Bar Boys: A New Musical Is ‘Commercial’ Philippine Theater at its Peak—But May Make You Question Its Point
During its first run, Bar Boys: A New Musical was regarded as a masterclass in adaptation. It’s hard to disagree with this assessment. Written by Pat Valera (who also directs the show with Mikko Angeles) with music by Myke Solomon, the musical is based on the 2017 movie of the same name by Kip Oebanda. The show works as it turns the film’s very specific small-scale conflict—about a quartet of friends facing the challenges and hardships of law school—into something more universal, one that says something about finding hope in the hopeless.
That Bar Boys: A New Musical is considered a success both critically and commercially—it returns for a second run from October 4 to November 3 at the Power Mac Center Spotlight Blackbox Theater in Makati City with the same core cast—should not be a surprise. After all, Valera is known for adapting materials from another medium into Philippine theater gold. Critics have lauded the show as "still the best Filipino musical this year" despite being a year stacked with a number of possible contenders for the title.
But what stands out with Bar Boys: A New Musical’s return isn’t so much its artistic merits (which, to be fair, it has plenty) as it is how Valera and theater company Barefoot Theatre Collaborative pay attention to the project’s non-artistic elements.
To be specific, what makes Bar Boys: A New Musical a triumph is its approach to marketing as something integrated into the artistic product itself.
Jerom Canlas, Benedix Ramos, Alex Diaz, and Omar Uddin reprise their roles in 'Bar Boys: A New Musical'
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Law School as Coming of Age
Part of the 2017 Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino, the film Bar Boys follows four young men, Erik, Toran, Chris, and Joshua (played by Carlo Aquino, Rocco Nacino, Enzo Pineda, and Kean Cipriano), and their journey in law school—from law school application to bar exam results and their eventual rise as lawyers. The film, Oebanda’s sophomore directorial effort, can be considered as a hit and a miss.
Juliene Mendoza as Paping and Benedix Ramos as Erik in 'Bar Boys: A New Musical'
A 'miss' because of its weak characterization that very heavily relies on archetypes. Erik comes from a working-class family, financially supported by his retired police officer father. Toran is the studious know-it-all with a supportive (if overbearing mother). Chris is a child of privilege who chose to take law in the Philippines despite having the option to study at an Ivy League school. Joshua defies the archetype only because he does not get into law school, although that’s likely a law school stereotype itself. The characters are underwritten if not downright cliches. The film’s first half is also very surface, almost comedic in its approach to showing how difficult law school is, from the hundreds of pages long cases one studies for one class to the almost cartoonishly strict professors. Its representation of the stern law professor, played by Odette Khan, is very obviously inspired by the late senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, which should immediately signify to the audience what type of film this is. A common critique of the film is how, for the most part, it does not feel too specific about law school. It can be about any other course, and the film may still work. Bar Boys the film is aware of how toxic and problematic law school can be, but it does not question it or critique it. It is, quite simply, a film about law students in law school.
But this is also why the film works. Bar Boys reportedly earned well at the box office—well enough, perhaps, for Oebanda to announce during the Bar Boys: A New Musical’s press preview on October 3 that a film sequel is in the works.
The film does not say anything new about law and law schools as institutions because that is not its main concern. Its concern, one could surmise, is to tell a story about students in law school. You can argue the film hinges on cliches and stereotypes because that’s how law school operates anyway. Consider, however, that it doesn’t go too deep into the details of law school because it is still a commercial film, one that the general audience should be able to relate to. Bar Boys, as a commercial product, works because it attracts lawyers, law school students, and aspiring lawyers (which we have plenty of).
Beyond that, it also works because, if you remove its law school trapping, Bar Boys is, at its core, a coming-of-age movie, one that shows us how these young men turn from naïve boys to time-seasoned professionals. It is cliché and stereotypical almost by design, a coming-of-age film in the vein of Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me; law school is the journey, and the bar exam is the dead body they have to locate.
This brings us to Bar Boys: A New Musical. Its first triumph is Valera choosing to adapt Bar Boys in the first place. Perhaps it says something about the Philippine theater landscape that this is not the first show in a span of a year to adapt mainstream media property into theater. But what sets Bar Boys apart is its inherent potential as a title, how there is much room for it to say something new. It isn’t polite to compare one piece of art to another, but tell me: what new insight can shows like One More Chance: The Musical or Tabing-Ilog: The Musical—stage shows adapted from beloved media properties—provide without diverging too far from its source material, without offending its massive (in the case of One More Chance) or niche (in the case of Tabing-Ilog) fanbase?
‘Is anyone above the law?’
Bar Boys: A New Musical provides something new—and, in a way, succeeds at this—because while it is a beloved property (it is almost the quintessential Filipino film about law school at this point, not that there are a lot of other options), it has plenty of room to do create necessary and occasionally major changes. The show keeps our quartet of Erik, Chris, Toran, and Joshua (Benedix Ramos, Alex Diaz, Jerom Canlas, and Omar Uddin, with Sheila Francisco as Justice Hernandez reprising their roles) as its core, which means the show is still pretty much about law school (though the 2024 version of law school, compared the film’s more traditional take on it) as it is about their friendship.
