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.

PDI Feature: 11th Gawad Buhay! Awards milestones

I did this last year--here! Not sure if I want to keep on doing this every year, so in the meantime, here's the website version of this piece.

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The winningest director, two best actresses and other Gawad Buhay facts

"3 Stars and a Sun," costume design by Gino Gonzales.

Twenty-three trophies are up for grabs at the 11th Philstage Gawad Buhay Awards for the Performing Arts, May 28, at the Onstage Theater, Greenbelt 1, Makati City.

Lutgardo Labad and Felicitas Radaic will receive the Natatanging Gawad Buhay--the lifetime achievement awards--for theater and dance, respectively. Meanwhile, 21 individuals--comprising roughly 40 percent of individual nominations--are up for their first competitive Gawad Buhay.

In anticipation of awards night, here are 11 facts and milestones you may not know about "the first industry awards exclusively for the performing arts":

1. The only time an actor won multiple acting awards in the same year was in 2010, when the late Mario O'Hara took home Male Lead Performance in a Play for the Asian premiere of Lloyd Suh's "American Hwangap" under Tanghalang Pilipino (TP), and Male Featured Performance in a Play for Rody Vera's adaptation of Anton Chekhov's "Three Sisters," now "Tatlong Mariya," for the same company.

2. The category with the fewest winners is Outstanding Original Script. It has been awarded only four times, to Tony Perez for "Saan Ba Tayo Ihahatid ng Disyembre?" (2009), Ron Capinding for "William" (2011), Layeta Bucoy for "Doc Resurreccion: Gagamutin ang Bayan" (2012), and Kanakan Balintagos for "Mga Buhay na Apoy" (2015).

Record

3. Only three musicals have brought home the trophies for both Outstanding Original Libretto and Original Musical Composition: Peta's "Si Juan Tamad, ang Diyablo at ang Limang Milyong Boto" in 2009 (music and libretto by Vincent de Jesus); TP's restaging of "Noli Me Tangere, The Musical" in 2011 (libretto by National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera, music by National Artist for Music Ryan Cayabyab); and TP's "Mabining Mandirigma" in 2015 (libretto by Nicanor Tiongson, music by Joed Balsamo).

4. Ronelson Yadao holds the record for the longest gap between nominations. He scored his first nomination--and win--in 2009 for Male Lead Performance in Dance for Ballet Philippines' (BP) "Neo-Filipino." He landed his second nomination only eight years later, in 2017, for Male Lead Performance in Modern Dance for BP's "Songs of a Wayfarer."

5. Chris Millado has won the most trophies for stage direction--first for TP's "Stageshow" (2012), and then, after the award was split into the play and musical categories, for Repertory Philippines' (Rep) "August: Osage County" in 2014 and TP's "Mabining Mandirigma" the year after. However, the most nominated director is Robbie Guevara, with seven nods to his name and all for musicals produced by 9 Works Theatrical (and, in recent years, Globe Live). Guevara has been nominated every year for the last six years, beginning with "Grease" (2013), followed by "The Last Five Years" (2014), "La Cage aux Folles" (2015), "Tick, Tick... Boom!" and "American Idiot" (2016), "Newsies" (2017)--for which he won--and now for "Eto Na! Musikal nAPO!" Bart Guingona, on the other hand, holds the record for the most nominations for direction of nonmusical work. His six nods include two pieces for Rep--"Almost, Maine" (2016) and "Agnes of God" (2017)--and four pieces under The Necessary Theatre by Actor's Actors, Inc.--"Red" (2013), "Venus in Fur" and "Full Gallop" (2014), and his winning work for "The Normal Heart" (2016).

Design

6. Only twice have the four design categories gone to four different productions. In 2013, the winners were: Mio Infante (set design, "The Bluebird of Happiness"), Jolu Escano (lighting design, "Red"), Leeroy New (costume design, "Ibalong") and TJ Ramos (sound design, "Der Kaufmann: Ang Negosyante ng Venecia"). Infante again took home the award for set design in 2016 for "American Idiot"; the other winners that year were John Batalla (lighting design, "Almost, Maine"), Gino Gonzales (costume design, "3 Stars and a Sun") and Teresa Barrozo (sound design, "Tribes").

