Monday, September 8, 2025

Diarist Review: 'Into the Woods' by Theater Group Asia; 'Quomodo Desolata Es? Isang Dalamhati' by Areté Ateneo; 'Nobody Is Home' by PETA

Omnibus review time--my second piece for The Diarist! Website version of this article here.

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What does 'Filipino-ness' look like on stage today?


What makes theater "Filipino"?


This was the accidental question unifying three shows I saw in Manila in August—incidentally, the long-appointed month for celebrating the national language. Collectively, the three productions—Into the WoodsQuomodo Desolata Es? Isang Dalamhati, and Nobody Is Home—invited audiences to ponder exactly how the very notion of ‘Filipino-ness’ could look and sound like onstage these days.


For Theater Group Asia’s (TGA) Into the Woods, the answer was all about its shining, shimmering surface.


In media interviews, Tony-winning designer and TGA cofounder Clint Ramos—who served as this production’s overall creative director—stated that their goal was to stage a show that “actually considers the Filipino condition.” Director Chari Arespacochaga separately said that a central preoccupation of this Into the Woods was refracting the musical “through the lens of… our histories, our resilience, and our storytelling [as Filipinos].” These statements aligned with TGA’s proclaimed mission to flesh out the figure of the so-called “global Filipino” on the Manila stage.


But statements are one thing; execution—and, more importantly, essence—is another.


In this Tony Award-winning musical, the writers James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim have borrowed popular fairy-tale characters from the Brothers Grimm and placed them inside a multiverse of sorts: Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Little Red Riding Hood existing alongside the new characters of a childless baker and his wife, in a story that imagines what happens when happily-ever-afters go awry.


TGA’s Filipinized Into the Woods confined the story to a stage designed like a báhay na bató, the traditional Spanish-era stone house. Draped in fabrics and weaves drawn from different Philippine cultures, the characters were made to work with “local” accoutrements: Cinderella wore a gown with the distinct, butterfly sleeves of the terno; Little Red Riding Hood fought the big, bad wolf with a balisong, the folding knife from Batangas; the singing harp stolen by Jack (of the beanstalk fame) from the giant was now a Mindanaoan sárimanók. And the giant was now evidently an American speaking with a Southern drawl. 


Honestly, these ornamental touches were a feast for the senses. But situated within Sondheim, they rang hollow, false, unnecessary. This itch to Filipinize the musical only demonstrated the production’s lack of trust in the already-airtight material. (Consider, for instance, the giant as an American “colonizer” who terrorized the “Filipino” characters after Jack stole from her? What a way to bungle the musical’s subtexts.)  


In Ramos and Arespacochaga’s Into the Woods, the global Filipino was one whose idea of nation circulated around rudimentary images of mangoes and coconut trees, rice fields and carabaos—while refusing any deeper engagement with the homeland it constantly waxed poetic over. Sondheim was almost an afterthought.


No wonder the cast—arguably the starriest assembled by any production in Manila in recent memory—felt unmoored, acting in different registers, as if appearing in different plays. Even Lea Salonga (playing the witch) was disappointingly reduced to just her crystalline voice: peerless singing, inchoate characterization. 


In fact, the only truthful performances came from Nyoy Volante (as the baker), Teetin Villanueva (as Little Red Riding Hood), and especially Mikkie Bradshaw-Volante, who, as the baker’s wife, perfectly epitomized Sondheim’s wit and theatrical genius, further proving that nothing can compare to the warmth and honesty of homegrown Filipino talent.


Watching this show, I was reminded of what the poet Conchitina Cruz wrote about the local literary and publishing sphere in the seminal essay The Filipino Author as Producer: “What’s worse than a Filipino poet in English who does not in her poetry speak on behalf of fellow Filipinos is a Filipino poet in English who does.” So it goes, apparently, with Filipino theater makers in English. 


Overall, TGA’s Into the Woods shed no new insight on the musical, only squeezing Sondheim into an ill-fitting conceptual shoe: a show that was generally well-sung, but sorely lacked passion and emotional depth. In this sense, it was rather anti-Filipino.



Over at the Ateneo de Manila University, a far more sincere and theatrically innovative explication of Pinoy selfhood unfolded: Quomodo Desolata Es? Isang Dalamhati, Guelan Luarca’s adaptation of the Nick Joaquin classic A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino, using Jerry Respeto’s Filipino translation.


