Diarist Review: 'Shrek the Musical' by Full House Theater Company; 'Gregoria Lakambini' by Tanghalang Pilipino; 'Ateng' by Boy Abunda & RS Francisco; 'Sala sa Pito' by Boxstage Manila

 Last set of reviews for the year, in The Diarist--here!

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From Shrek to Sala sa Pito: All were worth the 'lagari'

The ensemble of Gregoria Lakambini at curtain call.

In the last five weeks, a little over 20 productions of varying sizes and persuasions have played Metro Manila’s disparate theater spaces, from the big, splashy musicals by professional companies to spare, one-act plays by university groups; from fully staged productions to bare-bones readings. Once again, it’s lagarì season for Metro Manila’s theater scene (the term connoting the impossible desire to saw off one’s body just to get to all the places it needs—or wants—to be).

What’s a theater aficionado to do, then, but run after these shows in successive weekends, especially since many had just two or three Friday-to-Saturday runs?

I’ve managed capsule appraisals of four shows I caught to conclude my 17th year of theater-going.

Shrek the Musical

Until Dec. 21, 2025.

The first song says it all: It’s a big bright beautiful world in Full House Theater Company’s production of this Broadway musical adapted from arguably the world’s most famous movie about an ogre.

Eleven years since it premiered in Manila care of the late Bobby Garcia and Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group, Shrek now finds new life in the hands of director Dexter Santos, the musical’s sense of spectacle and childish glee amped up to a thousand percent.

This is a full-blown children’s musical that knows exactly who its audience is—kids, first of all, and the kids-at-heart. But even the most clueless adult will find its theme park-inflected charms irresistible. The hardworking ensemble Santos has assembled never seems to run out of breath, and at times literally takes your breath away (Freak Flag, late in the second act, is quite the showstopper).

Notably, the production makes intelligent use of the cavernous space at the Newport Performing Arts Theater—something I’ve never seen done in the venue, and which I now wish more productions would consider. When Shrek (Jamie Wilson) journeys with newfound friend Donkey to rescue Princess Fiona from her dragon-guarded tower, the action spills into the audience: mascots and puppets galore embodying the forest and fairy tale creatures of the story. The whole thing doesn’t come across as a convenient gimmick; instead, it feels integral to the musical’s aims and true to the material’s spirit. What a sight to witness the young and old alike sit up with excitement as they momentarily become part of the show, so to speak. 

Lawyn Cruz’s set can be a bit clunky, though, especially when beheld up close (I was seated on the fourth row). And I do feel this production has sacrificed some of the original film’s wry humor, in exchange for a broader, easier landing. 

Thankfully, this production has Topper Fabregas and Alfredo Reyes, as Donkey and Lord Farquaad, respectively, summoning that exact brand of humor in ways that retain the original’s spirit without coming across as lazy duplicates. These are two of the year’s funniest performances onstage, from two actors who, to use the oft-intoned clause, make the roles truly their own (it’s imaginably even bigger of a challenge for Fabregas, who’s tackling a famously Black-coded part created by Eddie Murphy). And, as Princess Fiona, Krystal Kane continues to prove she’s one of local musical theater’s most exciting and dependable actresses, her first entrance alone a true-blue you-can’t-look-away moment. 

Gregoria Lakambini: A Pinay Pop Musical

Until Dec. 14, 2025.

If Tanghalang Pilipino (TP) wasn’t planning on making its own “Bayaniverse”—one that can plausibly rival filmmaker Jerrold Tarog’s cinematic trilogy on Antonio Luna, Gregorio del Pilar, and Manuel L. Quezon—the Cultural Center of the Philippines resident theater company nevertheless has one in its hands now.

After Mabining Mandirigma (which returns in March 2026) and Pingkian comes this latest musical, penned by Mabini playwright Nicanor Tiongson with Eljay Castro Deldoc—one of the smartest comedic writers working now—and set to music by Nica del Rosario and Matthew Chang.

One can’t be faulted for entering the theater thinking this is going to be a serious musical dramatizing the life of the titular character (Andres Bonifacio’s wife)—how else, after all, to tackle what Nick Joaquin calls this “question of heroes”?

What a breath of fresh air, then, the way this musical upends expectations (the subtitle should be clue enough). 