7. Only twice have Outstanding Ensemble for a Play and for a Musical gone to the same company: first in 2011, when Peta scooped those awards for "William" and "Care Divas"; then, the following year, when TP's "Walang Kukurap" and "Stageshow" prevailed.

8. Only two individuals have received multiple Gawad Buhays for two consecutive years. Vincent de Jesus achieved this feat first by winning Outstanding Libretto for "Skin Deep" and Outstanding Musical Direction for "Batang Rizal" in 2008, and then for his libretto and original music for "Si Juan Tamad, ang Diyablo at ang Limang Milyong Boto" in 2009. The late National Artist for Theater and Design Salvador Bernal was the second to pull this off, winning for his sets and costumes for "Encantada" in 2011 and "Rama, Hari" in 2012.

9. In theater, only two individuals have won the same award for three consecutive years. Sound designer TJ Ramos triumphed in his category for "Encantada" (2011), "Stageshow" (2012) and "Der Kaufmann" (2013). He won a fourth time in that category for "Mabining Mandirigma" (2015) to become the Gawad Buhay's most awarded sound designer. On the other hand, John Batalla--with five wins, the Gawad Buhay's most laureled lighting designer--first had a back-to-back streak with "Equus" (2010) and "Encantada" (2011), before going on to win for "33 Variations" (2015), "Almost, Maine" (2016) and "Agnes of God" (2017).

10. Only once have two individuals tied for their work in the same production--in 2014, when Liesl Batucan and Tami Monsod both won Featured Actress in a Play for playing sisters in the Philippine premiere of Tracy Letts' "August: Osage County" under Rep.

11. Real-life siblings triumphed in the 2012 choreography categories, when the sisters Alice and Denisa Reyes took home the awards for dance (for "Rama, Hari") and theater (for "Stageshow"), respectively. The latter would go on to win the same trophy three years later for "Mabining Mandirigma"; the former, a National Artist for Dance, has one other Gawad Buhay--for her adaptation of Nick Joaquin's "The Summer Solstice," now "Amada" for the ballet stage. Meanwhile, the youngest Reyes sister, Edna Vida, is one of the Gawad Buhay's two most laureled choreographers. Her three wins--a record tied by Carlo Pacis--were for "Banaag at Sikat" (2010) and "Peter Pan" (2010 and 2015). Her fourth competitive Gawad Buhay was for Female Featured Performance in Modern Dance for "Awitin Mo at Isasayaw Ko" (2016).

PDI Review: 'Spring Awakening' by Ateneo Blue Repertory

When one of your favorite and formative musicals gets the treatment it deserves. But really, full circle moment here: In 2009, a few months after moving to Manila for college, I saw my first professional theater production--Atlantis' "Spring Awakening." It's 2019 now. Also, some of you may recall how I wasn't the biggest fan of the 2013 BlueRep "SA." Anyway, here's the website version of my current review. I have so much more to say about this production, but the fucking word count.

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'Spring Awakening': an illuminating, coming-of-age rock musical

Curtain call at the press performance of "Spring Awakening."

The Tony and Olivier Award-winning "Spring Awakening," with music by Duncan Sheik and libretto by Steven Sater, is billed as a "rock musical."

You wouldn't readily know that, however, from director Missy Maramara's revelatory and lucidly mounted production of Ateneo Blue Repertory, six years after the university company's initial shot at the musical.

Set in 19th-century Germany but employing modern, occasionally formal English, "Spring Awakening" revolves around a group of youngsters coming to terms with sexuality in an archaic, repressive society.

The songs, written in the tongue of hormonal adolescents, function as literal outlets for the characters--as audiovisual manifestations of pent-up pubertal rage.

But Maramara (codirecting with Darrell Uy) sidesteps the apparent temptation to turn the musical into a rock concert of sorts. Instead, she has shaped an illuminating "Spring Awakening," whose interests lie less in the juvenile rebellion at hand, and more in the whys and hows that sculpt this rebellion. Less in the turbulent hormones, and more in the deep-seated anxiety spawned by coming of age under iron fists.

