PDI Review: 'Rak of Aegis' by PETA - 2019 run

I have now seen this musical 10 times--including three visits this year for this review, the Inquirer.net version of which is here.

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'Rak of Aegis': Fully embodying spirit of camp, Jenine Desiderio, Leah Patricio light up stage in this rerun

Curtain call at "Rak of Aegis," featuring Derrick Monasterio, Leah Patricio and Jenine Desiderio.

These days, two women are lighting up the stage at the Peta Theater Center, where "Rak of Aegis" has returned for its record-setting sixth rerun, having racked up over 400 performances as of this writing since its 2014 premiere.

Jenine Desiderio (of the original West End cast of "Miss Saigon") is the new Mary Jane, captain of fictional, perennially flooded Barangay Venezia, where the story takes place. Leah Patricio, third placer in "The Voice of the Philippines" Season 2, is now Mercy, mother of Aileen, whose big voice and even bigger dream of landing a spot on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" set the story in motion.

Both women are among the seven new principal cast members of the musical, which, as we wrote in our review of the 2016 run, has become "a pilgrimage site of sorts for performers." But they are the only ones who hit their respective marks unequivocally.

Their roof-rattling singing is a given (as it should be with anyone who joins "Rak"). But what makes them two of the best casting additions in the musical's entire history is how completely they embody the spirit of camp.

Onstage, beyond being such generous actresses, they are devoid of vanity; when they go big, they go really, really big--and also appropriately loud, in Patricio's case--you realize you haven't laughed this much while watching "Rak," an already pretty hilarious show to begin with.

Desiderio is even more noteworthy: She's the only Mary Jane we've seen who has been able to unleash the character's comic potential.

Reason to revisit

Those who are seeing the musical for only the first time should be so lucky to catch Desiderio and Patricio in their respective roles. Those who are considering revisiting the show should find the women reason enough to do so.

Never mind that the other new additions to the cast don't fare as well. For instance, singer-songwriter Noel Cabangon is a rather stiff actor, even if he aces the vocal acrobatics of his role as Aileen's father.

Bayang Barrios, as an alternate to Desiderio, is more puzzling: She sure can sing those Aegis tunes--her voice giving the show authentic, rock-star huskiness--but her characterization is all over the place, relying on unnecessary ad-libs as a crutch, even as the role has been retooled to accommodate her Bisaya tongue.

The worst, however, is matinee idol Derrick Monasterio, in the role of jologs boatman Tolits--for which he is absolutely, painfully miscast. Tolits is supposed to be Aileen's romantic second choice--not conventionally handsome; always has been and is used to being overlooked; "nutty" and "deliriously zany," to go by former Inquirer Theater editor Gibbs Cadiz's appraisal of Pepe Herrera's definitive take on the role.

Monasterio is neither nutty nor deliriously zany, and looks like he can win the Mister Universe title in his sleep.

If further proof were needed that theater is a process of constant evolution and learning from mistakes--what works, what doesn't work, who is or isn't fit for a certain role--here it is.

PDI Opinion: 'Theater and politics are inseparable'

My latest opinion piece, on the Irene Marcos debacle last week, is in today's paper.

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'Theater and politics are inseparable'

In a just world, the Marcoses wouldn't be walking free today; at the very least, they would be locked up someplace, paying for all the lives they harmed and all the money they stole from this country during their two-decade-long tyranny.

But this is not a just world, and so you have the wife of the dead dictator still roaming free despite (finally) being convicted of corruption, or his son almost winning the vice presidency, or one of his daughters showing up ever so casually at the premieres of plays and art exhibits.

That last bit doesn't usually land the limelight, mostly because of the ephemeral, insular, small-scale nature of such events. But it happened again last week--so soon after that incident at Ateneo de Manila University in April, when said daughter graced the inauguration of the new amphitheater, the resulting, deafening backlash leading to the resignation of a top-brass school official.

At Friday's opening night of the latest play by Dulaang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas, the official performing arts group of the University of the Philippines-Diliman, one of the audience members was no less than that same daughter herself. The uproar that ensued at the venue, and which quickly seeped into social media, was nothing if not expected.

Caught on record as well via The Philippine Collegian, the university's student-run publication, was the play's director telling off the student protesters that "UP should remain a democratic space."

