PDI Review: 'Desaparesidos' at the Ateneo Areté

I've started listing down my picks for the expected best-of-the-decade list next year. This production at the Ateneo, running until Sept. 2, is more or less a sure bet. The online version of my article here. Today's milestone: first time to have two pieces in one issue!

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'Desaparesidos' is fiery, stunning theater

Post-show talkback with Edita Burgos, mother of farmer-activist Jonas Burgos, who was abducted by military agents in 2007 and hasn't been seen since. 

Total surrender--that's the singular effect of the best theater productions on the viewer. So completely are you transported into another world, another time, deep into the hearts and minds of imagined people, that the show ceases to be just make-believe; it becomes an experience, absorbing and unforgettable.

UP Playwrights' Theatre's "Angry Christ" was one such production. So, too, were Atlantis Production's "Next to Normal," Tanghalang Ateneo's "Middle Finger" from 2014, and, earlier this year, The Sandbox Collective's "Himala, Isang Musikal."

Into this exclusive company now storms "Desaparesidos," a brilliantly mounted production that fuses fury, fear and, in its final moments, faint slivers of hope as it plunges the viewer head first into some of the darkest moments of contemporary Filipino history.

The production, running until Sept. 2 at the Doreen Black Box Theater in the Ateneo's Areté complex, is a restaging of Guelan Luarca's adaptation of the Lualhati Bautista novel. (Its 2016 premiere, it bears mentioning, was prompted by the burial of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, a national insult enabled by the Duterte administration.)

On the surface, "Desaparesidos" neatly splits into two acts: The first is a visually harrowing chronicle of Anna and Roy's time as New People's Army activists during the Marcos regime; the second deals with their life as a married couple after the despot's fall.

Closure

But what everything boils down to is a search for truth and closure: Anna looks for the child she had entrusted to a fellow activist's wife; Roy is haunted by having been forced, under torture, to kill a comrade; Lorena, Anna and Roy's daughter, struggles to understand why her parents prioritized their activism and left her to the care of surrogate families; Malaya, a girl from Canada, seeks answers to her past.

In this production, memories weave in and out of the story, even across acts, the versions--and more importantly, the meaning--of events never fully clear until the heartrending finale. This "Desaparesidos" is no mere invitation to passively witness; through the small lives of its characters, it becomes another galvanizing battle cry to "never forget."

Herein enters Luarca's genius as director. He employs all the faculties--and virtually every inch--of the theater at his disposal to create a production that is as inventive as it is visceral. And he is aided by a superior design team: Charles Yee (set), Rowel Pasion (costumes), D Cortezano (lights), Arvy Dimaculangan (sound), Steven Tansiongco (projections) and Jomelle Era (movement).

Their individual aesthetic appears to be simplicity, but harnessed as a whole, they turn scene after scene into stunning, powerful evocations of the imagined past. Through simple sleights of hand, torture sequences are enacted with gut-wrenching tangibility, while a relatively peaceful safe house becomes a horrific battleground in a matter of seconds.

Painful

The cast is phenomenal, from Chic San Agustin as a steely Anna, to Jewel Tomolin, seething with rebellion and confusion as Lorena, to Teetin Villanueva as Karla, the woman who eventually bridges Anna's past and present. And Brian Sy, as Roy, is in a league of his own--an actor finally landing the role and spotlight worthy of his talents.

"Painful" is a word many have associated with this production, and rightfully so. For it would only be downright disrespectful to sugarcoat or take shortcuts in one's depiction of this horrific past, when the lives of thousands were rendered inexistent under the watch of someone many in this country are now passing off as a hero.

For two and a half hours, Luarca's "Desaparesidos" unflinchingly brings such horror to life, that the viewer may hopefully acquire a more layered and empathetic understanding of the present we're grappling with. It is unquestionably a fiery addition to the pinnacles of local theatrical experiences, and deserves to be seen again and again and again, until we can no longer forget.

PDI Review: 'Ze Papu and Mamu Show' - Juliene Mendoza and Stella Cañete-Mendoza in Concert

The Triple Threats concert series is back at the CCP this year (theme: theater couples), and I caught and reviewed the first one--the Inquirer website version of my piece here. The next evening is set on Sept. 6, featuring "Miss Saigon" royalty Robert Seña and Isay Alvarez-Seña. Also, I have a photo credit in today's paper!

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Ze exuberant 'Ze Papu & Mamu Show'

There's nothing like the perfect song by the perfect singers in the perfect setting.

If we're shamelessly gushing, it's because it was that easy to be swept away by the emotional current conjured by Juliene Mendoza and Stella Cañete-Mendoza during their concert on Aug. 16, opening this year's Triple Threats series at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

The playfully titled "Ze Papu & Mamu Show"--a nod to the couple's terms of endearment--looked carnivalesque in the publicity material, echoing a variety show in a circus tent.

