PDI Review: Virgin Labfest 15

Back to doing this, after a one-year hiatus. I am including here the phrases and sentences (italicized in brackets) that did not make the final draft, which you can view here.

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Virgin Labfest 15: Is the festival in dire need of new pairs of eyes in its selection committee

The cast of "Wanted: Male Boarders": (L-R) AJ Sison, Ross Pesigan, Lance Reblando, Vincent Kevin Pajara.

The theme for Virgin Labfest 15, closing tomorrow at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, is "titibok-tibok," the human heart as onomatopoeia. Aptly enough, the 12 new works in this festival of "unpublished, unstaged" plays have accidentally coalesced into an examination of society's crux--the family as beginning and end, cause and effect, of every human connection.

'Fangirl'

In Herlyn Alegre's "Fangirl"--by a mile, this Labfest's most accomplished entry, and one of the year's best plays so far--family transcends blood ties. Its premise: Three old friends reunite to buy tickets to their favorite boy band's reunion concert.

As far as the festival is concerned, "Fangirl," directed by Charles Yee, is a frozen, finished product. Through exuberant, richly detailed writing, the play acquires an airtight, fully inhabited quality to it, [turning the seemingly ridiculous phenomenon of pop culture fandom into compelling comedy]. As the three friends fighting tooth and nail over a single VIP ticket, Mayen Estañero, Marj Lorico and Meann Espinosa deliver high-octane performances that leave you gasping for air and wishing for more.

'Wanted: Male Boarders'

"Fangirl" may be the festival's funniest entry, but the most audacious is Rick Patriarca's "Wanted: Male Boarders," [a frisky demonstration of what RuPaul meant when he said, "We as gay people, we get to choose our family"].

Here, three male friends must contend with their boarding house's newest resident (Lance Reblando, in a supernova turn), and eventually, with their individual identities. Imbued with a go-for-broke aesthetic by director George de Jesus III, the play becomes a modern descendant of Dingdong Novenario's "Kafatiran," the 2011 Labfest entry that transplanted gay politics to the time of the Katipuneros.

[Masquerading as sex farce while slyly taking down traditional masculinity], "Wanted: Male Boarders" is also a statement on its author. Third time's the charm for Patriarca: This latest piece successfully combines his skill for rigorous character writing in "Birdcage" (2017) with his eye for broad comedy, first evinced in his breakthrough play "Hapagkainan" (2016).

'Anak Ka Ng'

Meanwhile, U Z Eliserio's "Anak Ka Ng," about a convoluted relationship between an OFW mother and her daughter, initially appears to tackle banal territory.

But what it captures perfectly--and what playwright Maynard Manansala's directorial debut gets right--is the tone of toxic, adult relationships, where conversations are fueled by passive aggression and abound in non-sequiturs.

Here, the mother and daughter are long past pure hurt; they have settled with trying to one-up each other through sarcastic jabs and testing each other's limits.

If the play occasionally lapses into speechifying, it matters not. The mother-daughter pair of Skyzx Labastilla and Krystle Valentino completely sells their characters' tortuous emotional dynamics, as only those who truly, deeply love each other can.

'The Bride and the Bachelor'

In Novenario's "The Bride and the Bachelor," love is ambiguous--and ambiguity is the point. On her wedding day, the titular bride shows up at her ex's place, and what unfolds is the kind of cerebral, conceptual challenge that may understandably turn some viewers off.

Once you buy into the time-bending conceit, however, the rewards run aplenty, the ensuing conversations on marriage and the play's no-man's-land setting given a spunky, corporeal touch by the spirited pairing of Via Antonio and Alex Medina (in a more-than-capable stage debut). And Topper Fabregas' polished, no-frills direction constantly reminds us that what we're seeing is not exactly of this plane, even though what we're hearing most definitely is.

'A Family Reunion'

"The Bride..." can teach Anthony Kim Vergara's "A Family Reunion" a thing or two about taking the unsafe path. Directed by Ian Segarra, Vergara's play, with its cutting, naturalistic dialogue and near-perfect ensemble playing, is straight out of Tolstoy: "Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Until the play forces happiness, and an artificial resolution, on its characters. Halfway through, "A Family Reunion" devolves into cheap melodrama--somebody delivers a monologue set to vapid music on a spotlight; soon after, the patriarch (conveniently) reveals he has terminal cancer, igniting that cop-out of an epilogue. Still, Chrome Cosio, Joshua Tayco, Gie Onida and especially an enchanting Sabrina Basilio deliver seamless, mesmerizing ensemble work here.

'Huling Hiling,' 'Pag-uulyanin'

Raymund Barcelon's "Huling Hiling ni Darling" is basically Raymund Reyes' "Ang Naghihingalo" from 2014--a family squabbling in the hospital while dealing with a critically ill patient--only not as triumphantly funny, and written like an eye-roll-inducing soap (betraying the playwright's TV background).

Overreliant on lazy monologues for plot advancement while infested by far too many purposeless characters, this is prototypical, promising-but-flawed, "virgin" material.

Thankfully, director Ricardo Magno's production has Sherry Lara, nailing punch line after punch line as the family matriarch, to keep it moving forward.

Rolin Migyuel Obina's "Ang Pag-uulyanin ni Olivia Mendoza," on the other hand, has Celeste Legaspi going full-on camp [(in a climate-inappropriate, leopard-print coat, no less)] to buoy the proceedings. But she isn't enough to conceal this play's lack of lucidity--Phil Noble's inchoate direction, the poorly researched attempt at a character suffering from multiple mental disorders, and its careless handling of (trans)gender politics. In the end, the play comes off as a massive joke only Legaspi fully commits to.

