PDI Feature: On virtual theater

Major-ish news: The Philippine Daily Inquirer's Theater section has been absorbed by Arts and Books (where theater articles used to appear before November 2012). The move makes sense, of course, given how local theater has been at a standstill for the last six months. My first essay under this new arrangement appears in today's paper, and contrary to what the headline makes it sound like, I am in fact not the biggest fan of virtual theater. See you in this same space next month, probably. The website link to the article here.

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Is virtual theater the future of the PH stage?

Four months ago, a video recording of "Ang Huling El Bimbo" streamed for free on Facebook and Youtube as part of ABS-CBN's fundraiser for the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. In just two days, the musical reached seven million views and raised over 12 million pesos.

Those were unquestionably impressive numbers, though to be fair, "El Bimbo" was an easy sell. A massive hit at Resorts World Manila, where it played 115 performances in the span of a year to some 150,000 people, it could rely on solid word of mouth. The show's use of the Eraserheads' music was also an attraction in itself, and would have lured even those who did not identify as theatergoers but were fans of the seminal band. Plus, the audience was already essentially "present": Anyone with internet access anywhere in the world could watch the show--and donate to the cause.

Nonetheless, the case of "El Bimbo" proved that, with the proper publicity and the "right" material, there can be a future for streaming theater in the Philippines. The question now--six months into this crippling pandemic--is how to make it work. One may as well begin by stressing the importance of the quality of the recording. This was never a problem for "El Bimbo"; at Resorts World Manila's Newport Performing Arts Theater, the shows were always accompanied by a "live recording," as strategically stationed cameras beamed the ongoing performance on either side of the stage. (Suddenly, what used to be a distracting feature of the theater became its asset.)

But "El Bimbo" was a rarity: Numerous companies also released archival content on the internet, such as Dulaang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas' "Ang Nawalang Kapatid" and Philippine Educational Theater Association's "William"--but often, these recordings were poorly captured and frustrating to watch.

And in any case, "El Bimbo" was no global pioneer. London's National Theatre and New York's Lincoln Center have been in the business of streaming theater for years, recording their shows as if they were shooting films and releasing them in cinemas or through broadcasters like PBS. In fact, when the pandemic struck and London theater shuttered, the National Theatre was one of the first to launch these online shows-for-a-cause initiatives. For Filipino viewers, that meant free and previously impossible access to Tom Hiddleston's "Coriolanus," for example.

But is such a model sustainable in the Philippines? If, for example, in a postpandemic world, "El Bimbo" were to hold regular cinema screenings, would enough people pay to see it?

It's a tricky question to navigate at the moment, and using First-World examples such as the National Theatre, or even "Hamilton's" tie-up with Disney+, to assert the financial viability of this future won't be very convincing.

It's even trickier for original material--this alien thing we now call virtual or "Zoom" theater, after the video conferencing app that artists worldwide have used as a stage. Now the question starts at the time of inception: Playwrights must now tailor their material to the virtual media, with Zoom screens in mind, while actors, directors and designers must navigate their craft in this strange in-between of film and physical theater.

The early local examples can be seen as stepping stones to this forced transition. Playwright Layeta Bucoy, for instance, wrote for Tanghalang Pilipino a trilogy of "monovlogs" that tried to unpack the human experience of COVID-19, the second installment of which starred screen legend Nora Aunor as the eponymous "Lola Doc." Gabay Kalikasan, an advocacy arm of PLDT-Smart, did a couple of revues employing many from the cast and creative team of "El Bimbo"--first, "Songs for a Changed World"; then "Tatsulok: A Trilogy for Change."

The recent Virgin Labfest, the Cultural Center of the Philippines' annual festival of new one-act plays, might just be the biggest such effort yet--and perhaps the most insightful.

For one, the most successful entires of this year's edition, which unfolded on the video platform Vimeo, were those that figured out how to transpose to the screen a script that was originally intended for the stage, such as Floyd Scott Tiogangco's "Pilot Episode," which surely benefited from having filmmaker Giancarlo Abrahan ("Dagitab," "Sila-Sila") at the helm. And as longtime festival production manager Nikki Garde-Torres shared, the dip in this year's revenues was countered by a huge rise in viewership--audiences from a wider geographical catchment--reflected in the postfestival numbers.

Especially in the past decade, Filipino theater has often been touted to be a "booming" industry, but in fact what this "theater" refers to has been largely confined to the stages of Metro Manila--the unfortunate product of, among other factors, theater journalists of prominent publications being mostly based in the capital and therefore covering only shows in that region; and the congregation of talent, from professional theater companies to universities with reputable training programs, in that same, insular space.

Virtual theater is just about our best answer now to solving this question of access--of whose theatrical creations get to be seen and who gets to see these creations.