Finest ensemble singing

Ejay Yatco's musical direction, for instance, allows little room for roof-rattling belting. He substitutes vocal gymnastics with what sounds like unsullied yearning, an unexplainable bodily hunger put to melody. And more than subtly tweaking parts of the score to marvelous, dramatic effect, he has also whipped into shape the finest ensemble singing by any Filipino university theater company in at least the last decade.

*In some way, it also helps that this production is almost entirely composed of student-actors. What they lack in technical precision--though citing this really feels like nitpicking--they more than make up for in emotional clarity. There isn't much straining involved in their portrayals of the teenage characters; even better, they convincingly evoke that fumbling around with lust and love that must only come with inexperience.

Mica Fajardo's choreography reflects this naivety. The dancing here is a little raw, a little clumsy, but vibrant in the way that fresh, unschooled things are.

It's all in contrast to the design elements--Ohm David's set of ominous, "ruined" wooden panels, Miyo Sta. Maria's lighting and the costumes by Gayle Mendiola and Leika Golez--collectively conjuring this frigid, unforgiving landscape.

But it isn't just the overall picture that reveals this production's grasp of its material. It's also in the little things: How, for example, the blocking insists on always placing upstage, or even on just a slightly raised level, the actors playing the adult characters in the musical (the male parts effectively granted varying degrees of coldness by Angelo Esperanzate).

Or how "The Word of Your Body"--in which the eventual teenage lovers, Melchior and Wendla, try to make sense of this confusing, deepening attraction between them--is staged like some kind of mating ritual dance.

Astute command of feeling

The lovers, by the way, are portrayed by professional actors Sandino Martin and Krystal Kane, respectively--both giving performances with astute command of feeling and character. (In Kane's case, her name is prescient: She acts and sings with a level of crispness and transparency that instantly elevates her to the ranks of the pros.)

The two other notable featured parts are handled by Juancho Gabriel, an electric bundle of nerves and confusion as the tragic Moritz; and Alexa Prats, who delivers a whirlwind performance of astonishing range in her two key scenes as the outcast Ilse.

By the time this production comes around to staging the musical's biggest number--the aptly titled "Totally Fucked," where Melchior arrives at the epiphany that, in his particular world and time, there's no defeating the powers that be--the release is both well-earned and satisfying, performed with a self-aware snigger at the tragic turn of events.

In this exhilarating number--and in many others in this show--you almost forget that this is just a school-based production. Alongside Dulaang UP's "Ang Nawalang Kapatid" and Tanghalang Ateneo's "Middle Finger" and "Kalantiaw," this "Spring Awakening" sets the bar really high to show what mere campus theater can truly achieve.

*This necessary paragraph was edited out of the final version of the review.

PDI Review: 'Angels in America' by Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group

My only wish is that they replace Andoy for "Perestroika." The website version of this review here.

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'Angels in America' is immensely satisfying theater

Big Dick Energy curtain call.

How director Bobby Garcia ends his staging of Tony Kushner's "Angels in America: Millennium Approaches" is the very definition of big dick energy--not with a deafening bang, but with drawn curtains that leave the viewer starving for more (a.k.a. "Perestroika," or part two of this two-part "Gay Fantasia on National Themes," as the subtitle goes).

You can say the same thing about the whole production. This "Angels"--Garcia's second stab at the play after premiering it in Manila in 1995--does not go for grand gestures, boom and spectacle. Instead, it pulses, its movements consisting not of breathless beats, but sharp, deliberate strokes intent on dissecting the play's raw, primal core.

It's the kind of dissection that has become Garcia's trump card of late. Across the board, from "The Bridges of Madison County" to "Fun Home" to "Waitress," his productions have been united by an emphatic focus on the text--an honest-to-goodness "tell the story" sensibility that enables his productions to transcend cultural barriers easily.

And so this "Millennium Approaches," where one emerges--three acts, two intermissions and three-and-a-half hours later--strangely invigorated, despite Kushner's cautioning in the script that "an epic play" such as "Angels" "should be a little fatiguing."

Forget fatigue

Forget fatigue. "Millennium Approaches" is an immensely satisfying piece of theater. What Garcia serves here is searing drama (with sprinklings of comedy) paced perceptively and incredibly well.