Gregoria Lakambini is irreverent meta-theater; an upsized town fiesta skit; kanal humor earning its rightful place in the annals of TP history. Gregoria, played by Marynor Madamesila as a Sarah Geronimo-adjacent heroine, is now the star of her own ersatz noontime variety show. And Del Rosario and Chang have composed quite the irresistible, pop-heavy score, laden with some truly gorgeous melodies and blink-and-you’ll-miss-‘em, whip-smart lyrics (Buwan, Buwan is a proper earworm; a chart topper in another life!).

In general, the production directed by Delphine Buencamino comes across as a show that’s cognizant of what the material demands of it. Marco Viaña’s costumes are a standout, if only for those fierce jorts worn by ensemble member Sarah Monay. But as a self-professed “Pinay pop musical,” the dancing certainly still has room for more snap and sass, some more sharpness, some more confidence fit for the world’s biggest stages (the choreography by Buencamino and Jan Matthew Almodovar).

This musical is strongest when it’s just having a fun time—when it’s funny, it’s absolutely hilarious, but when it shifts to serious, trying-to-be-profound mode, you can feel the clock ticking. It’s effective less as solemn Hamilton, and way more as wacky It’s Showtime—at the heart of which is Heart Puyong, the surprise MVP of this production, juggling her multiple ensemble tracks with wicked comedic timing and, more importantly, a very Pinoy brand of pusô. 

 

Ateng

Closed Dec. 7, 2025.

It’s no secret that Vincent de Jesus is a terrific musical composer, but this play, returning 20 years since it premiered in the first ever Virgin Labfest, is testament to his skills as a comic playwright. 

The production directed by Rem Zamora was most successful in conveying the dark humor of this play about two parloristas and the manipulative boy toy one of them becomes entangled with. One hour zipped by; Zamora easily plunged the audience back to the mid-2000s, when gay marriage had just been legalized by a handful of countries in the West. The world back then was still a far cry from the relatively more tolerant society of today, though the play might as well have been set in the present, the struggles of its two parloristas only secondarily about quintessential gay and trans liberation—and primarily about the socioeconomic injustices inherent in gay politics in low-income Filipino communities.

As the elder parlorista, Thou Reyes tilted the production a bit too much towards mystery thriller; Reyes’ approach was defined almost purely by his sarcasm, half-muted anger, and deadpan humor, his shifts towards wistful—when the play changed gears every now and then to a fourth wall-breaking, introspective tone—curiously breaking the momentum, rather than organically heightening the drama. Reyes was far too intense (and also felt like he was always in a hurry to spew his caustic zingers), you never doubted he would actually kill his sibling’s boy toy (Dyas Adarlo)—that it struck me as a head-scratching, performative surprise when he didn’t. 

Still, I ended up buying this version of the play—and this version of Reyes’ character—largely thanks to De Jesus’ razor-sharp writing. And also because Reyes had Jason Barcial as a sparring partner, playing the younger, love-struck, doltish sibling. It’s Barcial who gave this play its pathos—a performance that evoked laughter and pity in equally distending proportions, and sometimes both at once.

The drag-club venue itself was somehow quite appropriate: With Ben Padero’s set convincingly replicating the interior of a financially challenged parlorista’s house, the production came across as a drag act that you watched from a remove, with two queens exchanging never-ending blows for our entertainment.

The ensemble of Sala sa Pito at curtain call.

Sala sa Pito

Closed Dec. 6.

Within the Manila theater scene, the Austrian playwright Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde is perhaps most recognizable in the form of the late Floy Quintos’ Laro. First produced in 2004, Quintos’ adaptation transposes Schnitzler’s 19th-century play about the sexual lives and moral conflicts of the Viennese to the contemporary Philippines of non-heterosexual urbanites. (A Barefoot Theatre Collaborative production of Laro won the best ensemble prize, as well as best director for John Mark Yap, in the 14th Gawad Buhay Awards in 2024.)

But, going by the recently concluded Boxstage Manila production, the late George de Jesus III’s take on Schnitzler’s play deserves to be held in just as much esteem. As a theater fanatic, I live for the small surprise—a newcomer stealing the spotlight, a new play hitting all the right notes, a fledgling company producing an unexpected hit. Sala sa Pito, though not at all a new play, unmistakably felt like such a surprise: a low-key knockout production that deserved to run longer and be seen by more people.

