KELVIN MORALES top and trousers,
LU’U DAN coat. Photographed by Artu Nepomuceno for the October 2024 Issue of Vogue Philippines
Clint Ramos knows that the story he’s trying to tell won’t be for everyone, but it’s an important one nonetheless. “It’s voyeuristic in a way,” he says, “about a person living in solitude, attempting to connect with a larger outside world.”
Clint Ramos says he first saw the play Request Concert by Franz Xaver Kroetz when he first moved to the U.S. for graduate school in 1994.
“It was a commentary on capitalism,” says Clint, who has since seen different iterations of the show. “I’ve been thinking about how a large part of our economy is fueled by overseas workers. A lot of Filipinos in the diaspora take care of other people instead of the people they should be taking care of. And by the time they come home in their old age they are empty shells, their own kids, strangers. It’s a complicated level of self-sacrifice.”
“I’m not trying to judge that practice since it benefits a lot of us,” he says. “I hope the play opens up these conversations for us.”
Clint says he constantly wonders about how all this contributes to the national psyche.
“It’s profound that our number one export is care,” he says. “And while others acknowledge the skill of Filipinos who take care of other people, for the most part they’re still kind of invisible to the world.”
He recalls a conversation he and Request sa Radyo director Bobby Garcia once had. “We thought, what if we make the protagonist of the show a caregiver? Bobby and I just ran with it,” he says. “The diaspora, the global-ness of it. It’s time we examine what that means.”
Request sa Radyo is a wordless show, “a hybrid between theater performance and art,” as Clint describes it. “It’s voyeuristic in a way, about a person living in solitude, attempting to connect with a larger outside world.”
Clint says he and Bobby discussed who the protagonist should be, Lea or Dolly?
“They’re two different women, two different souls. I worked with Lea on Once on this Island and Here Lies Love. What a tour de force she is. Most of the time because of her voice we forget what an amazing actress she is. It will be interesting to see Lea in this light,” Clint says. “Dolly is so expressive, and a lot of her work both on screen and on stage is how she inhabits the character. And so we asked, Is it Lea or is it Dolly? Why not both?”
They asked both women, and they both said yes.
“The character has so many parallelisms with the way these two artists lead their lives. Really, if you think about it, Lea and Dolly are itinerant workers who travel to do their jobs,” says Clint, who recently saw Lea in London as she kicked off a concert tour of multiple cities in the U.K. “She was going from airport to rehearsal to concert to hotel, to airport again. And Dolly just got back from working in Munich. I feel that’s one of the exciting things about seeing these two folks inhabit this role. In a way, they live this life. They’re cultural migrant workers. They’ve devoted their lives to their craft.”
Behind the awards and what appears to be glamorous lives are people who leave home for their work, for their art,” Clint says. “They yearn for a connection. That’s why they do it. They connect to audiences so well.
“They’re both very independent women, strong women, very solid points of view of how the world should be,” Clint says. “We take so much for granted because of their stardom. But stripped down, with no makeup, coming on stage in scrubs, we’ll let the chips fall where they may.”
Clint sees himself as a migrant worker as well. At his busiest, he was away from his home in New York for 250 out of 365 days in a year.
“Our work ethic is so ingrained in our mindset as Filipinos. We keep our heads down and keep on working. It’s like an equalizer, it’s so profound. Whether we’re doing shows on Broadway, making movies, or being a caregiver, our work ethic is so consistent,” Clint says.
After leaving for graduate school in 1994, Clint never moved back home. He visits his mother in Cebu three times a year, but it’s never enough. (His father passed away in 2016.)
“We deal with loneliness in different ways. I’m curious about human behavior and what we do when no one is watching. How we process being alone. Loneliness and solitude are two different things,” he says. “What’s nefarious about loneliness that makes you feel invisible. You feel powerless, and you also feel inconsequential.
Clint says they plan to bring Request sa Radyo outside the Philippines. To London, New York, and Sydney, perhaps.
“We bridge the gap between the global talent out there and the amazing talent we have here,” says Clint. “Rather than importing productions, we want to make more shows here, build them and send them out into the world. There’s so much we can do.”
For Vogue Philippines’ October 2024 cover story, the creative forces behind the new stage production Request sa Radyo talk about isolation and loneliness, the need for community, and what it means to feel seen. See the stories of Lea Salonga, Dolly de Leon, and Bobby Garcia below.
By YVETTE FERNANDEZ. Photographs by ARTU NEPOMUCENO. Fashion Director PAM QUIÑONES Beauty Editor JOYCE OREÑA Styling by NEIL DE GUZMAN & LEANNE LEDESMA. Makeup: Ting Duque. Hair: Bill Watson and Cherry Reyes of Toni&Guy. Scenographer: Clint Ramos. Production Design: Ohm David. Nails: Extraordinail. Art Director: Jann Pascua. Producer: Anz Hizon, Bianca Zaragoza. Beauty Writer: Bianca Custodio. Associate Producers: Divine Lorenzo, Julian Rodriguez. Supplementary Interviews: Chelsea Sarabia. Photographer’s Assistants: Jorsette Vallespin, Lourenco Narciso, Meg Manzano, Odan Juan. Stylist’s Assistants: Charlotte Sombillo, Jia Torrato. Makeup Assistants: Nikki Duque, Lalaine Samson. Hair Assistants: Glenda Eugenio, Jessica Riva, and Lindsay Agapito of Toni&Guy. Production Design Assistants: Cheska Cartativo, Boyet Matabulos, Giemmuel Caldona, Raul Avila, Kim Blanes. Production Assistant: Franky Tan. Backdrops: Schmidli Backdrops from Espacio Creativo Escolta. Puppet Designed by Mikayla Teodoro. Puppet Made by Puppet Theater Manila. Scenographer: Clint Ramos.
Shot on location at Samsung Performing Arts Theater. Special thanks to Christopher Monani, Managing Director for Circuit Performing Arts Venues, Kenneth Cobonpue, and Rita Nazareno.