You have to admire, for instance, the way this production skims through jokes and lines that predictably go over the Filipino audience's heads--digs on Jews and Republicans that are otherwise surefire hits on the other side of the globe (check out the filmed version of the marvelous 2017 London National Theatre production, for starters).

Garcia zeroes in on the unfiltered emotions that are the backbone of this play. This is, after all, the interconnected story of two couples at the height of the 1980s AIDS crisis in New York: life and death, sickness and betrayal, history and heaven unraveling.

And if Kushner intends for "Angels" to be "an actor-driven event," Garcia's "Millennium Approaches" is an unqualified success--well, almost.

Sore thumb

The sore thumb in this eight-person play is Andoy Ranay, in the role of the Black drag queen Belize. It is unquestionably a tough role to cast hereabouts, yet, without even invoking the part's physical requirements, Ranay is evidently out of his league here--so out of sync with the play's chop-chop rhythm, to say nothing of his rather wan characterization.

That only means the rest of the cast assembled by Garcia are in top form. The four other men in the play deliver superlative, career-defining performances--Topper Fabregas, alternately fierce and fabulous as Prior Walter, the show's narrative pivot; Nelsito Gomez, a pathetic yet transfixing presence as Prior's lover, Louis; Art Acuña as the diabolical Roy Cohn; and Markki Stroem as the closeted lawyer Joe. (In Stroem's case, it's even more impressive when you consider how persuasively he transports you on his character's entire arc, and realize this is only his first nonmusical stint.)

The three women, juggling nine roles among them, are knockouts in their crucial parts: Cherie Gil as Joe's Mormon mother; Pinky Amador as multiple characters, but especially her near-wordless turn as a hobo; and Angeli Bayani, summoning to astounding, sometimes frightening life Joe's Valium-addicted wife, Harper.

Further stressing Harper's volatility, Garcia even introduces Bayani as a scuttling figure on Faust Peneyra's set--an unobtrusive clutter of desks and lamps seemingly piled atop each other, corralled by imposing gray walls that, as lit by the ever-reliable Jonjon Villareal, cast an old-world, claustrophobic feel.

It's but one of the ingenious bits of stagecraft enlivening this production. (GA Fallarme's projections are another, his evocative visuals crafting settings in seconds.) The other bits, one may understandably harp on--how, for example, the reveal of the titular angel at the end comes off more as underwhelming apparition than earth-crashing revelation.

Such faults are ultimately rendered microscopic by the impeccable whole. Where they matter most, "Millennium Approaches" lands its punches--and my, how it soars.

PDI Review: 'Br. Benilde, The Musical' by College of St. Benilde Arts and Culture Cluster; 'Oedipus' by Dulaang Filipino; 'Kung Paano Maghiwalay' by FEU Theater Guild; 'Tao Po' by Juana Change Movement and Ateneo Fine Arts

My second piece for today--a campus theater omnibus!--was written with a March 23 publication date in mind, hence the mentions of "last week" in the piece. I have since corrected the errors. The website version here.

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3 campus shows, and the fearless play you missed

The set of "Kung Paano Maghiwalay."

UP Playwrights' Theatre's "Nana Rosa"--an essential but problematic play--was perhaps the quarter's most visible university-based show, but it wasn't the only one.

'Br. Benilde' (Jan. 23-Feb. 2)

As campus theater is concerned, the year began with the a capella, sort-of-biographical musical "Br. Benilde" at the De La Salle-College of St. Benilde School of Design and Arts Theater. The production was backed by a team of industry pros--Layeta Bucoy as writer, Tuxqs Rutaquio as director, TJ Ramos as composer and musical director, and, save for Natasha Cabrera and Al Gatmaitan (in the titular role), featured a student cast.

"Excessive" was the most appropriate adjective for this production: It was over-scored, over-choreographed, overacted, over-designed. What it lacked was a streamlined, disciplined feel to it, as though what was presented onstage was still a draft version of the real thing.

What stood out, in the end, was the glorious, unamplified singing of the Coro San Benildo, whose members were also part of the ensemble.

