First review of the year (Inquirer website version here). And from the way things are happening--or not happening--in this country, it's looking more and more like another year of Zoom theater. Ugh.
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Breathing fiery life into strange, hybrid art form
In an interview last month, actor-director Ron Capinding laid out the existential crisis that has
gripped the theater industry for the past year: either go virtual—“online and
recorded”—or perish. With his new adaptation of Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex” under
Tanghalang Ateneo, Capinding more than averts this metaphorical death; he
breathes fiery, forceful life into a strange, hybrid art form.
Sophocles’ tragedy is now
“Password: Oedipus Rex,” styled “password: 03d1pu5_R3x” like a boomer reading
challenge, and staged as a series of Zoom conferences unfolding in a digital,
modern Philippines. What a ticket affords the viewer is an edited recording—a
practical decision, given the erratic nature of internet connection in the
country.
This “Oedipus,” however,
is clear from the outset that it is foremost a creature of the stage. It
embraces its theatrical roots, wasting no effort to adopt a more filmic realism
and hide its desire to be mounted on an actual, physical platform. The
performers act in the heightened vocabulary of stage performance, spouting the
classical language of Rolando Tinio’s Filipino translation with no hint of trying
to make themselves “small,” as is the norm in cinema. The result approximates
the exhilarating experience of a front-row seat.
Retains the basics
Capinding’s adaptation,
which he also directs, retains the basics of the Greek classic. By now there is
essentially no spoiling the story. The beginning sees Oedipus as ruler of his
land, husband to Jocasta, and hungry for answers to his predecessor’s murder. By
the end, he would discover that his predecessor was his father, whom he had unwittingly
slain, and that his wife is his own mother.
It’s a tale as morbid as
it is delirious. By twisting it just enough, tinkering with narrative bits and
pieces, Capinding has made an adaptation that perfectly fits the Philippines we
now know. He and his cast commit entirely to the transposition—and therefore
make it wholly believable, even as seers turn up and ancient gods are invoked.
Oedipus is now president,
hotheaded goon and self-confessed murderer, whose erratic behavior throughout
the play is the very definition of small-dick energy. He hears what he wants to
hear and does what he wants to do. In an ingenious piece of casting, his
second-in-command, Kreon, is now a woman—whom he vilifies throughout the course
of the story and blames for his predecessor’s murder. Around him—this play’s
point of view—are adorers who will blindly support him to his very end. After
the story has wrapped up, and Oedipus’ rule has ended, you suspect they might
call for his reinstatement as ruler, even his eventual burial as a hero.
The Zoom format
The Zoom format makes the
play even more disorienting. Parts of it unfold as media interviews, some as press
briefings, complete with introductions from a sort of press secretary. In these
briefings, Oedipus rambles like a mad man, hurling accusations and curses left
and right. You wonder at some point if he might start talking about drugs.
It’s not a perfect
format, however. In one scene, for example, Oedipus screams at a seer who has
appeared alongside him in a media interview: “Lumayas ka sa paningin ko!” Then
the scene continues; nobody has left. Are we to believe that this impetuous
Oedipus wouldn’t have just tossed his device to the floor and stormed off?
Another weakness of the
Zoom format: You actually feel the script’s verbosity. Anyone who spent the
past year working from home would be familiar with Zoom fatigue.
In an actual theater, we’d
take in not just the performer delivering a monologue, but everyone and
everything else around this performer. The Zoom play, on the other hand, almost
demands that you glue your eyes to the screen, hyper-focused only on that one
face speaking at length within that one box—and in this specific case, made no
easier by the challenging baroque Filipino of Tinio’s script.
But somehow you don’t
mind these weaknesses, which sound like nitpicks in the bigger scheme of
things. Capinding and his creative team have more than surmounted the challenge
of applying their skills for the theater to this so-called virtual stage. “Password:
Oedipus Rex” not only sustains your attention; it grabs you by the neck, pulls
you into its world—which you willingly enter.
Mesmerizing
How can you not, with Yan
Yuzon’s Oedipus at the helm? Yuzon is a hurricane in the role, as mesmerizing
as he is frightening. Even his vilest words mean something, that you understand
how he could amass such a following. Opposite him, as Jocasta, Miren
Alvarez-Fabregas is the epitome of regal calm. Their scenes together,
particularly the revelatory act-one ender, make you long for the day when we
can finally return to the theaters—and hopefully watch these two titanic actors
revisit these roles.
Speaking of performance,
how is film and TV star Marian Rivera-Dantes—easily the main draw of the
production—as Kreon? There’s a palpable reverence to the material that
Rivera-Dantes somehow doesn’t completely lose, which can make her come across
as tonally insipid at times and sets her apart from the other performers who attack
their roles with unrestrained playfulness. Nonetheless, it’s a capable
performance that makes you hungry to see what Rivera-Dantes would be like on
the physical stage.
At the end of play,
Rivera-Dantes’ female vice president, owning the moment completely, tells the
ruined Oedipus: “Sumunod ka na lamang. Tapos na ang iyong kapangyarihan.”
The original play carries in that scene heavy sadness—it's Oedipus himself, after all, who begs Kreon to have him exiled. Watching it now, however, in this specific point in contemporary Philippine history, with our specific set of leaders, this scene rings quite differently: In the current scheme of things, it's a vision of a kinder future.