In a sense, the director had a point: UP is, indeed, a democratic space. For the image of the university as a homogenous body of truth defenders and freedom warriors is but a myth. It is no secret that, while being home to the fiercest activists and patriots of this country, UP is also a nest of loyalists and defenders of despotic political families past and present. There is probably no better microcosm of Philippine society today.

It is ironic that in this school that birthed some of the greatest Filipino protest art--the university theater scene itself responsible for many important, galvanizing pieces--a spawn of the despot can just enter as she pleases, thereby spitting on the memory of all those who bravely, and fatally, resisted the Marcos regime.

It is doubly ironic when you consider that one of UP's most recent stage hits happened to be Floy Quintos' "The Kundiman Party," about a fictional world-renowned songstress who spurned the patronage of the Marcoses.

Anyone who remembers knows how that family used art as a perfume to please the middle class and fool the poor (see: the Manila Film Center). Still, today, there remains a multitude of artists who, having benefited from the Marcoses' patronage in the past (some of them children at the time), persist in their blind loyalty to the family--or at the very least, refuse to bite the proverbial hand that fed them, even if that hand butchered and disappeared thousands of their countrymen.

In this, it is helpful to remember what the playwright Rody Vera said in an interview earlier this year: "Theater and politics are inseparable, not only in content but also in form." He was talking about his new play premiering on the UP stage, "Nana Rosa," which tackled the conveniently ignored history of Filipino comfort women during the Japanese occupation--but he might as well have been talking about any other play, in any other time.

Theater, as with all art, does not exist in a vacuum. It can have far-reaching consequences, and the ability to precipitate change on a national platform. As such, plays do not begin and end with the rise and fall of their curtains; what we see onstage matters just as much as everything and everyone else that surrounds it offstage--who writes the play, who works in it, who finances it, who gets invited to see it first.

The craft may take on many colors, but when it comes to issues as integral to the Filipino consciousness as the Marcos dictatorship, the conversation can only be in black and white. In this climate of blatant historical revisionism, civil liberty should not and should never be invoked as an excuse to fraternize with the biggest crooks in this nation's history. There shouldn't be room for spineless neutrality.

What, then, has UP done, or is doing? Not much, by the looks of it. In fact, this isn't the first time the Marcoses have figured in the university's arts scene, either in name or in person. The issue, I predict, will proceed as such issues have mostly proceeded in this country: First, the outrage. Then, the discourse. Then, the amnesia. Then, the air kisses and bonhomie. 

PDI Review: 'Perfect Ten' - Lea Salonga in Concert

The thrill, nowadays, of a Lea Salonga concert lies in her guest performers. In that aspect, "Perfect Ten" certainly did not disappoint. The website version of my review here.

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'Perfect Ten': Lea Salonga still peerless

In concert at the Philippine International Convention Center last year to celebrate her 40th anniversary in show business, Lea Salonga was joined by Simon Bowman, who flew all the way from the United Kingdom, where, 30 years ago, the two headlined the West End premiere of "Miss Saigon."

Last weekend, Salonga hit the concert stage again in "Perfect Ten," backed by the ABS-CBN Philharmonic Orchestra under her brother Gerard, to celebrate Resorts World Manila's first decade. This time, she was joined by another "Saigon" costar: Michael K. Lee, who appeared alongside her during the final month of the musical's original Broadway production.

The evening's set list consisted of songs Salonga had sung before; no surprise that she knocked them out of the park yet again, her astoundingly crystalline sound still peerless hereabouts (or anywhere else, really).

The highlights included the Broadway anthems "Still Hurting" from "The Last Five Years" and "Back to Before" from "Ragtime," as well as the Barbra Streisand original "Evergreen," all rendered with stark emotional transparency. And her "Les Miserables" staple, "On My Own," was a real treat--performed in full, which she doesn't do very often nowadays.

There were also other guests: Tanya Manalang (with a ravishing, gender-swapped "Out There" from "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"), Salonga's daughter Nicole Chien and an underutilized Esang de Torres.

Chief surprise

But the chief surprise came in the form of Lee--though this wasn't his first time appearing on the Manila stage (he played opposite Salonga in the 2000 production of "They're Playing Our Song").

