Chuckles — Tita Baby Barredo Asks About My Age Spots

For the Repertory Philippines production of A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino, I had to play a character named Dona Irene who was in her late 60s. When an actor-friend commented after the preview that my forearms were not “aged” enough, I started experimenting with brown eye shadow and smudging it on that part of my arms, and then brushing some powder over it.

Tita Baby Barredo, who watches the play from the audience area and then goes backstage at some point to put on her costume, did not see me put on my “age spots.”

As she sat down beside me in the dressing room, and saw the brown marks, she curiously asked, “What’s that?”

I brightly replied, “Age spots, Tita.”

“Oh, like freckles.” And then Tita Baby commented that some people can’t go under the sun without getting freckles. In a kindly manner, she suggested that maybe I should go to a dermatologist and recommended the mother of one of the cast members.

All of the girls in the dressing room were silent for a moment when we realized that Tita Baby thought the fake age spots were real.

I diffidently explained that it’s just makeup, and, ever since, Tita Baby would tease me about my age spots, saying how she avoids looking at them onstage because it might send her into a fit of laughter.

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