'Oedipus' (March 14-15)

At St. Benilde's Taft Avenue campus two weeks ago, a far more brow-raising production took its bow--Dulaang Filipino's "Oedipus," which used Rolando Tinio and Onofre Pagsanjan's translations of the Theban trilogy, but through Riki Benedicto's ministrations, became a 45-minute, movement-heavy condensation.

We recognized this production's global achievements--laurels from theater festivals in Spain, Canada and Belarus, plus an upcoming stint in the Czech Republic next month.

But it's also necessary to question its qualities, as an audience who transcended the visual spectacle it offered and actually understood the language it employed. Truth was, the "Oedipus" we saw was performed with little regard for the script, by actors who seemed not to comprehend the lines they were spewing, in a space with terrible acoustics.

A word of caution, then: Perhaps we should be wary of devised productions such as this "Oedipus," if they inadvertently end up teaching our students that it's somehow acceptable not to tell the story well; not to listen to one's co-actors; not to master the basics of theater performance, so long as one can pull off the show's complicated choreography.

'Kung Paano Maghiwalay' (Feb. 13-March 9)

In stark contrast was the Far Eastern University Theater Guild's "Kung Paano Maghiwalay," the award-winning George de Jesus III play now directed by Dudz Teraña. Here, there was only the script and the actors--and it was interesting, to say the least, seeing a university company handle material that, at first glance, would seem the wrong fit.

Memories of the 2017 Pineapple Lab production were still relatively fresh, most especially the towering performances of Juliene Mendoza and Stella Cañete-Mendoza as the older couple. But Teraña's take on the play instead aimed the spotlight on all the pairs of younger lovers.

The production wasn't always successful. The tonal and thematic shifts between scenes and disparate acting styles could be quite glaring, and the pair who portrayed the older couple was burdened by too much heavy-handed anger in their scenes.

But whenever this production hit its stride, it was a joy to watch--how the student-actors very naturally brought to life their youthful characters. Even better, it figured out the play's inherent comedy, so a delicate back-and-forth between rapture and anguish was more or less ever-present.

Celine Arriola, as the feisty Karla, served that back-and-forth with flair. And Paolo Casiao was a scene-stealing chameleon, playing all the background characters--taxi driver, Starbucks barista, nursing aide, etc.

'Tao Po' (March 14)

Then there was "Tao Po"--included in this roundup for the sole reason that it played a one-off show at the Ateneo de Manila University two weeks ago.

"Tao Po" was no campus theater. It's a Palanca-winning monologue by Maynard Manansala, directed by Ed Lacson Jr. and starring the unflinching Mae Paner (a.k.a. Juana Change). It's been around since 2017, performed on stages from Baguio City to Melbourne, Australia.

"Tao Po" strung four unrelated characters--a photojournalist, a Zumba instructor, a policeman and a grieving girl--who documented, perpetrated, or were victimized, respectively, by Duterte-era extrajudicial killings. And as their stories unfolded, what hit you the hardest was the realization that somehow, these were stories that have been normalized, that--quite troublingly--no longer bore an element of surprise.

Which made the show all the more vital to our times. "Tao Po" was a work of such brutal fearlessness, daring to fight back against the excesses of the Duterte regime, that it went beyond the simple rigors of solo performance.

It was about shedding light anew on stories that people have grown calloused to. It was about empathy, and about mining the limits of what it means to be human in these morally compromised times.

At the end of that performance, the makers issued a call stating that they're open to bringing the play to willing venues. If you're reading this--and have yet to see it, but have the resources to accommodate the show--reach out to them via the "Tao Po Juana Change" Facebook page. As theater is concerned, this is a play that must be seen and heard all across this country--and even beyond.  

PDI Feature: James Reyes - obituary

Before this piece, I have never written an obituary. Rest in peace, James Reyes. (P.S. This piece came out online on Sunday, March 17. Some idiot at Inquirer.net couldn't figure out the basics of spacing. Today, Wednesday, March 20, the piece is in the print edition of the paper and has been updated to include Chris Millado's Facebook tribute. The website version of the updated article here.) 

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James Reyes--'atypical, ego-free artist'

Tanghalang Pilipino's "Mga Buhay na Apoy" (2015), with costume design by Reyes.

"He was an atypical artist--almost ego-free."