An established musical theater actor in both America and Seoul, Lee got to sing only two solos that night--"'Til I Hear You Sing" from "Love Never Dies," the sequel to Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera"; and "This Is the Moment," which many Filipinos would recognize from karaoke sessions and singing contests, but is actually from the musical "Jekyll and Hyde."

Two plum songs were enough to unveil the titanic breadth of Lee's talent as a vocalist. With seemingly inhuman ease, he scaled those punishing notes, each number a transfixing performance that crescendoed almost without notice, and made even more jaw-dropping for the remarkable quiet of his technique (if anyone heard him inhale between phrases, do notify us).

Lee appears to be that rare leading man--deft with both bombast (see: the aforementioned songs) and soft boys (as when he did Aladdin in "A Whole New World," or even the male parts in the "Saigon" medley of "Sun and Moon" and "The Last Night of the World").

Salonga was deservedly the star of the show, of course, but Lee made you realize your sheer luck (and probably wise decision-making) to have caught this particular concert. As he walked off the stage, there wasn't a more perfect moment for that oft-chanted concert mantra: More!

PDI Review: 'Mabining Mandirigma' by Tanghalang Pilipino

Confession: I was never a fan of this musical. Right after the first act of the 2015 version, I wanted to leave out of boredom. I always thought it was a musical that didn't behave like a musical--that musicality was its very weakness. Not anymore. I might just see this a second time. The dotnet version of my review here.

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Monique Wilson's Mabini: Why today is the perfect time to see it

Act I finale of "Mabining Mandirigma" during the press preview performance.

Finally, "Mabining Mandirigma" sounds like an actual musical.

Which is to say the current staging--the Tanghalang Pilipino warhorse's fourth run at the Cultural Center of the Philippines--is far and away its best version yet.

The reason is mostly because of Ejay Yatco, who, in the span of six years, has accumulated a body of work that includes the hit Sugarfree musical "Sa Wakas," the original song cycle "Real-Life Fairytales," a luminous "Spring Awakening" at Ateneo de Manila University this year, and even a stint as the piano-playing double to Teroy Guzman's Beethoven in Red Turnip Theater's "33 Variations."

Yatco now takes over from composer Joed Balsamo as "Mabini's" musical director--and under his ministrations, the show has transformed from what sounded like capable but weakly sung play-with-music into a glorious aural spectacle.

The singing here is full-bodied and precise, which only further highlights just how difficult Balsamo's music actually is. The score is filled with odd rhythms, dissonant tones, lengthy passages in counterpoint--all of which the performers execute with newfound clarity.

Woman as titular hero

Part of the reason must also be the new blood teeming in the ensemble of this "steampunk" dramatization of the life of Apolinario Mabini, which initially hit the headlines for its casting of a woman as the titular hero. (Only seven of the 21 cast members from the musical's 2015 premiere remain.)

Phi Palmos is now the young Mabini--and affectingly so. Meynard Peñalosa is the feathered-and-frocked Mark Twain, transforming one of the musical's dives into meta and irony into a true diva moment. Paw Castillo is the surprise standout in his new role as Mabini's bumpkinish assistant Pepe.

And then there's the new adult Mabini--Monique Wilson, who returns to Philippine musical theater after playing Anna Leonowens in "The King and I" at Resorts World Manila seven years ago.

Compared to Mabinis past, Wilson is neither more meticulous with the role's physicality nor vocally more impressive. But what she brings to the table is the present-day, thinking Filipino's Mabini--an acting intensity that fleshes out the character's tiredness and frustrations, only the heartless wouldn't be moved to tears at some point.

Wilson is the embodiment of dignified defeat. Her Mabini's battles with the powers that be are obviously futile from the get-go, which makes her second-act lamentation, titled--quite accurately--"Mahirap bang Mag-isip Bilang Pilipino?" (sung immediately after the assassination of Antonio Luna), an inadvertent battle cry for our times.

To some extent, you can even say "Mabini" has returned at the perfect time, the country halfway through an administration of lies and cronyism. The musical, then, becomes a sort of looking back to where it all started--to where the power balance in this modern country was first manipulated by its own citizens to favor the rich and privileged. Watching those scenes where the first Filipino politicians lick the feet of a foreign state, you would almost think they were depictions of the Philippines circa 2019.