'Unreachable Star,' 'Bata,' 'Demonyo'

The attempt at inserting mental illness into the story is even more ill-conceived in Layeta Bucoy's "The Unreachable Star": It's basically an afterthought and a plot twist rolled into one. By the time that stab comes along, you're exhausted from listening to this Mara Marasigan-directed play, which mistakes exposition for dialogue, and tawdry revelation for genuine story development, the characters talking like they're in a Q&A and existing in a vacuum.

A similar tedium haunts Sari Saysay's "Wala nang Bata Dito," a schizophrenic Tanya Lopez-directed monologue that can't help explaining itself, then explaining some more. Its protagonist (portrayed rotely by Venise Buenaflor) is the breathing embodiment of poverty porn, a black hole of society's ills. Plus, anyone who saw Alegre's "Huling Huli" from 2015 would straightaway know what a rip-off one of this play's many clinchers is.

Nicolas Pichay's "Larong Demonyo," about a young man confronting the aging general who tortured his family during martial law, is another tedious production. For one, its meandering script[--opening with a scene straight out of John Logan's "Red"--]is stuffed with "smart" dialogue that must have looked good on paper [(a grating, metaphor-driven chess game figures prominently)].

In different hands, the play might have worked. But between Jose Estrella's bafflingly tensionless direction and a woefully miscast Leo Rialp as the general, it only disappoints.

'Surrogare,' 'Isang Gabi'

Disappointment easily gives way to exasperation when one considers J. Dennis Teodosio's "Surrogare," directed by Roobak Valle.

All the tired tropes and hackneyed expressions of kabaklaan are lumped into this protracted excuse of a play about a gay couple celebrating their anniversary and bickering over the pros and cons of having a child. It is unfunny, littered with strained characterizations, apparently ignorant of artificial insemination, and has a dreadfully written female character who is made to do nothing for majority of the play--[calling to mind what the drag queen Miss Vanjie said: "You gotta pick a struggle. You can't struggle at everything"].

At least "Surrogare" has a firm concept to it; Ryan Machado's "Isang Gabing ang Buwan ay Hila-hila ng Gula-gulanit na Ulap," directed by Paolo O'Hara, is a puzzlement from start to finish--surely qualifying as an all-time low for this festival.

In brief, what this play manages to do is include small-town politics, tokhang and Duterte's drug war, male homoeroticism and the myth of the aswang in its script. What it fails to do is weave a sensible draft out of those elements.

207 entries

The inclusion of "Surrogare" and "Isang Gabi..." really makes you question the festival's selection process. That these two, out of a record 207 submissions, still made the final cut only reflects on the quality of the rest of the submissions.

Either that, or the festival is in dire need of fresh, new pairs of eyes in its selection committee. If the selection process were truly blind and unbiased, then the fact that more or less the same names keep turning up year after year speaks volumes of the way the plays are being chosen.

Of course, the Labfest is about unveiling new, "virgin" works. But surely it can do better than settle for a world in which the likes of "Fangirl" and Dustin Celestino's punctiliously written "Mga Eksena sa Buhay ng Kontrabida" in the Revisited section are forced to exist alongside "Surrogare" and "Isang Gabi..." 

PDI Feature: Aicelle Santos, post-'Miss Saigon'

To date, Aicelle Santos has essayed only five roles in the theater--teenage Katy, Aileen, Perla in "Maynila," Gigi and Elsa. The website version of my interview here.

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Aicelle Santos: Back to flooded Venezia from war-torn Saigon

"Himala, Isang Musikal," February-March 2018.

From flooded Barangay Venezia to war-torn Saigon, and back.

Such has been the theatrical journey of Aicelle Santos, who has returned to the country after a yearlong stint in the 2017-2019 European touring production of "Miss Saigon," where she played jaded bar girl Gigi.

Now she's set to reprise the role she originated in Philippine Educational Theater Association's (Peta) "Rak of Aegis"--that of Aileen, who puts fictional Venezia on the world's radar after a video of her belting out "Basang-basa sa Ulan" goes viral--for the jukebox musical's sixth rerun, beginning July 5.

"When I got the news that 'Rak' was coming back, and Peta called, I immediately said yes," Santos says. "My first musical was 'Katy' [Spotlight Artists Centre, 2013], and the reason I have 'Rak' is because the 'Rak' people saw me in 'Katy.' 'Rak' opened a lot of doors for me. It gave me a different level of confidence."

Besides, Santos says, "'Rak' is family, especially offstage. Once you sit at Peta's dining table, you won't want to go home anymore."

Before "Saigon," "Rak's" three-month run in 2016 was already the longest production Santos had been part of--and "that wasn't even every day," she says.

Good training

"So the 'Miss Saigon' tour was really good training. We did eight shows a week and only had one day-off per week. The challenge was how to keep the performance fresh. And you do that by researching again and again, by becoming more observant of the people around you. It's more an actor's work."

More so with playing Aileen in "Rak," which Santos has done since the show's 2014 premiere. "I don't know if I can still portray a 19-year-old after this season [but] I'm actually excited on how I will interpret the role now. After a tour, musicians say, you come back a different person. I understand that now in some way."

Shortly after joining "Saigon," Santos was diagnosed with chondromalacia--the thinning of the cartilage in the bones of the knees. "It's because my physical activities in Europe were different. I was constantly walking, going up and down the stairs, plus the dance training. Here in the Philippines, we're used to having cars. We're not used to walking. Nagulat 'yung muscles ko.

"Apparently, it's the common injury among 'Saigoners.' Since the cartilage is thin, the bones rub against each other. Whenever I moved, it was painful. I had to really rest and rehabilitate for one month. I had to be injected with steroids to numb the pain, so I could do strengthening exercises for the leg [the recommended treatment in the absence of cartilage damage]. Wala pala akong muscles sa legs!"