The new play (also helmed by Luarca) retained Joaquin’s original narrative structure. This was still about the sisters Candida and Paula Marasigan, their ailing artist father, their crumbling house in pre-World War II Intramuros, and the unseen titular painting that could make or break the sisters’ fortunes. 


But watching this play, one easily forgot about Joaquin. Luarca’s Portrait magnified the madness swirling within and beyond the Marasigan household, its Intramuros in a state of heightened decay, the better to reflect the looming horrors of both the Second World War and the sisters’ possible impoverishment. In so doing, it gave life—and voice—to all that was ostensibly unseen, and left unspoken, in the sisters’ stories: the follies of the past, the ghosts of the present, the omens of the future.


The result was a play with a confident grasp of time and place, identity and history. So assured was its hand that one’s mind frequently wandered beyond the action unfolding onstage, taking the play up on its invitation to ponder the kind of nation the story intimated; how similar those narrative trajectories might be to the 21st-century Filipino reality. Joaquin was now both chronicler and prophet. 


More noteworthy was the production’s interest in dissecting our “Filipino-ness,” which was nothing if not genuine. Rather than conforming to staid, colonial visions of what a “Filipino” play should look like, it instead challenged the norm, seeking to rethink form and the possibilities of storytelling. To be a Filipino theater artist, this production asserted, was to be capable of radical imagination.


Thus, its use of a Greek chorus, for example: an intelligent, effective reinterpretation of the device, the chorus as both literal and figurative ghosts in the story. Or consider how the design elements all worked in total harmony: a set (by D Cortezano) that made sensible use of native elements, lights (by Jethro Nibaten) that evoked the plot’s changing moods with precision, costumes (by Ali Figueroa) that betrayed a cohesive artistic direction. Even during the final technical rehearsal that I caught, the show’s vision was already crystal-clear.    


During that rehearsal, Delphine Buencamino was already unimprovable as Candida, her bravura portrayal of a woman slowly crumbling from within and desperately clinging to her sanity certain to go down as one of the year’s most unforgettable. Vino Mabalot was an explosive Tony Javier, the wannabe-musician living with the Marasigans, while Maita Ponce was an utterly commanding presence as the siblings’ more affluent sister Pepang.



Meanwhile, at the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) Theater Center, the premiere of Liza Magtoto’s Nobody Is Home heralded a return to form for the 58-year-old company best known for its brand of socially conscious theater. 


Collaborating with the Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater, this new play focused on the plight of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs)—in particular, those working in the health care sector and in the context of Western society’s rapidly aging population. Co-directed by Nina Gühlstorff and PETA Artistic Director J-mee Katanyag, it was billed as documentary theater, the play deploying various strategies like interactive segments and lots of fourth-wall breaking to engage the audience more directly and move beyond the usual tropes seen on our stages.


By no means was this play flawless. It could be quite earnest to a fault, the parts that were overwritten did feel overwritten, and the production was far from polished. In the larger scheme of things, however, this was all silly nitpicking: Nobody Is Home was the kind of play that knew exactly what it wanted to say, how to say it, and whom it wanted to listen.


While plays like Care Divas (also by PETA) have shed light on the realities faced by OFWs, Nobody Is Home felt like a welcome breath of fresh air: It found comfort in ambiguity. The Filipino carers in the play, and the German patients and family members they worked with, never once seemed less than real, nor were they made to face situations that offered an easy exit. At the same time, in acknowledging that these were real people with real problems and ambitions—and being comfortable with the limitations set by that acknowledgment—the play was able to imbue its theatrics with a softening touch, thereby enhancing its dramatic plausibility.


My one hope for this play is that PETA tours it around the country. The production itself was quite uncomplicated, and one can imagine it being staged in all sorts of community and educational venues. One main challenge would be filling the vacuum left by the actresses playing the German characters (assuming they won’t return): Susi Wirth and Ute Baggeröhr, as the ailing mother–exhausted daughter tandem, were just wonderful to witness, turning in performances that were never less than truthful; it would be a shame if more people didn’t get to see them, and the delightful chemistry they had with the Filipino ensemble led by the reliable Meann Espinosa.