Inside the theater, "Mabini" has now unlocked splendid-work-of-art status. But right after curtain call, it remains, more than ever, a reminder that the fight for justice in its myriad forms is far from over.

PDI Review: 'Madagascar: A Musical Adventure' by Atlantis Imaginarium Young Theatre

My review of "Madagascar" in today's paper. Watching this, I felt like I was in one of those disgustingly extravagant children's parties in Corinthian Gardens or something. Dotnet link here.

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Atlantis' 'Madagascar' is polished and effortless, but...

From start to end, "Madagascar: A Musical Adventure" looks polished and effortless, progressing from scene to scene with professional ease. Yet, its 60-minute running time somehow feels too long.

It's the material that saddles this debut production of Atlantis Imaginarium Young Theatre--Kevin del Aguila's rote, scene-by-scene book and George Noriega and Joel Someillan's unremarkable score of a so-so adventure story.

The basis is the 2005 Dreamworks animated film about four unlikely animal friends--a lion, a zebra, a hippopotamus and a giraffe--who escape from Manhattan's Central Park Zoo but end up shipwrecked on the titular African island nation.

How do you put that on the stage, anyway? That's always the major challenge faced by stage-to-screen adaptations of stories about anthropomorphized animals or nonhuman beings. 

There has to be a perfect blend of spectacle and showmanship: Now you're trying to convince an audience that these animals are actually worth caring about--that these animals are just as real as they are. The world being conjured here must be big enough to metaphorically surpass the spatial limitations of theater, and its inhabitants small enough to be recognizably human.

You don't get that from the production directed by Steven Conde. It is unable to override the weaknesses of its material--not in the way that, say, its mother company's productions of "Carrie" and "The Addams Family" did back in 2013.

Thus, "Madagascar" has a two-dimensional quality to it. There isn't a fictive world being created here, but a show that is very much conscious--too conscious--of its being a show. It feels like elaborate children's party entertainment, starring grown-ups in expensive costumes.

Comedic highlight

Another fault of the material: It allows for far too few performers onstage. A comedic highlight of the movie is that entire troop of eccentric lemurs--how do you translate that to the stage?

"Madagascar" is also too dependent on audience interaction. (It is marketed as a children's musical, after all.) What happens, then, when the children in the audience aren't participative, or--as was the case during the performance we caught--there are too few children in the audience?

There's also the actor playing the literal star of the show, Alex the Lion, whose inborn qualities as a savage beast in need of animal flesh for food begin to surface after the shipwreck, causing a temporary (and rapidly resolved) rift between him and all the other characters.

In a word, Markus Mann doesn't cut it as Alex--he has cardboard charisma and is unable to carry the show on his shoulders (though he is forced to don a massive, maned headpiece that looks like it drowned in glue).

Mann plays Alex like Rum Tum Tugger from "Cats," that the production's focus actually shifts to Nelsito Gomez as Marty the Zebra, the unfortunate victim of Alex's hunger. In a late and underutilized appearance, George Schulze also commands attention and elicits guffaws as the outlandish king of the lemurs.

Chalk all this up to necessary birthing pains for a new player in an already-small industry, then. For an hourlong kiddie musical, "Madagascar" isn't exactly a show that truly pops and entertains and stays in the memory.

Ultimately, everything boils down to choosing the right material. After all, productions don't become full-blown productions overnight; they begin as scripts.  

PDI Feature: The Sondheim musicals of 2019

Who's a Sondheim nerd? The website version here.

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Stephen Sondheim is coming to Manila--three times

Late post: The cast of "Company" at curtain call.

Not the man himself, of course, who turns 90 in March and whose theater pieces have long endured a reputation for being technically difficult. The critic Richard Corliss said it best in Time magazine: "His melodies [are] meant to challenge the ear, not soothe it," and "his lyrics are often so complex, they have to be heard twice."

But for a year that has largely relied on reruns of musical theater--by December, 11 productions in all, including the returns of "The Phantom of the Opera" and "Cats"--the near-synchronous arrival of three new local productions of musicals by the Broadway icon is as much occasion for ironic incredulity as it is cause for celebration.