Touring life

Injury aside, Santos says she actually enjoyed the touring life. "That was my first time away from home, living alone, outside my comfort zone. The best part was traveling. I saw places I never thought I'd see in my lifetime."

The tour took her to cities across the United Kingdom, as well as Cologne, Germany, and Zurich, Switzerland.

"My most favorite was Zurich. That was my first experience with snow. Next is Bristol, because I liked the vibe, a mix of city and countryside. Also, Norwich, because that was when my fiancé, Mark [Zambrano, the sports journalist], visited me.

"I'm open to working on another international musical but now I want to be back home to get married and start a life with Mark. If the heavens open doors for me to work abroad again, at least I can take Mark."

After "Rak," Santos will reprise her Gawad-Buhay winning turn as the purported visionary Elsa in the rerun this September of The Sandbox Collective's "Himala, Isang Musikal," the musical adaptation of Ishmael Bernal's classic film.

Having performed on both sides of the world, Santos concludes: "Foreign theatergoers are very disciplined. Everything has to be on time. When you say six o'clock, you have to be onstage at six--everyone moving and warming up. If not, you're late. No one's ever late there. They're very systematic with rehearsal, room assignments, costumes, mics. Kaya naman natin sa Pilipinas e.

"But in terms of talent, we're on par. In terms of material, we're also on par. We have good writers, good musicians, and, I think, the best actors.

"[The English] kasi, most of them come from drama and theater schools. That, we don't have. 'Yung training natin, sabak kaagad tayo sa show. So I noticed Filipinos are driven by passion. Whenever they're onstage, ramdam na ramdam mo. It's always 100 percent.

"I'm not saying foreigners are not passionate. They have heart, but we have more heart. Put a foreigner side by side with a Filipino, lakas ng impact ng Pinoy."

PDI Review: 'Roses for Ben' by Artist Playground

My God, what a train wreck. Dotnet version of my review here.

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'Roses for Ben': This version is not what audiences need to see

There is not only an artistic responsibility, but also a moral one, that comes with staging plays of urgent sociopolitical importance--the likes of "The Normal Heart" and "Angels in America," both of which deal with the HIV-AIDS crisis in profoundly illuminating ways.

Viewed through this lens, Artist Playground's "Roses for Ben"--with book and lyrics by Rayne Jarabo, music by Jesse Lucas and direction by Roeder Camañag--gives little cause for celebration.

Carelessly written

Put simply, this original Filipino musical about a gender-fluid man who discovers he has HIV is carelessly written, poorly thought-out and ineptly staged.

The musical has been marketed as an HIV-awareness play. Yet it either treats its most crucial scenes in an undignified manner or shies away from harnessing completely the dramatic truths of those moments.

The climactic scene between Ben and his father, when son finally opens up to parent about his condition, is treated almost as an afterthought. A scene set in a clinic portrays the nurse and HIV counselor as an idiot who believes the virus can be contracted from fish and an over-the-top comedic punching bag, respectively--the very antithesis to this play's pedagogical mission.

There is even a disposable song number devoted to a supporting character expounding on a rumor about someone having the virus--a rumor that the audience is expected to substitute for the truth.

Instead, this musical gives more weight to scenes and characters that do not advance the story or have no place in the fictive world whatsoever--stagnant song numbers and supporting roles whose contributions to the plot are inversely proportional to their stage time.

Which is to say, the skill involved here is very rudimentary, as if this musical's idea of a musical is song number after song number interspersed between book scenes at an exhausting rate.

And the staging does nothing to elevate the text: The actors all perform in different volumes, styles and rhythms, while the scenes are allowed to progress at their own pace.

So many more questions need answering: Why does this story seem not to care enough about its female lead to give her both a proper buildup and resolution?

Why hasn't anybody bothered tweaking those notes that Bobby Martino, as Ben's father, can't hit in his 11 o'clock number?

Maybe we'd be more forgiving if "Roses for Ben," this hatchling of a musical, were about some other topic. But the latest data from the Department of Health reveal the severity of the HIV-AIDS crisis in the country: 38 new infections every day. Now is not the time to be fooling around.

There's no denying the benevolent intent of this piece. But serious reconsideration and rewriting are warranted, especially if, as the producers have earlier said, this musical were to be toured around the country. Right now, what's certain is that this version of "Roses for Ben" is not the one audiences need to see.

PDI Feature: The ladies of 'Beautiful' on Carole King and women today

One fine day for something new in Inquirer-Theater--the website version here. (We should do more roundtable-ish piece, I think.)

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Carole King musical: A 'Beautiful' celebration of the empowered woman

Only two shows from the 2013-2014 season are still running on Broadway: Disney's "Aladdin," and the jukebox musical "Beautiful," which uses the songs of Carole King to dramatize her early career, up to the recording of her global bestseller "Tapestry." By next week, Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group will have premiered both musicals in the Philippines.

"Beautiful" reunites director Bobby Garcia with Kayla Rivera, who played Princess Jasmine when Atlantis staged the first non-American production of "Aladdin" in 2012 (preceding the show's Broadway bow by more than a year).

Ahead of "Beautiful's" June 14 opening, we talked with Rivera and the other eight women in the cast about King's influence in their artistic lives and what it means--and takes--to be a woman today. (The roles the women are playing are indicated in parentheses.)

Here are edited excerpts from our e-mail exchanges:

Mikkie Bradshaw-Volante (Cynthia Weil): I grew up listening to Carole King. My parents were big fans of hers: "Tapestry" was on constant rotation in our record player, and my mom and I would even jam to "It's Too Late" on the family piano.

