the people you work with and your relationship with your audience,” Urieta says. “I enjoy the diversity of the people. You come to realize that everyone has a different reaction to what you do on stage. You cannot expect to get the same reaction all the time. The morning and afternoon crowd will behave differently to what you do on stage. I immensely enjoy that difference. I like the camaraderie with my co-actors. You know, I am anti-social at times and somehow, theater balances my life.”

He also credits his discipline to theater. “Before you even start rehearsals, nakalatag na ang mga conditions. You have to accept this or not, take it or leave it. These are the rules, if you do not want to follow, then scram. You have no business being in theater.”

Perfecting

For the past three seasons, he has played the Narrator in Florante at Laura, a role he continues to perfect.

“The first time I grabbed the part, I had no idea on how to play it. Doing it for the second year was more of a challenge, kasi nagiging gamay mo na pero you are still not that comfortable. When I had the chance to portray it again last season, I enjoyed it immensely. As an actor, you really get a kick knowing that the audience anticipates you are coming out in a scene and that they are expecting to see you. That thought makes me more motivated to give my best.”

The shouts and shrieks during curtain call validate his performance. “Every time I am on stage, there is this fear that I will not be able to do well. So when you know you delivered, it poses an even bigger challenge because this time you know you did well so the next question would be, will I be able to maintain this performance level? You cannot afford to go over board and be complacent.”

He is especially proud of his performance last year. “I was already able to control my character and really make it alive,” he relates. “I think I was able to achieve in connecting the play and setting its pace. Although if you would think about it, in Balagtas’s original work, he was the narrator and being able to fully flesh this made-up character, to make him really exist and elicit that kind of an audience reaction was a big deal for me.”

In Gantimpala’s highly anticipated National Artist Production Series, Urieta faced more challenges. “It takes a great deal to perform in an English play because partly your focus is not just in performing your role, but also in delivering your lines properly. Double effort talaga. You know that the audiences are tutok in listening to your lines and it takes effort to speak it naturally knowing the fact that you are being compared to what they usually hear and watch which are English movies and TV shows. English is not my first language so it causes some strain,” he admits.

Challenging

In The God Stealer/The Queen’s Jewel, his first English-speaking role, he says it took time for him to get into character. “Honestly, nasa kalagitnaan na ang mga performances, before nag-sink sa kin yung role.” He was happier playing Ernesting in Forever/Call Me Flory because, he relates, he already knew how to deliver his lines even before he got the script. “It was fun to be a twelve-year old boy again.”

During Gantimpala’s off-season, Urieta attends theater seminars including directing the pasyon. A year ago, he directed a cenaculo for the Valenzuela Community Theater and this year, he directed another one which featured non-actors and was presented in Plaza Miranda in Quiapo.

How was it like working with non-actors? “I read somewhere, an internet article I think, about the theater (that said) that the only difference between an amateur and a professional actor is that the professional actor does it for money. So if you do not do it for money, one can say that you are an amateur and yet, magaling ka. I think may isang na-miss out yung writer. He did not expound on why people like to do this. Yun ang nakaka-amaze eh. In a community theater set-up, (actors) are not paid, minsan may pagkain, minsan wala. However, they did what they had to do. Kahit palakpakan lang is all that they got, they were very happy.”

After the production, “yung pagod nun, parang nawawalang bigla”, he says. “I don’t know how to explain it but despite all the stress, I want to do it again. You know what, the experience is similar to riding a horror train. Nakakatakot pero enjoy ka pa rin.”

So as a young-enough stalwart of theater, does he have any advice to the starry-eyed wishing to pursue theater? “Finish your studies. Your personal experiences and education will equip you, it will teach you on how to be a better actor. Finish your studies, okay”