When I saw Nobody Is Home during its invitational one-weekend run, the theater was filled with young people, presumably students. Watching them engage with and respond to the work was a timely reminder of why exactly theater should never cease to exist. Here was an unpretentious play about real, global Filipinos—about stories many among the viewers no doubt resonated with, told without a shred of hubris by theater makers who clearly understood their Filipino audience.

Tuesday, September 2, 2025

Esquire Feature: The 'student rush lottery' at Theater Group Asia's 'Into the Woods'

Very pleased to make my debut in Esquire with this piece that made pretty good use of my skills as an anthropologist (wink wink). The website link here.

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Of 'Sold-out' Shows, a Ticket Scam, and the Into the Woods Lottery

Four months before its August 7 opening night, Theater Group Asia’s (TGA) Into the Woods announced that all of its 24 scheduled performances were already sold out. The message seemed clear: Those still without a ticket might as well forget about seeing this musical starring Lea Salonga.

For some people, however, that all changed on opening day itself, when TGA suddenly announced the availability of what it termed "student rush lottery tickets." According to the company’s publicity material, 20 students would be granted the chance to purchase discounted tickets at the box office two-and-a-half hours before every performance, with each student allowed to buy a maximum of two tickets.

Theatre Group Asia's Facebook post on August 7, 5 p.m.: "If you're dreaming of a night at the theater, this is your chance to score tickets to Into the Woods tickets at a special price! THE LOTTERY STARTS TONIGHT and will be open every show! Swipe for full mechanics and see you at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater. Cash transactions only!!," the announcement said.

Publicity material by TGA, including a sold-out declaration from March 30, Facebook.

Ticket rush or ticket lotteries are nothing new in the theater world: They have long been standard practice for Broadway (New York) and West End (London) productions. These rush promotions and lotteries more or less occur daily, selling a limited number of seats per performance at markedly discounted prices. According to Playbill.com, which compiles a regularly updated list of such promotions for currently running Broadway shows, lotteries are now mainly conducted online, while rush tickets are sold either online or onsite. At the outset, then, it wasn’t really clear whether TGA’s "student rush lottery" was going to be a rush promotion or a lottery. As I eventually discovered, it also operated quite differently from the lotteries on Broadway, where names are drawn at random from a pool of entrants (as in an actual lottery)—and lining up is not necessary.

Students' Experience at Theatre Group Asia's Lottery Tickets for Into the Woods

This was how Cessna, a medical technology student from the University of Santo Tomas, ended up watching the show. The morning of August 29, Cessna was first in line for the lottery at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater (SPAT), Circuit Makati, where Into the Woods was scheduled to play its fifth-to-the-last performance later that evening.

Cessna described herself as a theater fan; though yet to see a show by any of Manila’s many theater companies, she’d caught the touring productions of HamiltonMiss SaigonThe Lion King, and Cats at The Theatre at Solaire. Her familiarity with Into the Woods was limited to the 2014 film adaptation starring Meryl Streep: "I’m kind of going into this show blind," she said.

Cessna had long given up on ever seeing this Into the Woods, having failed to snag a ticket during the public sale earlier this year. Then, she saw a TikTok video by someone who’d seen the show; the caption went something like: “POV: You’re lucky to get this seat for 750 [pesos]. Such a steal.” That’s how she knew of the lottery. Determined to secure a ticket and watch Salonga perform live for the first time (“the great singer that she is!”), Cessna arrived at Circuit Makati at 8:40 a.m. on the 29th (she didn’t have class that day) and hunkered down outside SPAT for the eight-and-a-half-hour wait until the box office opened.

Twenty minutes later, Elora arrived at 9 a.m., second in line, foldable chair in tow. A media studies student at the University of the Philippines Diliman, Elora, too, had tried—unsuccessfully—to buy tickets during the public sale, and found out about the lottery only a few days earlier on TikTok.

Elora wouldn’t call herself a theater super fan, though she’s currently into the musicals Beetlejuice and Waitress. "I’m more of a concertgoer," she said. Apart from having caught the musical Six when GMG Productions brought it to Solaire last year, she’d yet to see any local production, even the ones staged by Dulaang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas (DUP) at her school. Her younger sister was the real Into the Woods fan, and the reason she was camping out at the lottery line. "I also want to learn more about the theater scene in Manila," Elora said. "I have nothing to lose [from lining up here], anyway."