As with La Ronde, the main conceit of Sala sa Pito was that every scene’s a two-hander, with each of its characters daisy-chained to appear in the next scene with another. Save for one, De Jesus’ Filipinos were all ostensibly heterosexual. And, a genius, original touch: Love songs—hugot tunes, as we’d call them—served as transition devices, with the character of a wise-cracking omnipresent singer doubling as a kind of meta-narrator.

The result was a play that dissected those so-called matters of the heart with surgical precision, while cleverly using its characters’ small-scale conversations as avatars for larger debates on the ways Filipinos love, make love, and wrong the ones they love. An anniversary date between a husband with control issues and his battered wife became a canvas for examining the nature of gender-based violence; an unassuming meetup between that wife and her closeted gay friend became an honest confrontation of the unique societal pressures faced by gay men who haven’t come out to their families. In scene after scene, De Jesus cracked open the modern Filipino psyche: our most intimate and perverted problems laid bare.

For all of its 90 minutes, director Dudz Teraña’s production was the epitome of tonal control: always truthful and restrained, and never visibly settling for what in Tagalog could be described as “puwede na.” The use of lights and music seemed straightforward, but did wonders in propelling the play’s narrative and emotional trajectories.

Teraña and his stouthearted cast had relevant things to say, and they made darn sure the audience listened, and laughed and cried healthy amounts of tears along the way. The afternoon I caught this show, three performers easily proved themselves worthy of spots in the forthcoming year-end best-of-theater roundups: Yesh Burce, simply heartbreaking as the battered wife (and what a cinematic face!); JP Estaras, his feather-light take on the closeted gay friend admirably grounded and sincere; and the amazing Karyl Oliva, whose Bisaya bar girl with a comic streak and an aversion for beating around the bush was as fully flesh-and-blood a creation as any I’ve seen onstage this year—or any other year, in fact.

I count myself lucky to have witnessed Oliva run away with Teraña’s Bisaya monologue Proposal in 2019, during that year’s Saltik, a laboratory production of new one-act plays under the Far Eastern University Theater Guild. In Sala sa Pito, Oliva was the very definition of having an interior life; you just knew her bar girl had roamed the streets, fought her fair share of fights, dealt with her fair share of boys. Oliva commanded that stage with not a shred of vanity: She took your breath away, and made you want to jump from your seat and scream, “More!”

Diarist Review: 'Everybody Loves Raymond' - Raymond Lauchengco in Concert

Concert reviewer era incoming jk. This article was published yesterday in The Diarist--here.

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Everybody loves Raymond Lauchengco--even if I was 'too young' to be watching his show!

Is Raymond Lauchengco a TOTGA of Philippine theater?

To go by “Everybody Loves Raymond,” his 60th birthday concert at The Theater at Solaire last Nov. 28, the answer is an emphatic yes.

For those unfamiliar with internet slang, TOTGA stands for “the one that got away,” a uniquely Filipino acronym referencing ex-loves and former partners who nonetheless occupy a special place in one’s heart. But the term can also signify a what-if, a missed opportunity, an alternative version of reality now unattainable.

Throughout the three-hour concert, Lauchengco revisited many of the OPM (or original Pilipino music) songs that catapulted his career to stratospheric heights in the 1980s—for instance, I Need You Back from 1982, a Side-B filler that unexpectedly gave him his first hit at 17 years old; and Saan Darating ang Umaga from 1983, composed for the same-titled movie he starred in alongside Maricel Soriano and the late Nida Blanca.

Despite the genre, however, it was clear that Lauchengco belonged onstage, by which I mean the theater. His voice—unembellished, rich and warm, with a firmly controlled vibrato—was a musical theater leading man’s voice, if there ever was one.

In a parallel universe, Lauchengco would probably be one of our stage luminaries already, joining the likes of his sister Menchu, who directed the concert. The theater’s where he got his start, after all—albeit by accident.

“The most ingenious prank my sister ever played on me,” Lauchengco shared during the concert, “was getting me to audition for The King and I.” He’s referring to Repertory Philippines’ (Rep) 1978 production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, which opened in March that year at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, with a seven-year-old Lea Salonga making her professional stage debut as one of the royal children.

At the auditions in 1977, Lauchengco was supposed to be just his sister’s chaperone. However, “she forged my name and signature on a second audition form without telling me; next thing I knew, Bibot (Amador, the late director and cofounder of Rep) was screaming my name. I was so shy, I knew there was no chance I could get a part. So I mustered all my courage to get the whole ordeal over with, and sang the first song that popped into my head—the one my sister would play over and over in the bedroom we shared.”