Jill Peña (Janelle Woods/Shirelle): "It's Too Late" was a regular in my family's playlist back when the videoke era was in full swing. I was so obsessed with it, I composed a ringtone on my tita's Nokia 3210. Then, at my first-ever singing competition in college, I sang "Natural Woman."

Kayla Rivera (Carole King): At a talent showcase in Calgary, Canada, where I was born and raised, I heard a friend sing "Natural Woman." Right away, I was hooked. I went home and started listening to Aretha Franklin's version. From then on, it was the song I'd always be excited to perform, even if I couldn't relate to the lyrics. My mom would tell me to sing more age-appropriate songs, but I'd insist on singing it.

Maronne Cruz (Betty): King's songs have a pervasive way of hitting the heart, even when they've been passed on and loved by generations of musicians, and reinterpreted in different ways. "Chains" by The Beatles, "Natural Woman" by Franklin, "I Feel the Earth Move" by Mandy Moore. The first two were impossible not to grow up with. The latter, I found in Moore's "Coverage" album, which is an album full of covers (go figure!).

Teetin Villanueva (Little Eva/Shirelle): Growing up, I would hear [King's] songs, like "It's Too Late" and "Natural Woman," on the radio. I learned "You've Got a Friend" for a voice class when I was in grade school, and back then, I didn't know anything about King. I was pleasantly surprised to discover she cowrote "The Loco-Motion"--I honestly had no idea!

Alex Reyes (ensemble): It was like a light-bulb moment for me when I saw "Beautiful" on Broadway in 2017. I was surprised by how many of King's songs I'd grown familiar with as a child. "Ah! She wrote that!"

Gabby Padilla (ensemble): [In "Beautiful"], not only are we celebrating King as an artist, but also King as a woman who comes into her own and finds her own voice. We forget how lucky we are to live in a time when women can pursue their dreams without question (well, for the most part).

Bradshaw-Volante: What audiences need to understand is that when King started, the music industry was predominantly run by men.

Villanueva: Back then, women were expected to become teachers or housewives. King broke those stereotypes.

Gab Pangilinan (Marilyn Wald/Shirelle): She paved the way for more female artists [see: The Shirelles!] and served as a representation of an empowered woman.

Bradshaw-Volante: [But] as much as times have changed for the better, there is still immense pressure on women. You're expected to juggle motherhood, careers, relationships--all while maintaining a tiny waistline. I don't think a lot of men realize that women wake up and charge into battle every day. This perfect contour and lipstick isn't just makeup; it's war paint.

Padilla: Oftentimes, women shrink or compromise themselves to accommodate people or relationships because we think that's all we deserve. We're so apologetic for the space we take up.

Bradshaw-Volante: "Beautiful" [celebrates] the bravery and strength required to be a woman, so you need a cast of fierce females who are up to the task.

Peña: I don't think I've cried this many times during a rehearsal period! It's like daily catharsis; the show just makes its way into your soul, and everyone comes out of it better than when she started.

Cruz: One thing I enjoy about more female-centric narratives is how they expose the different stories that women face and the different facets of femininity. Working on shows with strong female characters and cast mates always feels like my own form of activism.

Rivera: Another female-centric narrative that I was part of was "Side Show" [last year]. But that was different in that the conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton had suppressed voices and were taken advantage of throughout their lives. To see "Beautiful" shed light on a woman being triumphant in a profound way leaves us with a sense of empowerment.

Pangilinan: ["Side Show"] was my first time in an Atlantis production, with Kayla [as Daisy].

Villanueva: This is my sixth Atlantis production as part of the cast, and third as Cecile Martinez's assistant choreographer, [but] I think it's the first time that majority of the cast are millennials. I'm used to being at the rehearsal venue one to one-and-a-half hours before call time, and it's refreshing to see I'm not the only one who is extra early. When we were still in the process of cleaning choreography... I remember seeing Direk Bobby arrive with a surprised look on his face because it looked like rehearsals were already ongoing.

Cruz: Bobby does a lot of bonding games and workshops for the cast in general. He's constantly verbally uplifting the women... and reminding us of our strengths that we often take for granted.

Carla Guevara-Laforteza (Genie Klein): I'm grateful to Bobby for entrusting me with this role, because this is the first show I'm doing for Atlantis where I barely sing. It's like doing a straight play. There are a lot of musicals I've been part of that had strong women characters at the center--"Miss Saigon," "Song and Dance," "Nine"--and it's not any different from working on a show where the man is the lead. You give the same effort and deliver the same level of performance quality to each show. When I was starting [in theater], there were only three of us in my batch in Repertory Philippines who were being groomed to be future leading ladies (the others were Sheila Valderrama-Martinez and Maya Barredo), so we had the advantage of being personally trained by our mentors Bibot Amador and Baby Barredo. I can't say it's easier now [for women in theater], but consistency is key. You are only as good as your last performance.

PDI Review: 'The Kundiman Party' at the Peta Theater Center

Let me say it again: Any Floy Quintos play is an event. He says he's done writing new plays, but let's all pray he changes his mind. The website version of this review here. (I was supposed to review the original run last year, but appendicitis happened.)

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'Kundiman Party': Keep fighting the good fight, no matter the odds

Curtain call at "The Kundiman Party."

Eleven o'clock numbers (the theater term for a show-stopping song late in the second act) apply only to musical theater, but the penultimate scene in Floy Quintos' "The Kundiman Party" now feels like one.

In that scene, the dishonorable senator Juancho Valderrama finally comes face-to-face with his estranged son, Bobby, who has taken the opposite path as a voice of the resistance movement.

That scene was already dramatically satisfying during the play's premiere at the University of the Philippines-Diliman last year, with Kalil Almonte as Bobby going against an appropriately slimy Teroy Guzman--the rebel standing up to the ruler.