The actual evening delivered such exuberance, especially when the Dulaang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas ensemble lent onstage support, or when the MadMen--the all-male quintet composed of Mendoza, Jun Ofrasio, Chino Veguillas, Raul Montesa and Raymund Concepcion--came onstage for a Broadway medley (launched by a spiel that crossed "Titos of Manila" humor with high school bathroom talk).

Prior to the MadMen, a gowned Cañete-Mendoza took to a raised platform and recreated, rather inventively, the famed "Happy Days Are Here Again/Get Happy" duet, singing the Judy Garland track alongside a black-and-white video projection of Barbra Streisand.

But the concert was so much more than just rowdy fun or audacious diva moments; it got the audience laughing, but also wrung a river out of them.

Two key moments: The first, a montage of the many stage productions that husband and wife have done and which celebrated their origins in UP's theater landscape, set to a mash-up of The Dawn's "Salamat," downtempo, and "Remember Me" (from the animated film "Coco"). The latter was rendered largely unembellished--and all the more poignant--by Mendoza, the song snug within his range.

And then there was their stripped-down cover of Ed Sheeran's "Perfect," which recreated a snapshot of their wedding day. In its simplicity, the number became the evening's flawless peak--like the best love stories, stirringly capturing the artistic couple as an image of tenderness and longevity.

Screen Log 20: BuyBust; Mary Poppins; Blockers; Isle of Dogs; Succession Season 1

"Isle of Dogs."

So let me just rank the most recent Erik Matti films in order. Number one, by a mile, is his Iglesia-ni-Cristo parable "Honor Thy Father." Then a far number two is "On the Job," minus points for all the times it couldn't help being Star Cinema-ish. Lightyears below, down there, is the bamboozling "Seklusyon." And in between, just a little below "On the Job," is the newly released and much-lauded BUYBUST, which stars Anne Curtis in arguably top form.

I realize films like "BuyBust" are the ones I really react to on a genuinely visceral level--the kind that skirts just beneath perfection, the kind that, through a couple of missteps, ends up a lesser film. I don't agree with all the noise online, praising it like it's a seamless masterpiece. It's not. There are contrivances that weaken the story, one appearing as early as thirty minutes into the movie. There's a final act--and a final line--that's clumsily handled in the spirit of "message." And there are moments when the filmmaker's emotions get in the way of the story itself. 

Make no mistake, however, the film is a scathing indictment of our times. I do agree that the fight scenes are too many and too long to the point of being redundant, but sizing them up against the whole work, it all makes sense. It's poor-against-poor madness rendered so convincingly, you'd have to be heartless not to be infuriated. The people in government, and especially the 1% who run this country, ought to see this film, but then I don't think they're the type who'd watch movies of a certain IQ level such as this. 

I only got around to seeing the classic musical film MARY POPPINS recently. And I must say, it is a rather pointless story. Julie Andrews is the only thing that keeps the whole thing worth plodding through. Can somebody explain its appeal to me? Is this a parable on the dangers of drug use because, you know, these people be tripping and flying and seeing colors and worlds and stuff?

The sex comedy BLOCKERS makes me thankful I wasn't born at a time when social media is front and center of life (a.k.a. now). Watching it, I found myself wondering, "This is how they do prom now?" Like with Facebook messages and cellphones and videos and stuff everywhere. I kind of thought this was maybe "Superbad" for the 2010s high school crowd or something. Anyway, Leslie Mann in this movie--poignant, career-high work, if you ask me. What an underrated actress.

Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel" was marvelous, delicious, eye-popping cinema. His newest film, the Berlinale winner ISLE OF DOGS, is also a visual feast (the stop motion is superb). But I'm not even going to get into that whole cultural appropriation discussion. I'm just here to say that this movie eventually felt like something I needed to get through, instead of something I wanted to drown myself in. Not bad Anderson, but also, for me, not worth storing in a limited-space hard drive.

Last night I finished the first season of HBO's SUCCESSION. This will be my new answer to people who ask me for viewing recommendations, probably with the same level of passion and aggression with which I promote Donna Tartt's literary masterpiece "The Secret History" to any willing ear. I loved the whole thing from start to finish. Brilliant, brilliant television. Well, not really the entirety. I thought episode 9 was its weakest--the one where you really felt the writer just setting things up and making people run into each other just so they could have shady conversations. The ending, too, I initially felt ambiguous about, but then in retrospect, I realized what genius it was. Jeremy Strong's performance--especially his entire arc in the finale--is a shoo-in for an Emmy next year. Kieran Culkin and Matthew MacFayden, too, as the family idiots. Also, episode 6--the one where Jeremy Strong's character tries and embarrassingly fails to stage a coup against his father (Brian Cox, making superhuman recovery from a hemorrhagic stroke)--is one of those episodes I will always remember, alongside "Hardhome" from "Game of Thrones," "The Animals" from "Orange Is the New Black," "Beryl" from "The Crown," "Teddy Perkins" from "Atlanta," "Halloween" from the second season of "Modern Family" (yep, it used to be able to produce excellence), etc. Also, J. Smith-Cameron liked my tweet about this, just so you know. Am aware I'm not being very coherent right now. Basta, watch this!