In contrast, Hannah, who arrived at 10:30 a.m. and was sixth in line, had already seen the show, having bought a ticket for P5,500 during the presale period using her own allowance. A medical student from Bulacan, she said she was lining up for the lottery because the production was "worth watching [again] talaga," and "it’s rare to have Lea Salonga onstage" in the Philippines. Her first time at the theater was only last year: GMG Productions’ Miss Saigon at Solaire; TGA's Into the Woods was her second.

While she knew of the currently running or upcoming local productions like the Philippine Educational Theater Association's (PETA) Walang Aray Tanghalang Pilipino’s Pingkian, she only wished she could stretch her budget to be able to watch these other shows.

It’s interesting, to say the least, how Cessna, Elora, and Hannah all arrived way earlier than the scheduled time of arrival suggested by TGA. In its publicity material for the lottery, TGA instructed: “No need to come early. Lines open only at the posted times.” That meant 12:00 p.m. for matinee shows and 5:00 p.m. for evening shows.

However, all three of them separately stated that one could not—and should not—trust those suggested times.

They had experienced lining up for extended periods of time to buy tickets before: Elora spent at least three hours in line for One Direction concert tickets when the now-defunct boy band came to the Philippines. Cessna was a veteran of anime and streamer conventions, and had once fallen in line at 4 a.m. for a meet-and-greet at SMX Convention Center, Pasay City. Hannah camped out for two days (“I didn’t sleep properly”) to secure a ticket to the American singer Olivia Rodrigo’s concert at the Philippine Arena in 2024.

But it wasn’t just these past experiences that prompted the three to spend more than half the day at Circuit in order to see Into the Woods. Hannah had seen the Instagram photos and reels of the long lines of lottery ticket hopefuls in the last several days; of people going, “It’s only 3 p.m., but I’m already number X in line.” In fact, Hannah said, “It’s ironic that [TGA itself] (re)posted such videos [on Instagram and Facebook stories],” in direct contradiction of its own instructions.

In Elora’s case, she had actually tried to score lottery tickets the day before. Arriving at 2:30 p.m., she found the line terribly long already. “I thought 2:30 was a reasonable and early enough time to arrive, but when I got here, I thought, okay, I’m not even going to fall in line anymore. I’ll just arrive as early as possible tomorrow.”

Cessna said she had also seen the videos on Facebook, “of people talking about how they tried to get lottery tickets, but the line was already quite long by lunchtime.”

Moreover, when she passed by SPAT a few days earlier to inquire about the lottery mechanics, the theater staff even advised her to arrive as early as she could because "the line was usually already long by 12 noon."

"I never believed those instructions. It’s all on Reddit," Hannah said, referring to people talking about their actual experiences with the lottery. A simple Google search confirms this.

Lining Up for the So-Called Lottery First-Hand

I had a similar experience with Cessna. When I arrived at Circuit at 4:35 p.m. the day before these interviews were conducted, the line already stretched from right outside the theater entrance on the ground floor to the adjacent drop-off curb, like an extremely flattened, elongated letter C. Later, at the box office, the chirpy attendant said to me, "Agáhan niyo talaga, sir." Come extremely early.

Thus, I found myself next in line to Hannah that morning of the 29th. It was only 11:30 a.m., and I’d initially planned to run some errands first before hitting the line. Just two hours later, the number of ticket hopefuls had ballooned to 36. By 4:30 p.m., 30 minutes before the box office was set to open, I counted around 108 people in line, not including the ones I’d seen lining up for a brief while before leaving prematurely.

The line outside the theater at 4:30 p.m.

Throughout the afternoon, Hannah and I shared the same thought: Why wouldn’t the theater staff just tell the people way further down the line that they were actually wasting their time? At some point, someone from inside the theater even came out to inspect the lengthy line and said to the crowd, "I hope you all get tickets today."