That song was Evergreen, the theme from the Barbra Streisand vehicle A Star Is Born, and whose first verse (“Love, soft as an easy chair/ love, fresh as the morning air…”) would acquire a different sort of popularity in the Philippines in 2001, as interpolated in the rap group Salbakuta’s S2pid Luv. Evergreen was exactly the kind of ballad Lauchengco’s voice was made for, his dreamy rendition effortlessly summoning images of the lyrics’ “morning glory and midnight sun” in the mind’s eye. 

In the end, Lauchengco—all of 12 years old—landed the featured role of Louis, the female protagonist Anna Leonowens’ son in The King and I; his sister missed out on a part. 

From there it was a few years of juggling high school and the theater—in 1980, for instance, he was cast as the second-oldest Von Trapp child in Rep’s The Sound of Music, playing onstage siblings with his sister Menchu, Salonga, Monique Wilson, and current Philippine Senator Risa Hontiveros.

However, it wasn’t long before show business came calling, his departure “from the world of theater to the world of movies and recording,” as he described it, facilitated by none other than the Megastar herself, Sharon Cuneta. “It was Sharon who introduced me to show business,” Lauchengco said.

Cuneta was more than just a career catalyst, though; she was, as Lauchengco confessed that night, also his “first serious celebrity crush.”

Get the ball rolling

He recalled attending a soirée—that customary mixer that all-boys and all-girls schools would hold for their students—when he was in third year high school at Colegio de San Juan de Letran, with a class from St. Paul’s College. “I certainly wasn’t the type to go on the dance floor,” Lauchengco said, “but that afternoon at the soirée, I said yes to get the ball rolling—because in that room was Sharon herself.”

Cuneta was the last of the concert’s four guest artists. Onstage with her, Lauchengco declared: “I had it so bad for Sharon back in the day,” to which Cuneta responded, “You only told me I was your crush last year!”

For the concert, Cuneta sang Hagkan, from her self-titled 1979 album; plus a duet with Lauchengco of one of her most recognizable tunes, Pangarap na Bituin—the theme song composed by the late Willy Cruz for the film Bukas Luluhod ang Mga Tala (in which Lauchengco played a supporting part); and finally, after cries of “More!” from the audience, another duet—the Rey Valera classic Kapag Maputi na ang Buhok Ko.

That last song was preceded by one of the night’s most memorable anecdotes: “One day,” Lauchengco said, “I asked Sharon, ‘Would you like to watch a movie?’” Cuneta, clueless, distracted and grieving a fresh breakup, replied blankly, “With whom?” 

Ah, but the theater—it wouldn’t have been a milestone birthday concert without a segment dedicated to this biggest of what-ifs. And what a segment it was. 

Coming before Cuneta was the night’s third guest, Martin Nievera, who sang some of his biggest hits mostly in medley form: Be My Lady, which he tackled with the audience in fill-in-the-blanks fashion, the audience gamely singing the missing lines back—trust a Pinoy crowd to collectively sing a ballad in tune!—followed by portions of Say That You Love Me and You Are My Song.

It’s no secret that Nievera’s also a theater kid at heart, of course—just look at his many covers of show tunes on YouTube. A Broadway medley with Lauchengco couldn’t have been more unsurprising.

Lauchengco lamented that the reason he gave up pursuing his dream roles from the Broadway canon—Tony in West Side Story, Anthony in Sweeney Todd, Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera—was because his sister kept getting cast as the romantic lead of most of these shows in Manila back then (Menchu played Maria, Tony’s love interest, in the 1981 Rep production of West Side Story; Johanna, Anthony’s love interest, in 1982’s Sweeney Todd). “Singing opposite my sister would have been fine, but what would we do when it came to the kissing scenes?!” he asked Nievera.

Ergo, the Broadway medley between these two balladeers in their 60s, performed with the energy of a pair of 16-year-old theater geeks.

From West Side Story terrain—Something’s Coming and Maria—they traveled to Andrew Lloyd Webber territory—Music of the Night and All I Ask of You, both from The Phantom of the Opera; Memory, the chart-topping sensation from Cats; then back to West Side Story with Somewhere—another crossover success—before concluding with the granddaddy of karaoke sessions, This Is the Moment (from Jekyll and Hyde). It was a succession of Broadway anthems performed as big and brassy as possible, like Solaire were the world’s largest stadium. The standing ovation that capped this segment, effectively stopping the show, was nothing if not well-deserved. There, right there, was Lauchengco the could-have-been musical theater star. 