This time, Nonie Buencamino plays the senator, and Boo Gabunada is Bobby--and what they bring to the show is an electric, more familial dynamic.

Gabunada's Bobby is angrier, louder, more kinetic--a child prematurely molded by the harsh streets to become the fighter that he is. Beneath that facade of the woke millennial is a boy who learned to survive on his own. It's a character arc conveyed so convincingly, that by the time Buencamino enters the fray, all of Bobby's strident aggression makes perfect sense. 

What surprisingly surfaces is a long-dormant father-and-son relationship.

Buencamino's senator somehow reveals a caring parent underneath that veneer of calculated evil. And yet, his performance is made all the more delectable by its ambiguity: Is he really a caring father more than he is a politician, or is he just being a politician and fooling us all?

What's left unspoken

It's astonishing how that singular scene is steered by what the characters leave largely unspoken--the years of absence and repressed hurt finally taking control of the situation.

When Buencamino's senator tells his son to go to the mountains because that's where the real battle is--even though "I may lose you, anak"--you know that Gabunada's Bobby might very well do just that, if only to perform the ultimate act of rebellion.

And then it dawns on you that somehow, Bobby is now all of us--the ones who hoped for a tide of genuine change in the recently concluded midterm elections, and saw that hope annihilated; the ones who have carved their own corner in social media, helping fight the noble fight, and still got duped by the powers-that-be.

Last year, "The Kundiman Party" came across as self-reflection for the nation, asking, as reviewer Arturo Hilado wrote for this paper, "Fight or flight? Struggle or acquiescence?"

Now, three years into the Duterte administration and with the return to the Senate of some of the biggest thieves, those questions no longer await our individual answers so much as demand them.

The rest of the company are still in topflight form. Shamaine Centenera-Buencamino's portrait of the songstress Adela, in whose home the story unfolds, remains a masterful creation of the stage; her accent alone, littered with subtle hints of one who feels alien to both Filipino and foreign tongues, works wonders in the storytelling.

But when the senator proclaims to Adela that "we are building a new nation," it's hard not to feel the make-believe giving way to reality. This time around, "The Kundiman Party" isn't just telling us to "resist" from the comforts of our echo chambers; it's already imploring us to keep fighting the good fight despite the miserable odds.

PDI Feature: 'Laro' and Pride Month with Artist Playground

Any Floy Quintos play is an event. The website version here.

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Floy Quintos' 'Laro' kick-starts Pride Month at Arts Above

Pride Month at Arts Above? That's the idea behind Artist Playground's (AP) programming for June--well, sort of.

"There was this group that planned to put up a pink theater festival, and the organizers wanted AP to host," says artistic director Roeder Camañag. "But for some reason, this is no longer pushing through."

Enter Floy Quintos' "Laro," an adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's "La Ronde," which consists of 10 interlocking, amorous vignettes set in late-19th-century Vienna.

Quintos' version, however, transports the story to present-day Manila and turns all the characters into male homosexuals.

"A bracing meditation on identity, longing and survival" was how Gibbs Cadiz, Inquirer's theater critic at the time, described "Laro" in his review of the play's premiere more than 14 years ago. Among other things, that production, directed by the playwright himself, was defined by "dialogue that's remarkable for its clarity as for its casual, if bitter, truth," exposing the "small but volcanically complex gay society [as a place where], for all its surface urban freedom, tribal passions still reign and the terrain of kindred connections often feels like a battlefield."

Same struggles

For John Mark Yap, director of AP's "Laro," that terrain has remained more or less the same. "It's quite alarming, to be honest, that the gay community is still experiencing the same challenges and struggles from more than a decade ago. The issues discussed in the play such as sexual predation and power play are still very prevalent."

Staging the play is a wish fulfilled for Yap, who was still a minor when "Laro" premiered in late 2004. "I played the role of the Young Gentleman when Tanghalang Ateneo staged "La Ronde" in 2010," he says. But he only got to read Quintos' adaptation in 2014, when he served as project manager for the book launch of the playwright's two-volume collection of plays.

"I first worked with AP in 2016 as a graphics designer, and in one of our encounters, Paul Jake Paule and Sir Roeder said I should direct for their company. I was honestly very hesitant since I'm more known in the industry as a stage manager, and it was only last year when I told them I was finally accepting the challenge of directing."

For "Laro," Yap has assembled, through personal invitation, what he calls "an all-star cast"--a mix of stage veterans such as the multihyphenate Vincent de Jesus and Phi Palmos, and relatively fresh products of the campus theater circuit like Jon Abella and Vincent Pajara.

The creative team includes Io Balanon (sets), Nicolo Perez (costumes), Miggy Panganiban (lights), Arvy Dimaculangan (sound), JM Cabling (movement) and Gian Nicdao (graphics).

Following "Laro's" two-weekend run, AP will stage "Roses for Ben," which the company bills as the first HIV-awareness gay musical in the country, with Camañag directing.

"'Laro' should serve as a prelude to 'Roses for Ben,'" Yap says. "June is Pride Month so it's definitely the best time to stage these plays about the gay community."

PDI Opinion: Nice

Today, I make my Inquirer-Opinion debut! The website version here.

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Nice

Days before the midterm elections, the worst kind of pictures popped up in my Facebook feed: this lady I knew relatively well, posing with her grown children, all of them sporting gray shirts imprinted with the face of that Davaoeño ex-cop with dramatic proclivities. By now, said ex-cop is set to join the Senate, if we go by the Commission on Elections' count, and that Facebook friend is off gallivanting in some European capital.

It was very tempting to comment on that post; I was thinking something short and sweet, like "why"--lowercase and unpunctuated for a touch of genteel curiosity. But after verbalizing the idea, I was told, as I'd been told many times before, to "be nice." Was it really worth the trouble--this vaguely aggressive comment and the arguments it would conceivably entail, the feathers it would ruffle?