Opening within four weeks are Upstart Productions' "Company" (Sept. 13-22), Philippine Opera Company's "Passion" (Sept. 14-29) and Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group's "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (Oct. 11-27).

All-Filipino staging

The last Sondheim show in Manila was the international tour of "West Side Story" at The Theatre at Solaire two years ago. But you'd have to backtrack to 2015 for the last all-Filipino staging of his work--Upstart's "Into the Woods."

Then, it's all the way back to the start of the decade, with Atlantis' "A Little Night Music" and the now-defunct Theater Down South's "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" in 2010. And a year earlier, Repertory Philippines' (Rep) "Sweeney Todd."

Atlantis now takes on "Sweeney Todd"--the tale of an unjustly incarcerated barber who, teaming up with a pie-shop owner who's secretly in love with him, goes on a clandestine, murderous rampage involving meat pies in Victorian London.

Bobby Garcia directs this 40th anniversary production at The Theatre at Solaire, with Jett Pangan as the barber and Lea Salonga as the shop owner Mrs. Lovett. (In November, they will do the musical's Singaporean premiere at the Sands Theatre, Marina Bay Sands.)

Upstart tackles "Company"--a "concept musical" exploring marriage and the tangles of committed, adult relationships. At its center is Bobby, a 35-year-old unmarried New Yorker, orbited by five couples and three other women.

Locally premiered by Rep in 1997, "Company" will play at the Maybank Performing Arts Theater, Bonifacio Global City, with OJ Mariano as Bobby and Topper Fabregas directing.

Opening a day after "Company" is "Passion," which marks the last of Sondheim's seven competitive Tony Awards as composer and lyricist.

The musical, adapted from Ettore Scola's 1981 film "Passione d'Amore," concerns the destructive obsession of an ailing woman over a soldier in 19th-century Italy.

"Passion," also premiered in Manila by Rep in 1996, will run at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, starring Sheila Valderrama-Martinez as the woman, Fosca, and directed by Robbie Guevara.

Incidentally, Upstart's "Company" marks the latest Sondheim collaboration between two pillars of the country's English-language musical theater: Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo and Michael Williams, currently co-artistic directors of Resorts World Manila's Full House Theater Company.

Lauchengco-Yulo's last stab at Sondheim was her Gawad Buhay-winning turn as Mrs. Lovett in Rep's 2009 "Sweeney Todd," 27 years after playing Sweeney's daughter Joanna in the musical's 1982 Manila premiere, also by Rep.

In 1996, Lauchengco-Yulo was Fosca in Rep's "Passion." Opposite her as the soldier, Giorgio, was Williams, who would co-direct the 2009 "Sweeney Todd" with Rep co-founder Baby Barredo.

But "Passion" wasn't their first appearance together in a Sondheim musical; it was in the 1992 Manila premiere of "Into the Woods," whose maze-like story involves beloved fairy-tale characters by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm living through the consequences of their purported happily-ever-afters. Williams was Jack (of the Beanstalk fame); Lauchengco-Yulo was The Witch.

In 2007, the two returned to "the Woods" in a production directed by Rito Asilo for New Voice Company. This time, Williams and Lauchengco-Yulo played the Baker and the Baker's wife, respectively, whose quest to have a child ties together the other tales in the musical.

Now, in "Company," Lauchengco-Yulo returns to the role of Joanne--her 11 o'clock number "The Ladies Who Lunch" immortalized by Elaine Stritch and Patti LuPone--22 years after first playing that part in the Rep production. Playing her stage husband is--guess who?--Williams.

PDI Feature: Twin Bill Theater and 'Dancing Lessons'

Think of Twin Bill as the young Red Turnip. The website version of my piece here.

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'Dancing Lessons' between man with Asperger's and injured Broadway dancer

The cast of "Dancing Lessons."

Twin Bill Theater returns this month with the Asian premiere of Mark St. Germain's "Dancing Lessons," a two-hander between a man with Asperger's syndrome and an injured Broadway dancer who becomes his instructor.

The play marks the first time founder Francis Matheu assumes directorial duties for a fully staged production by the 7-year-old company. It also signals an end to Twin Bill's two-year hiatus of sorts.