The night had numerous other high points. Ice Seguerra, the first guest, duetted with Lauchengco on the song that launched their career in 2001, Pagdating ng Panahon, before going solo with a stripped-down rendition of Ryan Cayabyab’s Araw-Gabi—both numbers attesting to Seguerra’s peerless skills as an acoustic crooner. 

Mitch Valdez, the night’s second guest, and ever the consummate comedian, opened her segment with a protracted pretend-lecture meant to enlighten Lauchengco on the life changes that supposedly come with senior citizenship. 

“You have to be nice!” Valdez said. “Everybody else who’s younger is looking at us with envy and buwisit and resentment. You have to be magnanimous when someone at the grocery checkout lane asks to make singit before you because they have ‘two items lang’—but if someone who wants to make singit asks, ‘Puwede ba itong basket?,’ you say, ‘Ulol!’

“Do you know how to use GCash?” Valdez teased Lauchengco. And, “before you make sabak in the traffic, you have to empty your bladder!”

Closer to the finale, Lauchengco delivered a fitting 11 o’clock number (the term for a show-stopping song traditionally sung near the end of a musical): Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides, Now, that heartrending rumination on the uncertainties of life and surrendering to reality, as Mitchell once put it. Lauchengco’s version fully captured the emotional sweep of the song, almost as if its evocations of “ice cream castles in the air and feathered canyons everywhere,” its repeated declarations of not knowing love—and life—at all, were written especially for him.

Most touching moment

For me, though, the most touching moment unfolded quite early in the concert. It was when Lauchengco shared the stage with his daughter Natalie for a duet of Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You, the song somehow transposed to a more intimate arrangement, seemingly scrubbed clean of its celebrity status in the world of ballads.

That number made me think about the way Lauchengco managed to bridge generations that night—the way his voice and his presence harked back to the glory days of ‘70s and ‘80s OPM, full decades before Sarah Geronimo and Moira Dela Torre, Ben&Ben and Cup of Joe, while somehow still coming across as a contemporary of those present-day household names. Listening to Lauchengco and his daughter—“Dalaga na siya,” quipped the man next to me—you’d think they were singing the latest sleeper hit on Spotify.

I’m not actually even sure when it was exactly that I became concretely aware of Lauchengco as a figure of the Philippine music industry—though I do remember that his iconic Farewell, which first made a splash through his movie Bagets in 1984, was something my high school in Iloilo City made its outgoing seniors sing during the graduation ball every year.

That night at Solaire, probably 90 percent of the audience belonged to the generation that came of age or who were in their youth just as Lauchengco was at the peak of his career. A whole contingent even traveled all the way from Ilocos, their appointed leader—someone named Candy—holding up a self-illuminating sign that said, “I love Raymond,” when Lauchengco asked them to join him upfront for I Need You Back.

I guess it also spoke volumes about the audience demographic that Seguerra’s entrance was met partly with a rumble of surprise from the crowd, who were no doubt confused by Lauchengco’s use of the pronouns he and him to introduce the singer—and were probably deadnaming Seguerra in their heads.

Idling at the lobby before the concert started, I happened to sit next to a guy with salt-and-pepper hair who took one look at me and jokingly said, “You’re too young to be watching this.” 

Fair point. It was my first time to see Lauchengco perform live, after all, while most everyone around me had long had his songs ingrained in their heads. But it was also as perfect a night as any to affirm the truth behind the concert’s title: Everybody loves Raymond, indeed.

Diarist Review: 'Paano Man ang Ibig' by Tanghalang Ateneo; 'Bar Boys: The Musical' by Barefoot Theatre Collaborative; 'Si Faust' by Areté Ateneo

 AMDG! Website version of this long-ass piece here.

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2025 is an Ateneo year in theater

Curtain call at Bar Boys: The Musical.

A rare theatrical convergence unfolded at the Ateneo de Manila University the weekend of Nov. 14–16: a total of five productions running all at once, the resulting smorgasbord quite sufficient to sate the appetites of a theater-going public compelled to hunker down at home by Super Typhoon Uwan the previous weekend.