Because this was how the lottery actually panned out on both days I was there: At 5 p.m., everyone in line was allowed into the building by the guards. We ascended the several flights of escalators before arriving at the theater lobby on the fifth floor. There, the line was compressed into a more compact, sinuous version of itself in front of the box office. The office attendants then commenced ticket selling in the exact order that people were lined up. Each person was asked if they wanted to buy one or two tickets, as advertised—but only one buyer needed to be a student (a current ID or proof of enrollment had to be presented). Both tickets, if one decided to buy two, were sold at the same price for cash payments only. Very quickly, and rather predictably, then, the day’s measly ticket allocation was exhausted. There was no genuine lottery to speak of.

After all ‘lottery’ tickets had been sold, the attendants asked the remaining, sizable crowd still in line to write down their names on a sheet of paper, still in the order that they were lined up. At 7:15 p.m., while the regular audience (and lucky 'lottery' buyers) filed into the theater to take their seats, a sort of last-minute ticket selling unfolded at the box office. On both nights, the attendants called out the names on the ersatz waitlist in order. The first few names were given the option to buy the unsold wheelchair- designated seats in the theater at their regular price (cashless modes of payment now allowed); when these extremely limited seats were sold out, everybody else was told to just try their luck again.

During the waitlist selling at the box office, I observed a mother scrambling to pull out a few more one-thousand-peso bills from her wallet, evidently having planned to spend far less on tickets for her and her teenager. But even the actual, faux-lottery itself was vague with pricing and seat availability. The publicity material only stated: "partial view seats available." One learned of the specifics elsewhere, such as Reddit threads. Along with several other people in line that day, I ended up scoring orchestra center seats originally priced at P6,000 for just P2,000 apiece. Whatever happened to that much-ballyhooed "sold out" declaration?

Inside the theater, with lottery tickets just about to run out (above), and later on during the 'waitlist' selling (below).

To be clear, Into the Woods wasn’t the first theater production in Manila to sell out its run before it had even opened. Just last year, PETA’s One More Chance, the Musical sold out its entire three-month run ahead of its April 2024 premiere. But the sheer star power attached to Into the Woods arguably set it apart from other shows: Its cast boasted Salonga, Eugene Domingo, Mark Bautista, and Broadway imports Arielle Jacobs and Josh dela Cruz. The massive public attention it generated was thus unsurprising.

Theater Ticket Scams

Unfortunately, it was also buzzy enough to attract the attention of scammers—a problem One More Chance likewise encountered. Into the Woods' sold-out status could only have amplified the public’s desperation, rendering more people vulnerable to scammers claiming to sell tickets to the show.

Athena and Avi, both college students on term break at De La Salle University, were just two of the presumably many victims of scammers. The morning of the 29th, they were fourth and fifth in line for ‘lottery’ tickets. But they had previously lost P5,000 each to a scammer.

“We were desperate to get tickets because [Ticketworld] kept malfunctioning during the original selling period, so we failed to score tickets then,” Athena said. “I found someone in a ticket-selling group on Facebook. That person provided me with lots of supposed proof, like IDs and photos of tickets with blurred-out details. We were really skeptical, but they just kept bombarding us with more ‘proof’, including screenshots of people supposedly vouching for them.”

Avi continued: "We only realized we’d been scammed when we didn’t receive the tickets that were supposed to be emailed to us. And the seller’s Facebook account disappeared real quick as well. There’s no trace of it now."

Still, they were determined to spend more of their own savings as students to see the show. "[Into the Woods] was the first musical I was introduced to as a child," Athena said, "and now’s my chance to see my first live show. It’s our last chance to get tickets." The two literally didn’t sleep the previous night and had arrived around 10 a.m. to line up—though they’d also wrongly assumed there was going to be a matinee performance that day.

Curious to see how scammers operated, I had previously contacted two such Facebook accounts in one of the many "buy-and-sell" groups earlier last month. One was named Shane Aliyah; the other, Lyka Dela Rosa. When I asked if they had a ticket for one date in August, they replied within seconds of each other. "Yes po. Sending [tickets] through e-mail po. Legit seller po. Gcash payment." It was as if they shared a script, or a brain and an e-wallet. They were selling different seats in the balcony section; interestingly, though, they were selling seats originally priced at P2,800 for P2,500. Lyka said I could pay P1,000 first, then the rest after receipt of the ticket; Shane said I could pay half the price first so it would be "safe [for] both of us." "Will add password for security purposes [to the emailed ticket]. Too many scammers," Shane said.