After staging Margaret Edson's "Wit" in 2017, "we had to slow down [and] find the direction of the company financially," Matheu says. His cofounder and twin brother Joseph had his commitments to lighting and sound design company Hues n Cues and to GMA Network's "Eat Bulaga!" as the noontime show's lighting designer.

Meanwhile, Matheu collaborated on a doctoral research project on applied theater and climate change. His research took him to Samar and Leyte, as well as the Canadian cities of Vancouver, Victoria and Winnipeg, where he toured and presented the project as a theatrical piece titled "Muro/Puro."

"When I got back [to the Philippines] last November, I immediately worked on connecting with international universities and conferences for possible exchange," Matheu says. In fact, his proposal was accepted for an exhibit at the SOAS University of London Philippine Studies division, but he turned down the invitation due to lack of time in obtaining a visa and funding.

Third season

And so, onward to Twin Bill's third season.

The company's past four productions have all been about "provoking minds for constructive societal revolution," as Matheu puts it. "Since 2016, we have [utilized] theater to raise awareness on topics that people in general often find too taboo to bring up over lunch or during Sunday family gatherings."

The subjects of Twin Bill's plays, all staged in intimate venues, have ranged from suicide (Andrew Hinderaker's "Suicide, Incorporated," 2016) to the reconciliation between art and religion (Aaron Posner's "My Name Is Asher Lev," 2017).

"After 'Wit,' I was already on the move looking for plays for our next season," Matheu says. "I chanced upon 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time'--[Simon Stephens' acclaimed adaptation of the Mark Haddon novel about a boy with Asperger's]--[and] fell in love with how it was originally staged, only to learn it wasn't available for licensing yet."

A further Google search led him to St. Germain's play, which he hopes will help shed light on how it really is to live with an autism spectrum disorder. A talkback with an expert will follow every performance.

Randy Villarama plays Ever, a geosciences professor with Asperger's who seeks a dance instructor to literally help him get through an awards dinner; Jill Peña plays Senga, the dancer whose Broadway career is sidelined by an injury.

"One of my professors said that when a director casts the right actors, 50 percent of the work is already done," Matheu says. In choosing his actors, he set three criteria: versatility, depth and experience. "The actors should have the capacity to 'be' Ever and Senga. Little details of this and that have to manifest onstage."

And also, Matheu adds, "talent is not enough. Theater has always been and will always be a collaboration of expertise. [So] for 'Dancing Lessons,' I looked for hardworking team players. I refuse to work with people who have a 'this is my design, no one can touch it' attitude."

The creative team of "Dancing Lessons" includes Kayla Teodoro (scenery), JM Cabling (choreography), Joseph Matheu (lights), Arvy Dimaculangan (sound) and Nicole Garcia (video graphics).

PDI Opinion: 'Cleaning up' Manila

New op-ed in Inquirer Opinion! Website version here.

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'Cleaning up' Manila

Ascending to the mayoral throne once occupied by plunder convict Joseph Estrada, Isko Moreno pledged to clean up the city of Manila and restore it to glory worthy of a sepia-tinted postcard of the past.

If you happened to be outdoors or aboard public transportation in Manila during those first few, fledgling days of the Moreno administration, you might have seen up close and personal what the rest of the country only marveled at through photographs in the papers or social media: the streets of Divisoria and Avenida suddenly awash in airy brightness--the kind begot not by a change in weather, but by the absence of people.

Cleaning up the filth that filled the gutters and sidewalks is one thing. "Cleaning up" the people whose livelihoods depended on their very presence on these streets is another.

And yet, the general reaction one gleaned from Facebook and Twitter--at least, from the bubble that constituted my social media sphere--was one of glee and relief. Thank the good mayor for getting rid of these street vendors; now we're a step closer to sanitizing Manila!

I've heard this very same logic before. And you, dear reader, probably have, too. Not too long ago, someone deemed radical and "of the people" also won a political post--a most powerful one--and promised to rid this country of those he deemed eyesores to society. That man, you might bloody well know, has made good of that promise.

No street vendors have been unjustly gunned down in broad daylight, of course. But while you laud Moreno's efforts from the comforts of home, silently cheering as you watch footage of this "clean-up drive" from your smart phone or laptop, probably enjoying a warm meal or ensconced in your soft bed, scores of living, breathing Filipinos have actually been rendered jobless. What you might view as necessary birthing pains for the success of this new government in reality translate to families suddenly bereft of breadwinners, informal workers cut off from their only sources of income, parents now clueless as to where to get the money for the day's next meal.