Tanghalang Ateneo (TA) offered a Filipino translation of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Paano Man ang Ibig using the script of the late National Artist for Theater and Literature Rolando Tinio. Ateneo Blue Repertory (BlueRep), which brands itself the university’s “premiere musical theater organization,” staged The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals, loosely adapted from the classic sci-fi-horror film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. At the modernist Areté complex, three vastly different shows: Barefoot Theatre Collaborative’s restaging of Bar Boys, a big Broadway musical in every sense of the word, packing the 850-seat Hyundai Hall; a new rock opera based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, courtesy of Nelsito Gomez and Basti Artadi, at the Doreen Black Box; and Exit Left Collective’s staged reading of Balay Dolor by the Palanca Award-winning playwright Iago Guballa.

It gives me great pleasure to report that, among the three I managed to catch, not one proved an unqualified disappointment—far from it, in fact.

Paano Man ang Ibig

Paano Man ang Ibig, for instance, was pretty unpolished and exactly the work one would expect from people who aren’t accustomed to doing Shakespeare—or theater, for that matter. (It closed Nov. 16.) As TA’s trainee production for the season, it was peopled mostly by newbies to the organization and/or the stage. As a production team member revealed in a pre-opening spiel, many of the cast members had never acted onstage.

It made sense that the show I saw reminded me of the kind of shenanigans my classmates and I used to put on in our English and Speech Communications classes in high school. This TA production never pretended like it belonged in the big leagues, but not for a second did it also forget to have fun and relish the unadulterated joy of making theater.

Taking on directorial duties was Cholo Ledesma, an alumni of the organization who, a decade ago, already proved himself a formidable actor as the male lead of TA’s Rite of Passage (2014) and Boy (2016).  

In Paano Man ang Ibig, Ledesma veered too close to dark and heavy, especially in the earlier scenes, giving Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy about lovesick exiles in a forest a near-oppressive, hyper-dramatic sheen. This self-seriousness would eventually lift, paving the way for the inherent silliness to shine through—but precisely because the play’s so self-serious at the start, the myriad inanities in the story came across as narrative shortcomings instead. Why were all the major characters stuck in that forest like they were in that Luis Buñuel film? Why was everyone falling for everybody else’s obvious disguises? Did the Bard actually invent the concept of the pathetic stalker, as when the lead character of Orlando started posting love poems on just about every tree he could find in that forest as a way of wooing the lady Rosalind (who’s also roaming the woods)? Creepy.

In any case, the second act’s where the fun’s at. At one point, for a celebratory scene, the entire theater, already bedecked in what’s best described as amateur forest-chic, transformed into an ersatz woodland party, the ensemble filing down the aisles with makeshift canopies and other handmade props in hand like fairies at a feast. Rough around the edges? Sure, but it was also all a ball to behold. 

One thing’s certain, though: Chloe Abella, who played Rosalind, is someone to watch out for. She was visibly already at ease under the spotlight, and moved with the clarity and stillness one rarely sees among student actors. In this trainee production, TA may very well have found a future leading lady.

Bar Boys: The Musical

Barefoot’s Bar Boys is the definition of reinvention (its last two performances on Nov. 30).

The complete title is now Bar Boys: The Musical, the decisive article replacing last year’s more uncertain-sounding A New Musical, when the show premiered at the Power Mac Blackbox, Ayala Malls Circuit, Makati City.

The show is still the same story of four aspiring lawyers in present-day Philippines, adapted by Pat Valera from the eponymous 2017 film starring Carlo Aquino. But now, Valera has completely ceded directorial duties to his co-director from last year, Mikko Angeles. And, in moving to  Hyundai Hall, the show has adopted a traditional proscenium staging, departing from the original alley style (with the audience seated on opposite sides of a linear stage, like watching a fashion corridor).

The changes brought about by the shift in space are immediately palpable—they have opened the musical up, in a manner of speaking, giving it more-than-ample room to breathe and fulfill its dreams of literal spectacle. Whereas last year’s run at Power Mac felt like an ambitious kid compelled to make do with what it had been given materially—in a way, serving up an apt metaphor for the struggles of its main characters—this present version is nothing short of a “we have arrived” moment. It is Janina San Miguel’s confidence when she declared, “I don’t feel any pressure right now,” on the Binibining Pilipinas stage: Yes, the pressure to triumph is undeniable, and yes, the musical’s unfazed by it.