As that trending Twitter photo proclaimed, "It's just politics. Don't let our political preferences destroy friendships and relationships."

Sure thing. Social media, after all, is just one huge echo chamber, full of paid trolls, manicured profiles and like-minded people following and preaching to each other. Beyond our screens, we have real lives to lead and real people to interact with. And being nice--which, in our patriarchy- and hierarchy-obsessed society, often translates to smiling pretty, staying silent and bottling up one's political feelings in favor of preserving the peace--has always come in handy.

They didn't give out medals for the "most polite" kids back in kindergarten for nothing. It's simply the way we're conditioned: grandparents doting on grandchildren who are "obedient"; parents handing out easy rewards for "doing what we say without question." And for the grownups, being nice sweetens the parties we throw, expands our businesses through newfound acquaintances, and flavors random incidents with a more palatable taste for the purposes of memory. Why bother rocking the boat of shallow, civil conversation?

I'm neither parent nor aspiring New-Age life coach, but it's a mistake to confuse nice with nonconfrontational. Only a fool would think collective, courteous silence has ever helped anyone.

Nice gets you children who grow up to become adults bereft of the ability to engage in intelligent, insightful discussion on politics, religion or any other "sensitive" subject--or worse, adults who think discussing such matters in places other than the classroom is at the very least inappropriate, the doings of a party pooper.

Nice means making excuses for those friends or family members who openly and vocally support the government's "war on drugs" (after three years, it's amazing how some people still buy this story), thinking, well, there's more to these persons than just their morals or stand on socioeconomic issues; that anyway, they have raised loving families and have known yours for the longest time--plus bonus points for being devout churchgoers--so they must certainly be better people than their poorly crafted Facebook posts make them out to be.

Nice means just keeping quiet and walking away after an elderly relative tells you he's not voting for Samira Gutoc because--and I kid you not--"she's a loud woman," and that Neri Colmenares is a "threat to businessmen," which makes sense only in the context of said relative, who happens to be richer than probably half the people in your hometown combined.

The ending, of course, is that nice helps get elected to the Senate people like that Davaoeño ex-cop, or that photobombing former aide to the President, who, it should go without saying, is all sorts of unqualified.

In some way, this must feel kind of a reach--to say that our individual upbringing is the reason we now have plundering actors, fanatical boxers and theatrical policemen to write the laws of the land. But grand, disastrous endings can somehow all be traced back to the subliminal cracks at the beginning, to minds tenderly kept shut and mouths demurely kept closed.

So while majority of Filipinos, the ones who don't have the luxury to care about "Avengers: Endgame" or "Game of Thrones," eke out a living on a day-to-day basis, the privileged few--the ones with access and the linguistic faculty to read this piece--continue to be nice to each other. There's always church for our weekly dose of thanksgiving and social media for the occasional, intellectual rant.

Maybe what we need is some plain, blunt thinking to reflect on what the American master composer Stephen Sondheim wrote: Nice is different than good.

PDI Review: 'Saltik: Isang Laboratoryo' by FEU Theater Guild; 'Unperfect' and 'A Doll Life' by Ateneo Fine Arts; 'Marat/ Sade' by UP Dulaang Laboratoryo

I have to say, the thesis season this year has been quite wonderful. My latest say on the matter, via the Inquirer website, here.

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Ambitious student theater performances from FEU, UP, Ateneo

The aftermath of "Marat/Sade."

The past weekend of theatergoing can be summed up by the words of the esteemed playwright Glenn Sevilla Mas, who, in an exclusive interview last year, had this to say about the state of Filipino theater: "The future is bright because the future is here."

Take, for instance, Far Eastern University Theater Guild's "Saltik," a collection of eight one-act plays, many written by student-members of the company and all of them directed by Dudz Teraña.

The production as a whole commits the rookie mistake of equating noise with emotion, and some of the plays can get quite derivative and gimmicky. All understandable: The show, after all, is billed as a lab, meaning it is the proper, if not the only, place for such faults.

It is also an ideal place to push boundaries, which is exactly what "Saltik" surprisingly does. For example, Marielle Barrios' "Daungan," despite being in need of much tightening, manages to give the classic father-and-son tandem a welcome speculative-fiction twist.

Hanna Pelobello's psychodrama "Rachel" is a display of bravura staging, as Teraña anthropomorphizes the various voices and past lives inhabiting the disturbed titular character's head.

The best of the lot is "Proposal," a Bisaya monologue written by Teraña himself (and here, one suspects it's a case of the director knowing exactly what to do with the material). Mapping out the rise and violent decline of a relationship from the woman's point of view, the play is told with admirable clarity, largely thanks to Karyl Oliva, in a flat-out delightful performance.

'G/irl/'

At the Ateneo de Manila University, another monologue gave birth to a star: Maia Dapul in "Unperfect," a devised performance piece directed by Jerry Respeto that culled existing songs from the likes of "Next to Normal," "Kung Paano Ako Naging Leading Lady" and "Real-Life Fairytales."

It was essentially a skeletal rendering of a woman's life from womb to tragic tomb, a musical exploration on the damage wrought by being brought up under the concept of perfection and having that concept somehow taken away later on.

The piece itself stood out for its economy of words, its translation to the stage acquiring a sort of poetic quality, as well as for the way it reinterpreted the selected songs to fit its female-centric narrative. Dapul was a blazing, transfixing presence, her delineations of character and setting clear-cut, her performance a fiery announcement of a serious new entrant to the world of musical theater.