Isn't that a kind of slow, uncertainty-filled death? This isn't even a metaphor when you're talking about people who don't have any health insurance or savings in the bank--people who literally survive on a day-to-day basis.

And all for what? More sidewalk parking spaces? Wider roads for cars to inundate? More people in malls (which, by the way, are real urban eyesores)?

Moreno has said he isn't antipoor; he is, after all, of the poor. He has also provided some justification for this "clean-up drive"--for example, the showy arrest of so-called organizers who extort rent from these street vendors. But his drastic actions have negatively impacted only the very poor people he claims to come from.

The bigger picture reveals only a disturbing lack of foresight. No, not "foresight" in the context of long-term plans and pipeline projects, such as relocating the "cleaned-up" vendors to some other place, but "foresight" as in: Immediately after being "cleaned up," what are these vendors supposed to do? Sit on the streets? Beg for money? Starve?

That is the kind of thoughtless governance the privileged class has apparently equated to bravery, to making a stand, to promise. The choice of language is also telling: Just listen to how we've talked of "cleaning up" Manila, as if these street vendors were mere parasites that must be scrubbed off the body of the city.

And like parasites insufficiently eradicated, "babalik lang 'yan," the more cynical commenters on social media have said of the evicted street vendors. "They will just return." True enough, the other day, a news bit showed some vendors--already back in their vacated spots--scrambling to pack up their wares after receiving word that the mayor was set to visit their area. If this "clean-up" were really a serious policy, how were the vendors back so quickly? Who enabled their return? Who's in cahoots with them and warned them of the mayor's imminent arrival?

There are more questions than there are answers here. But for now, this: So long as leadership isn't grounded on inclusive, people-centric tenets and on policies that seriously consider the plight of the poor, we'll forever be cleaning up this city of its less-privileged inhabitants--and the ones with privilege can keep believing that's genuine change.

PDI Review: 'Binondo, A Tsinoy Musical' by Maritess Alava-Young Foundation, Inc.

Fifteen minutes into this show, I already wanted to walk out. The Inquirer.net version of my review here.

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'Binondo': A deeply flawed caricature of a culture

Why the title?

That question, among a multitude of questions, loomed over "Binondo," the self-proclaimed Tsinoy musical that trundled back to The Theatre at Solaire last weekend for a four-show rerun--a year after premiering in the same venue, through a production described by reviewer Cora Llamas as "unfocused" and "teleserye-like."

The performance we attended was certainly unfocused and teleserye-like (and that's putting it mildly). Its three-hour running time was engorged by one roof-rattling song number after another, despite a story that stretched its compulsory love triangle to ridiculous lengths.

But "Binondo" had a deeper flaw. It viewed its subject matter as exotica. It's the mere idea of Binondo, as the stereotypical Manila Chinatown, that this musical was in love with--the imposing welcome arch, sky lanterns, lion dances, statues of Oriental gods, the convivial ruckus of Lunar New Year festivities.

Beyond the postcard superficialities and the bits and pieces probably gleaned from the "Mano Po" film franchise, there was no deeper, visible understanding of Tsinoy, or Chinese-Filipino, in the story. It was as if the makers suddenly realized, in the middle of doing this musical, that they didn't really know what to do with the material--or didn't want to go beyond the cliché and generic.

Hence, a title that needed to insist on its geography, lest the audience forgot.

There's also an effort to round the story by providing milieu--in the first act, the early years of the Marcos dictatorship, and in the second, Deng Xiaoping's China--but it only necessitated the needless shifts in setting.

"Binondo" was, in the end, a caricature of a culture.

Given how it's also the first time we witnessed a production bungle in The Theatre at Solaire's otherwise first-rate facilities--the sound design and engineering here was sloppy, and the jittery lighting design only made the show look amateurish--it begged another question: Why even bother with this rerun?

"Binondo, A Tsinoy Musical" was directed by Joel Lamangan, with original music by Von de Guzman and libretto by Ricky Lee, Gershom Chua and Eljay Castro Deldoc, from an original story by Rebecca Chuaunsu.

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..."