Angeles has unlocked something else in the material: He has embraced its silliness. Bar Boys is essentially a morality tale—noble lawyers and law students fighting their big, bad counterparts and the systems they work for (last year’s premiere literally set the narrative in the aftermath of Leni Robredo’s defeat in the 2022 presidential elections). Bar Boys insists not only on goodness—a dramatization of that quote on the arc of the moral universe being long yet bending towards justice—but in yapping on and on about that brand of goodness like a sheltered, private-school kid.

To quote one of its lead characters, “Cringe!”

Angeles, miraculously, has turned the yapper into an even louder yapper. Abandoning the original’s hyperrealistic conceit (abetted in no small part by the intimate staging), this current Bar Boys is now a tale of good versus evil as told from the viewpoint of liberal politics, but unabashedly to the tune of—as I overheard an audience member correctly describe—Harry Potter.

Exaggeration is now the name of the game. Lawyers? They’re just like Marvel heroes. Evil professors and corrupt attorneys? Monsters! Suddenly, delusional liberal politics, served in hyperbolic portions, isn’t so cringe, or out of touch, anymore—it can actually be both palatable and engaging. 

And so, the musical’s justified penchant for excess: its occasional ventures into a video-game aesthetic-now-sensorial feasts (the new, eye-popping costumes by Hershee Tantiado; the level-up, jaw-dropping projections by Joyce Garcia); its sensible use of the sprawling stage, such as with a pair of self-illuminating, towering bookshelves, among other new tricks by set designers Julio Garcia and Ohm David; Jomelle Era’s choreography pushing the ensemble to their physical limits (which apparently do not exist, as Mean Girls would have it). And while we’re on the subject of the production’s technical aspects, Aron Roca deserves special mention for infusing sorely needed crispness into the sound design.

Meanwhile, the main players have grown equal in stature: Benedix Ramos and Alex Diaz, as best friends from opposite socioeconomic backgrounds, have never been better, but the latter—stronger than before—has turned his character into a true, worthy co-lead.   

Some moments still feel drawn-out and repetitive, with certain songs repeated preceding dialogue, for example. The musical runs three hours, with intermission. And the small, heartbreaking sequences (notably, when the father of Ramos’ character passes away) have been diluted in impact due to the larger space.

Nonetheless, the overall package is just an astonishing, heartfelt display of what Filipino musical theater is about. It’s the kind of production I would bring a theater newbie to; the kind those afflicted with colonial mentality must refer to when they talk about “world class.” They might even pick up necessary lessons on nationalism and politics along the way.

Curtain call at Si Faust.

Si Faust

Then, there’s Si Faust—the newest from arguably one of Metro Manila’s two most prolific dramatic reinventionists of late.

Since the post-pandemic reopening of the theater industry in 2022, Nelsito Gomez has unveiled, to varying reception, his adaptations of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, Sophocles’ Electra, Shakespeare’s Othello and Twelfth Night. 

Enter the German Goethe. Gomez’s latest work (which he also directs, and which closes Nov. 29) turns the 19th-century story of the man who sold his soul to the devil into a sung-through opera using the music of the rock band Wolfgang. Frontman Basti Artadi—a blast as the hallucinatory St. Jimmy in 9 Works Theatrical’s American Idiot in 2016—serves as co-creator of the show.     

So, another jukebox musical—or a jukebox opera, to be exact.

As a stickler for enunciation, I confess I find certain chunks of singing in Si Faust bothersome in their incomprehensibility. Part of the fun with jukebox musicals is listening to the lyrics and discovering how the songs have been repurposed into the musical; how they’ve been cut, bent, or twisted to assume a new skin. In this musical, the less-than-ideal sound design is partly to blame. (So is my unfamiliarity with Wolfgang’s discography.)

But another reason is the performers’ stylized manner of singing, emulating the screech and drawl of head-banging rockers. In particular, Maita Ponce—who plays the cardinal role of the devil Mephistopheles—sounds like Broadway icon Patti LuPone if she desperately went after Artadi’s job.

But, revelation: This is billed as an opera. And if operas operate primarily on their strength of feeling and emotive capacities, then Si Faust is a categorical triumph, all 100 electrifying minutes of it a welcome jolt to senses primed to favor clear speech and straightforward theatrics. It’s high drama, show-stopping vocals, and knockout visuals combined to produce Theater with a capital t. As Gen Z would say, it’s a total vibe. 