"Unperfect" was one of two thesis plays lumped together under the twin bill titled "G/irl/." The other was "A Doll Life"--the more ambitious but less focused piece--starring Alyssa Jamille Binay, Senanda Gomez and Chrisse Joy delos Santos (with further input for the play from Iman Ampatuan).

The feminism was more accessible in "A Doll Life," where the trio of student-actresses played dolls that somehow come to life (or something akin to it). But the play, in extensively critiquing women's roles in society, also involved a lot of sidetracking and fun but unnecessary banter.

It was strongest--both in terms of writing and performance--when it reached its culminating monologues, which allowed the actresses to be their own persons and enchantingly deliver their respective texts.

'Marat/Sade'

The pinnacle of ambitious student theater, however, was unquestionably UP Dulaang Laboratoryo's "Marat/Sade," the Tony Award-winning Peter Weiss play now translated by Gio Potes and Guelan Luarca to become "Ang Pag-uusig at Pagpaslang kay Jean-Paul Marat Ayon sa Pagkakatanghal ng Mga Pasyente ng Asilo ng Charenton sa Ilalim ng Direksyon ni Marquis de Sade."

On several levels, the play was a challenge: Its dialogue was laced with cerebral polemics on matters such as revolution and class struggle; and its play-within-a-play setup required a cast that could pull off playing asylum inmates struggling to play relatively sane people.

It also had to be staged in a way that combined elaborate, period-drama flamboyance with low-key horror-house theatrics, while somehow making the intellectual back-and-forth less esoteric for the viewer.

None of which the production, directed by Joy Cerro, surmounted unequivocally. And because this was a play that, when steered inadequately, became even more perplexing, it was obvious to the viewer whenever the production sagged.

That also means that whenever the production soared, it was an enthralling sight to behold. It knew horror and gore better than the other dramatic elements, and that translated to the staging and the acting, such as that scene when the seams between reality and make-believe first gave way, or in that horrific denouement.

The only ones among the cast who were believable asylum patients were Xander Soriano (commanding as Marat chained to a bathtub), Sheryll Ceasico (her affectless, almost-wordless turn a lesson on consistency) and Hariette Damole (incandescent, gripping, almost pitiful as the unfortunate, internally splintered soul tasked to play the murderous Charlotte Corday; an acting thesis that clearly deserved a 1.0).

The inadvertent runaway star of "Marat/Sade," however, was Adrianna Agcaoili. As the bourgeois hospital director's wife, she had zero lines, but her face was worth a thousand GIFs. And if the students learned a thing or two from her about silently running the show from the sidelines, that could only be for the better.

After all, for these theater kids, the real show's just getting started. 

PDI Feature: Audie Gemora and Teroy Guzman on 'The Dresser'

I honestly had lots of fun writing this for-theater-nerds advancer feature. The website version here.

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'The Dresser' brings three theater stalwarts together for the first time

The cast of "The Dresser" at curtain call.

At the Peta Theater Center in 2012, Nonon Padilla directed a production of "King Lear," now "Haring Lear" through "brilliant, exceptionally vivid Filipino prose by National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera," wrote former Inquirer Theater editor Gibbs Cadiz. The titular role--a "sonorously voiced, charismatic [and] highly physical" interpretation, to go by Cadiz's review--was played by Teroy Guzman.

Guzman now finds himself taking another stab at Lear. This time, however, he's playing an actor playing Lear--in Loy Arcenas' production of Ronald Harwood's "The Dresser," which opened last night as Repertory Philippines' (Rep) third production for the year.

Set in the backstage of an English theater in World War II, "The Dresser" chiefly revolves around the relationship between an aging actor, referred to only as Sir, and his personal assistant, Norman. The story takes place in the course of an evening, where Sir, plagued by senility, if not dementia, struggles to get through a performance of "Lear."

Debuts for Rep

In this Rep production, Norman is played by Audie Gemora, who returns to the 52-year-old company after his Gawad Buhay-winning turn as the flamboyant director Roger de Bris in 2013's "The Producers." And with both Guzman and Arcenas making their acting and directorial debuts, respectively, for Rep, "The Dresser" marks the first time the three stalwarts of Filipino theater are working together.

Gemora was actually the one who recommended the play to Arcenas, when the latter directed the former in Tanghalang Pilipino's (TP) "Eurydice" in early 2017. By then, Arcenas had been back in the country for a good six years, having spent most of his working life as a New York-based director and designer, and was only about to release his biggest film to date--the Metro Manila Film Festival Best Picture "Ang Larawan," his cinematic take on the musical adaptation of Nick Joaquin's "A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino."

"Loy put a lot of value in studying the book [for 'The Dresser']," Gemora says. "A lot of time was spent dissecting the script and the characters. It's a tedious process which led to intimidating photo-finish run-throughs, but by opening night, the cast was good and ready."

"At first it was a bit confusing," Guzman says of Arcenas' process, "but when I slowly deciphered things, I began to figure out where he was coming from. He took the time to sit down and discuss the character with me throughout the rehearsal process."

It was only a year before "Eurydice" when Gemora and Guzman appeared in the same production for the first time, playing Oberon and Theseus, respectively, in TP's "Pangarap sa Isang Gabi ng Gitnang Tag-araw," a Filipino adaptation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" using the late National Artist for Theater and Literature Rolando Tinio's translation.

Intrigued

"I first saw Teroy in Red Turnip Theater's "33 Variations," says Gemora, referring to the 2015 production that won Guzman his first Gawad Buhay Award for Featured Actor in a Play for his turn as a fictionalized version of the composer Beethoven--"Lear minus the bitterness and cosmic rage," wrote former reviewer Exie Abola of that performance.