Benedix Romas as Erik and Sheila Francisco as Justice Hernandez
Valera also wisely interchanged some character details between the four to make them less paper-thin. Notably, highlighting the tension between Ramos’ Erik and Diaz’s Chris puts into focus the difference that privilege (and the lack of it) can make; in the film, it is Erik and Toran’s friendship that serves as the narrative’s anchor. The musical also transposes Erik’s subplot of a very subtle hint of a (potentially problematic) romance with an openly gay professor (here played by Topper Fabregas) to Toran, making it his main narrative concern. It takes a while for the musical to get its groove, thanks (or no thanks) to a very bloated start. But once it gets there, there’s no stopping Bar Boys: A New Musical. It is engaging and affecting—to the point that it can distract you from the show’s faults, including its unnecessarily long run time and occasionally weak and bloated music (some of the songs could have just been spoken dialogue).
People, especially in the arts, consider marketing as a process of promoting a product and encouraging people to buy it. Valera, with Bar Boys: A New Musical, seems to understand that marketing is important to transform a self-contained piece of art into an art piece that is part of our culture. It feels as if every portion of the show is designed with the purpose of it being part of the culture, our Philippine theater zeitgeist (the same way he turned Edmond Rosland’s century-old play Cyrano de Bergerac into the original Filipino musical Mula sa Buwan, arguably one of local theater’s most enduring titles). This obvious meticulousness, fortunately and unfortunately, includes the show’s politics.
What Bar Boys: A New Musical does better than the film is how it moves the story’s concern beyond the confines of law school. Tackling it further will be a spoiler, but the musical remains reasonably faithful to the film story-wise up until the latter part of the first act, where Erik has to practice what he learned from school—together with friends and law school teachers Justice Hernandez and Victor Cruz—to help defend his father.
This is where the show’s theme of finding hope in what is essentially a hopeless system—specifically law as an institution, but also the Philippines in general—becomes more evident. In the film, the central conflict is the character’s journey toward becoming a lawyer, with passing law school and the bar exam their biggest hurdles. Which is fine, but it mostly sidesteps its most obvious political subtext. In the musical, law school is presented as a game you need to overcome to reach the finish line. And by taking the story out of law school, it tells you that, unlike what the film suggests, the finish line isn’t finishing law school and becoming a lawyer. The finish line is what you do after you win the game.
Omar Uddin as Joshua
Bar Boys: A New Musical wears its convictions on its shelves. In one scene, a professor asks the students: “Is anyone above the law?” A student answers, “The vice president?” There are references to “never forget” and “tumindig.” More importantly, the musical asks the question: Do we really need more lawyers? Can lawyers really enact change when the system can potentially protect the rich and put the disenfranchised at a disadvantage? The musical attempts to answer these questions, which already makes it a notch more ambitious than its film source. The strongest example of this is Uddin’s Joshua, who, in a stand-out scene, questions the point of enduring the hardships of law school when they, as students, remain useless when faced with actual injustices.
It is important to note that the rerun of Bar Boys: A New Musical opened in the same week the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 11 found 10 Aegis Juris fraternity members guilty over the hazing death of University of Santo Tomas law student Horacio Castillo III. Hazing and fraternities are mentioned in both versions of Bar Boys, but the film actually takes a stronger stand against these issues. The musical uses both plot points to Toran’s character arc. A musical about law school isn’t necessarily required to discuss hazing for it to be valid, to be fair. But it’s interesting how a musical that tackles the nitty gritty of law school, a musical about finding hope in a hopeless system, gives too soft a comment or critique about hazing culture outside of Toran’s journey of being true to himself.
Which makes you question whether this is intentional. In a musical about law schools and lawyers, surely you wouldn't ruffle too many the feathers of your subject and potential captive audience (in a previous interview with Esquire Philippines, Valera said his father is a bar top-notcher and a law professor). Is theater that is too commercial or too marketable not capable of stronger political stances and critique apart from vague messages of hope?
Unless that’s the point, of course. And to his credit, though, Valera effectively criticizes the righteous arrogance of those who feel they are in the right, believing that perceived intellectual superiority and moral ascendency make them “better” than those in the wrong. It’s a subtle but strong political critique, though one that could be easily missed.
Still, as it is, Bar Boys: A New Musical remains to be a powerful piece of theater that understands how art and the commercial should meld. It is likely to be a template of how Philippine theater should approach adaptations and marketing. It is essential, effective, and affecting theater—though one that could benefit from having a bit more bite.
Bar Boys: A New Musical runs until November 3 at the Power Mac Center Spotlight Blackbox Theater, Circuit Makati, Makati. Tickets are available through Ticket2Me.