Even without completely understanding the lyrics, one still grasps what’s being portrayed onstage (this is Gomez at his finest as director). The aural spectacle conjured by the performers—one of the best-sounding ensembles of the year—brings out the essence of Goethe with piercing clarity. The leanness of Gomez’s adaptation also works to the opera’s advantage, the story, near-skeletal, made all the more powerful as allegory, calling to mind the creation myths of old. It’s that rare case where thinning out the story, paradoxically, makes it fatter.

So much of Si Faust’s success is also a product of its design: Sarah Facuri’s set (spare and dominated by moving panels that open into an elevated rear stage, smartly sizing down, closing up, or revealing new narrative spaces), Jethro Nibaten’s lights, and Carlo Pagunaling’s costumes. Scene after scene, the three work harmoniously to create a never less-than-cohesive look for the show. Add to that Joyce Garcia’s projections, which effectively function as their own world-building and emotive element, and the result is a constant, enthralling approximation of the cosmic, summoning images of immense galaxies and barren landscapes, distant starlit skies and oceanic depths, a return to man’s primeval folly.

Si Faust also gives us two of the year’s most bewitching performances: Ponce’s, cool personified, and Shaira Opsimar’s, as Faust’s provincial lover. In Act II, Opsimar sings Halik ni Hudas, effortlessly hitting one stratospheric note after another, the sight of her would surely make atheists believe in heaven. 

Which brings me to a final point: The musical direction and orchestration is by Kabaitan Bautista, and this opera is proof that those fields may have found a new force to be reckoned with. Listening to Wolfgang on Spotify days later, I was struck by the elegance and inventiveness of Bautista’s work for Si Faust. The musical flows like one continuous breath, almost a celestial emanation. A rerun of this lightning bolt of a production will be nothing if not divine justice. 

Ateneo's year in theater

With Bar Boys and Si Faust being the two latest theatrical successes staged in the university, it’s safe to say 2025 has truly been Ateneo’s year in theater.

A huge reason has been Areté’s programming, and how the brains behind the arts complex have been collaborating tirelessly with university alumni and their affiliated companies, most notably the fledgling Scene Change. 

This year alone, Ateneo has also hosted three runs of 3 Upuan, the heartbreaker of a play by Guelan Luarca (whose body of work is without equal nowadays), as well as Luarca’s adaptations of the 2014 film Dagitab (the play a sublime, deeply intelligent ode to love, revolution, and the written word), and Nick Joaquin’s A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino (now the elegiac Quomodo Desolata Es? Isang Dalamhati, using Jerry Respeto’s translation).

TA restaged its big success from 2011, Luarca and the late Ricardo Abad’s transposition of Romeo and Juliet to Sama-Badjao Mindanao titled Sintang Dalisay, followed by Ningning sa Silangan, Respeto’s adaptation of Jo Clifford’s Light in the Village. Para kay B, the novel by National Artist for Film Ricky Lee, was adapted for the stage by Eljay Castro Deldoc, whose Pilipinas Kong Mahal Without the Overcoat from the 2017 Virgin Labfest was mounted by Ateneo Entablado.

BlueRep took a stab at the Broadway musical version of Legally Blonde, and that was two hours of enjoyable earnestness.

Not all of the above-mentioned productions have been critical hits, of course, but some will no doubt go down as the year’s, if not the decade’s, finest pieces of theater.

In the absence of a proper theater district in Metro Manila—like New York’s Broadway or London’s West End, with playhouses clustered within a few, walkable blocks and running on eight-shows-a-week schedules—the Ateneo has offered something more sustainable: a serious arts hub north of the Pasig River. The prospect of five-show weekends has never been more appealing. 

The day I saw Bar Boys, it was as festive a crowd as I’d ever seen at the theater. The atmosphere was unmistakably one that welcomed everyone, and not just theater addicts like myself. Barefoot, which is leading the way in theater marketing and publicity these days, and, I’ve long maintained, should be studied by other companies, has transformed Areté’s ground floor into the site of a proper event: merch booths, photo corners, stereos blaring the musical’s soundtrack, the works. The elaborate setup is something I’ve only convincingly encountered in the international touring productions brought to The Theatre at Solaire by GMG Productions—theater as a genuine “you just had to be there” experience from start to finish.

Ateneo and Barefoot have shown it can just as easily be done by homegrown theater folk.