After providing her my address, I received an email from Shane—only her email name was Ashley Summer. The message had a password-encrypted photograph of a ticket. When I told her I was discontinuing the transaction because it was too shady, she said, "Why po [crying eyes emoji]. Legit seller here po. God bear me witness. This is 100% legit. You won’t regret transacting with me po." Then she sent me a screencap of a Ticketworld confirmation purchase for an altogether different date than the one I had asked about.

It’s fascinating to see the kind of informal economy spawned by the mad dash to obtain a ticket to Into the Woods last month, even in spite of—or maybe especially because of—the official statement that there were none available anymore. (In this vein, I know of two fellow theater journalists who each bought their ticket from different secondary sources; one was from a fundraiser for a school’s alumni association.)

That day at the 'lottery' line, I couldn’t help thinking, with a tinge of secondhand envy, how wonderful it would be if only the likes of Pingkian or Walang Aray, or Elecktra at The Mirror Studio in Makati City, or Quomodo Desolata Es? Isang Dalamhati at Ateneo de Manila University also enjoyed this level of insane attention and patronage. Behind me, four senior high school girls from the University of Santo Tomas scrambled to seek last-minute permissions from their parents, having mistakenly thought they were lining up for matinee tickets. At some point, Hannah put on her earphones to attend an epidemiology class on Zoom. A pack of Fox’s candies was passed around. The closer it got to 5 p.m., the longer the line became, its 'latecomers' clearly unaware they were lining up for nothing.

Monday, August 11, 2025

Diarist Review: 'Side Show' by The Sandbox Collective

Made my The Diarist debut last weekend with a review of a show that features what feels like the performance of a lifetime. The online link here. I miss writing long-form; will definitely start writing more for this pub. 

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Marvin Ong in Side Show: We may have already seen the performance of 2025

Curtain call at "Side Show," with Marvin Ong (5th from left).


More than halfway through 2025, it is quite possible we may have already seen the musical theater performance of the year.

  

That would be Marvin Ong’s in Side Show, the 1997 Broadway musical now summoned to life by director Toff de Venecia for The Sandbox Collective. This current production marks the musical’s return to Manila since it was last staged professionally in 2018 by Atlantis Theatrical. 


Side Show is loosely based on the lives of the Hilton sisters, a pair of conjoined twins who became celebrities during the twilight of vaudeville in America. In the musical, the sisters Daisy and Violet start out as two of the exploited attractions in the titular sideshow, before being “rescued” by talent scout Terry and his musician friend Buddy, and thrust into the limelight as vaudeville stars perpetually hounded by a rabid press.


For most of the musical, Ong spends his time in the sidelines as Jake, the sideshow “cannibal king” who is also loyal friend to the twins, a largely helpless spectator to the maddening unfolding of their lives. Except in two songs. 


In Act I, Jake leads the ensemble in singing The Devil You Know, a jazzy, gospel-inflected number that becomes a moment of reckoning for all the sideshow members, as they weigh Terry and Buddy’s offer of stardom to the sisters against the harsh uncertainties that life beyond the sideshow purportedly entails. 


Then, in Act II, Jake gets the traditional Broadway ballad You Should Be Loved, his late profession of romantic love to Violet—a doomed declaration that fits grotesquely into the sisters’ by-then already-spiraling personal lives. 


In these two numbers, Ong is a vision of superlative theatrical flair. Commanding in every aspect, his is a performance that not only underscores the surface ethos of the show—“come look at the freaks”—but so completely embodies what it means to live from the outside looking in: the freak long consumed by perverted love, a wretched of the earth, to appropriate Frantz Fanon.


As the supposed “cannibal king,” Ong is far from physically imposing, and his low notes may not be as full as the role demands. But this is silly nitpicking: The overall package Ong delivers is just undeniable. When he sings You Should Be Loved to Violet, Ong makes the musical make sense—and literally stops the show—giving reason to the swirling madness, permitting the viewer a sliver of understanding of how it is to be so unloved yet also, deep down, consumed by love.


In fact, one might argue that, without Ong, Sandbox’s Side Show would be a lesser, incomplete creature. 


Big swings that don’t always works


Never staid and always interesting, this Side Show—de Venecia’s final directorial work (for now) for the company he cofounded in 2014—is a carnival of myriad, big swings that don’t always work. 