Tanghalang Pilipino (TP) artistic director Fernando "Nanding" Josef is describing award-winning theater costumer and fashion designer James Reyes, who succumbed to an acute cardiac condition in the early hours of Saturday, March 16. He was 48.

Josef recalls, "During meetings with a production's artistic team, he would listen intently and quietly to the discussions, especially between the director and the playwright. Days after, he would just submit his interesting studies, which oftentimes immediately got the approval of his director.

"If his director wanted revisions, [Reyes] would go back to the drawing board with no sign of resistance, and return with even more appropriate designs."

More widely recognized in fashion design, where his "edgy," "conceptual," "out of the box" approach marked him as an innovator, Reyes cofounded the Young Designers Group, and was secretary of the Fashion Design Council of the Philippines (FDCP) at the time of his death.

'Out of the box' perspective

It was this "out of the box" perspective that Reyes brought to the stage, where his collaborations with TP, the resident theater company of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), spanned almost a decade, in productions ranging from children's shows ("Sandosenang Sapatos," 2013), rap musicals ("Kleptomaniacs," 2014) to Shakespearean adaptations ("A Midsummer Night's Dream/Pangarap sa Isang Gabi ng Gitnang Tag-araw," 2016).

In a Facebook post, Josef referred to him as TP's "'almost resident' costume designer."

One can pick apart the hits and misses in Reyes' body of work, but there's no denying he was an artist who always made the viewer look and think twice: for instance, the Barong Tagalog amid archaic silhouettes in "Ang Pag-uusig" (2017), an adaptation of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible"; or the panoply of blacks and whites that unexpectedly advanced the metaphors in the self-proclaimed rock sarswela "Aurelio Sedisyoso" (2017).

In the Philstage Gawad Buhay Awards for the Performing Arts, Reyes scored three nominations for costume design--one in 2017 for "Aurelio"; and two in 2015, for the steampunk musical "Mabining Mandirigma," and "Juego de Peligro," an adaptation of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." He rightfully took home the trophy for "Mabini." 

Schooled technique

Chris Millado, director of "Mabini," says on Facebook: "[James'] schooled technique in fashion design instantly matched the conceptual rigor that theater... demanded. It helped that he ran a profitable atelier that he mobilized when lack of personnel and low production budgets became a challenge. 'Gagawan natin ng paraan 'yan,' he would say every time we were ready to... settle for something less."

Playwright Layeta Bucoy, another longtime collaborator, says Reyes found fulfillment in, and was somehow even "addicted" to designing for theater. "Two years ago, he told me he was still in the process of exploring, that he was still learning but loving every moment of [designing for theater]. He fell in love with how the littlest detail in his design would contribute to a play's overall narrative, intentions, vision."

Reyes had just returned from New York, where he visited design laboratories, when work started on Bucoy's 2017 Virgin Labfest entry "Si Dr. Dolly Dalisay at ang Mga Ladybugs."

Bucoy recalls, "He patterned his designs on NY labs. Then I had to remind him, 'James, third world lab.' He said, 'Ay ganon? Akala ko pa naman 'shabby chic.'"

The final Bucoy-Reyes collaboration was last year's "Balag at Angud," an original musical based on the life of protest artist Junyee. And like the show's subject matter, who struggled with the poor reception of his early works, "[James] also went through that phase when he was a youngster, his drawings and sketches were called 'kalat lang,'" Bucoy says. "That's why he identified so much with [the show]."

The two collaborators had plans. "I asked him what would be most challenging to him as a designer, and he said if there'd be minimal props or set pieces onstage. So we agreed to come up with a play with only a pebble onstage," says Bucoy.

A tiny stone for a set would have made quite the punch line to a career that traversed the last 30 years--one that incubated at the University of the Philippines-Diliman, where Reyes obtained his Fine Arts degree; burned for more than a decade in the advertising industry; and even reached the finals of the 2002 Paris Young Designers' Competition, before finally landing on the theater stage.

For now, playgoers will have one more glimpse of Reyes' work, as "Mabini" and "Aurelio" return to the CCP this August for a three-week rerun in repertory.

James Reyes' wake is at St. Alphonsus de Ligouri Church, Magallanes Village, Makati City, until today, March 20.