Gemora continues: "I was so intrigued by him. I remember commenting, 'Who is that guy and where did he come from?' He's been in the theater for about as long as I've been, yet our paths never crossed because he acted mostly in UP [Diliman] while everything I did was down south."

"Tita Joy [Virata, Rep's associate artistic director] called me last year and asked if I would play the title role [in 'The Dresser']. When Tita Baby [Barredo, Rep's artistic director] asked who could possibly play Sir, I threw in [Guzman's] name."

Guzman, of course, is no stranger to titanic roles. Apart from Lear, he has also essayed Othello (for Tanghalang Ateneo in 2008); Richard III--the first time under Dulaang UP back in 2000, where he met his wife, Shakespearean scholar Dr. Judy Ick, and again last year, in a Duterte-era adaptation titled "RD3RD"; and Macbeth, for World Theatre Project's "Screen: Macbeth," opposite Ick as Lady Macbeth.

"Sometime ago, I was offered to do ['The Dresser'] with a university company," Guzman says. "But that didn't push through, so I'm very lucky to get another chance to do this."

"'The Dresser' is all about the relationship between the two main characters," Gemora says, "so it is so crucial for Teroy and I to establish rapport between Sir and Norman. It's like a ping-pong match. I am yin to his yang."

PDI Review: 'Makinal' by UP Dulaang Laboratoryo; 'Red' by Ateneo Fine Arts

I have an omnibus review in today's paper--here. How many of us were there during "Red"? Ten, 12, maybe? And three of those were already the Ateneo Fine Arts triumvirate of Glenn Mas, Guelan Luarca and Charles Yee.

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'Makinal' and 'Red': Student theses-plays that rate full points

The set of "Red."

In the pre-Holy Week stretch, Katski Flores (in Tanghalang Ateneo's "Alpha Kappa Omega") wasn't the only actress bringing the house down with a brief but explosive featured performance.

Karen Romualdez gave a similar ephemeral, force-of-nature turn, in a one-weekend-only thesis production of Sophie Treadwell's "Machinal," now "Makinal" for UP Dulaang Laboratoryo through the prolific Eljay Castro Deldoc's adaptation.

In her singular scene early in the play as the female protagonist's mother, Romualdez sharply laid out a life of frustration and resentment through an expert blend of anger and comedy, her toxic, nonstop verbal barrage calling to mind Mona Lisa's titanic performance in the classic Lino Brocka film "Insiang."

This was the decibel level adopted by the rest of the production, a kind of assault-on-all-senses that furthered its depiction of wretched womanhood and female repression. This unrest was expressionistic, sure, but it could also get literally distracting and overwhelming.

So, for instance, you had Rachel Jacob as the female protagonist--her capable, if unexciting take on a difficult and potentially unexciting role sometimes getting drowned in the action, and all but swallowed whole by her onstage mother in that key scene.

Jacob fared better in her scenes with Jack Yabut, appropriately slimy as the supervisor who lusts after and marries her character; and with Vincent Pajara, bringing an electric freshness as the young man who leads her down an adulterous path.

Vibrant energy

But what really stuck with you to the end was Nour Hooshmand's direction--how she injected this production with vibrant (if occasionally uneven) energy, how her command of feeling and sense of theatrical style allowed this play about people living like machines an ebb-and-flow that still sustained the viewer's attention.

Much of what was stylish and theatrical about "Machinal" came from Steven Tansiongco's projections--whether they be a play of cubist graphics on otherwise plain wall posts or a splatter of blood on white cloth, the red seemingly washing over the stage. Splashy as his designs were, they never overwhelmed the text; they even heightened the grim, immersive atmosphere.

Atmosphere was also what the thesis production of John Logan's "Red" at the Ateneo de Manila University earlier this week got right.

Perfect setting

The production, the directing thesis of Avery Nazareno, had, for starters, the inadvertent perfect setting--the university's old Black Box Theater, which was believably designed by Ohm David and Leo Rialp to look like a skeletal studio, with its easels and paint cans and unfinished overall appearance.

The play, which imagines the painter Mark Rothko's time working on the Seagram Murals in the late 1950s, was locally premiered in 2013 by The Necessary Theatre, in a "first-rate treatment [anchored by] the crackerjack tandem of Bart Guingona [as Rothko] and Joaquin Valdes as his (fictional) apprentice," as former Inquirer Theater editor Gibbs Cadiz wrote in his year-end roundup that year.

Nazareno's "Red" not only survived comparison with that production; in some way, it even bettered it.

Sure, this new production lacked a worthy opponent for Rothko to verbally spar with: André Miguel's portrayal of the apprentice, Ken, came across as too insolent and detached for any serious painter to even take seriously.

But it also had a sense of intellectual calm and rigor about it that wasn't very evident in the 2013 staging. (That one felt consumed by high emotion and sometimes bordered on the polemical, not that those qualities diminished the experience in any way.)

Nazareno's "Red" knew to take its time--to land appropriate pauses and allow the hyper-intellectual conversations room to breathe. You weren't just watching a pair of brains at work; you were also doing the thinking alongside them.

The great injustice of this production was that very few people saw Rialp in the role of Rothko. Because his was a performance for the books--intelligently layered, commanding in its sobriety, a believable balance of wisdom and self-doubt that must plague many an aging artist. Rialp himself is a painter in real life, which must partly explain the effortlessness of his characterization; to see and hear him in the role was like watching a master at work--the cadences, and especially the comedy, down pat.

In hindsight, a lot of this production's success had to do with Rialp's professional touch. But it's also important to remember that "Red" was first and foremost a student thesis. Like "Makinal," it was mounted with a limited budget, raw skill and only the guidance of its program's professors.

That both challenging plays were honestly more satisfying experiences than some of the full-blown, professional productions we've had this year should be reason enough to earn those involved in them top marks.