Despite its bag of tricks—and it has many!—this production is never able to camouflage the arduous length of the material, made more pronounced by its sung-through nature. While containing some truly gorgeous music, the score by Henry Krieger and Bill Russell (of Dreamgirls fame) also has some brow-raising, pedestrian oddities (“Once in a while we would see a girl/ slowly walking up the hill” is an achievement in using so many words to say virtually nothing). 


In some sequences, choreographer JM Cabling is able to capture the organized chaos of a circus from the ensemble; in others, this emphasis on movement can be less clarifying in terms of propelling the narrative. That uneven ensemble also has comedian Jon Santos (as the sideshow boss) standing out fairly often, and distractingly so (Santos seems to be in his own, separate play).


There’s also a stab at political commentary at the beginning, an attempt to frame the musical’s story of exploitation within the context of past and present global violence, that goes nowhere and is easily forgotten once the musical gets rolling—an unnecessary, too on-the-nose touch.


Moreover—no longer a spoiler at this point—the production also deploys the use of live video to depict some scenes, the moving images projected on screens on opposite walls of the theater. Now synonymous to the European directors Ivo van Hove and Jamie Lloyd, the method here conjures some strikingly high-contrast images that evoke an archaic cinematic feel. But, both times I caught this show, it was sabotaged completely by basic technical issues, the live feed sputtering and lagging.


Yet, when this production is good, it is brilliant. It is that rare creature that has somehow succeeded in making the second act—usually a musical’s trickier half—the notably more compelling one. 


In particular, The Tunnel of Love, a late Act-II number where the sisters go on the eponymous carnival ride with Terry and Buddy, becomes, in de Venecia’s hands, one of the most thrillingly inventive musical moments of the year. Lit only with handheld flashlights (the lighting design is by Gabo Tolentino), it’s the closest approximation of this production’s constant urge to aim for the brightest creative stars. (With the right combination of performers—the production has two actors alternating in each key part—the number also becomes a lucid portrait of romantic corruption.)  


In such instances, this Side Show becomes a cohesive artistic spectacle: the disparate material implements of Mark Dalacat’s set design and Carlos Siongco’s costumes enhancing the musical’s inherent, contradicting impulses of go-for-broke pizzazz, on the one hand, and heartrending interiority, on the other.


The four actresses playing the sisters are terrific in their own right. Krystal Kane and Molly Langley, as Daisy and Violet, respectively, have a more classical musical theater feel to their pairing: enthrallingly sung, with a crystalline sheen that makes the story come across as a tragic fairytale. Meanwhile, Tanya Manalang and Marynor Madamesila’s Daisy and Violet feel earthier, their individual heartbreaks more immediate and soul-crushing. 


Reb Atadero stands out simply for his impeccable presence


Among the supporting players, Reb Atadero stands out simply for his impeccable presence and sheer mastery of musical theater grammar as Terry (his rendition of Private Conversation, in which the character grapples with his inner demons, is breathtaking). In Atadero, Tim Pavino’s Buddy finds a grounding, sparring partner; together, their pairing helps illustrate how Side Show is also a story of opportunism and stunted romance.  


And then, of course, there is Ong. Once a Gawad Buhay-winning Tobias in Repertory Philippines’ Sweeney Todd in 2009, Ong made a triumphant return to the stage after a prolonged absence, for that company’s I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change last year. 


One can only hope that Ong stays for good. In my 17 years of theatergoing in Manila, I can name certain performances that easily qualify as pinnacle moments of local musical theater—Audie Gemora as Albin, tackling the LGBTQ+ anthem I Am What I Am for 9 Works Theatrical’s La Cage aux Folles in 2015; the late Cherie Gil performing Folies Bergère as Liliane La Fleur for Atlantis’ Nine in 2012; Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo’s Diana Goodman in Next to Normal; Poppert Bernadas as Artemio Ricarte in Ang Huling Lagda ni Apolinario Mabini; Joanna Ampil as Francesca in The Bridges of Madison County; Mikkie Bradshaw-Volante’s breakout turn as the titular character in Carrie, to name just six.


Without question, Ong’s performance of You Should Be Loved—and his overall turn as Jake—belongs on that list. It’s a performance that makes you eternally grateful to be able to go to the theater.