Live theater is irreplaceable. But now we must also embrace virtual theater, whether streamed recordings of existing shows or completely new productions, as a vital part of the landscape. Doing so will not only be in support of sustaining the art form while the pandemic rages on; it will also be a step toward realizing a truly democratic Filipino theater.

PDI Review: Virgin Labfest 16

Nearly three months since my/our last piece for the Theater section! Due to space issues (because print media in the time of COVID-19), this piece has been split into two parts, published yesterday (part 1) and today (part 2). I'm putting it here in the original, unbroken form.

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Virgin Labfest: PH experiences its first 'virtual theater'

Under ordinary circumstances, the Cultural Center of the Philippines would have resembled a pilgrimage site of sorts these last three weeks, as Virgin Labfest, the annual festival of "untried, untested, unstaged" one-act plays, holds its 16th edition from June 10-28.

But this is no ordinary time: A pandemic rages across the world, with ill-equipped, populist leaders in charge of governments, to our global misfortune.

In Manila, live entertainment has been at a standstill for 15 weeks, resulting in thousands of displaced individuals and hundreds of millions in financial losses.

What's the Filipino theater artist to do in the face of unprecedented crisis where physical proximity in a live performance is a no-no?

If you're JK Anicoche, newly installed festival director of Labfest, you forge on, doing what theater artists around the world have done the past three months--migrating online and making do with "virtual theater." The festival theme "kapit" ("hold on") couldn't have been more apt.

Substitute for live theater

One wonders what the German cultural critic Walter Benjamin would have to say about this new arrangement. In his 1935 landmark essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," Benjamin briefly distinguished theater from film through two elements: the presence of camera for the latter, and a physical audience with whom the stage actor interacts constantly for the former.

But Benjamin didn't have to deal with a pandemic, nor could he have foreseen the rise of the internet, which has not only influenced how we "reproduce" and "distribute," and thus "view" and "consume" art, but which can now dictate the very creation of art itself. Especially in light of the pandemic, the distinctions laid out by Benjamin aren't so much rendered pointless as placed in positions that demand careful reflection and reconsideration.

There can be no substitute for live, physical theater as we've known it, but one might as well make room for this new "virtual" theater--works that aren't just filmed versions of live performances, but created, designed and intended to be performed for the virtual space.

While we look forward to finally returning to watching theater in real time as an intimate crowd, it is necessary, if only in the meantime, to explore what it means to be writing scripts with streaming platforms in mind; directing and performing for the unseen but ever-present audience; even presenting shows in a country where decent internet connection--the basic requirement of virtual theater--isn't common.

The nine works of this year's Labfest prompt discussion of those questions. (The 10th play of the original lineup, Dustin Celestino's "Doggy," has been pulled out of the festival.)

'Pilot Episode': Brilliant

The best of the nine is Floyd Scott Tiogangco's "Pilot Episode"--not only a cut above the rest, but also inarguably the first great Filipino play of the quarantine. The writing is a brilliant explication of mental illness, honest and compassionate in its portrayal of the cycle of helplessness that hounds not just the patient, but also the patient's loved ones, to an almost normalized degree.

The advantages of having a filmmaker at the helm are instantly recognizable. But more than just his evident grasp of working on screen, director Giancarlo Abrahan actually lends the medium of film to heighten both the storytelling and the theatrical production, instead of insisting that the theater adjust to preconceived demands of film.

The play's first half is a straightforward monologue, with Phi Palmos (in one of the year's finest turns as the bipolar protagonist) acting straight before the camera (and thus, the viewers).

The second half is a tour-de-force dramatization of a manic episode in the life of the character, who lives with his parents (Missy Maramara and Jojit Lorenzo, providing excellent support). Six rectangular screens are present throughout, as each actor shoots from two differently positioned cameras at home.

By merely playing with the screens--the "positioning" of the actors, how many screens they occupy in a scene, even the way they appear, disappear, or are cut within a screen--Abrahan is able to capture the internal and external struggles of mental illness, and renders the confusions of mania--the flight of ideas, the fluctuating emotions and energies--in surprisingly accessible and evocative terms.

The "editing" and "production design" even succeed in granting the play a sense of visual and narrative continuity.

'The Boy-boy & Friends Channel': Fine sketch comedy

Anthony Kim Vergara's "The Boy-boy & Friends Channel," directed by Joshua Tayco, also lends itself well to the virtual medium.

The play is about four friends who run one of those Youtube channels that put out inane, if selectively entertaining, content. And the inanity is reflected foremost in the use of comical (and comically cheap) visuals, from Zoom backgrounds to outlandish physical gestures (mostly care of Gabo Tolentino, a hoot as the quartet's tattoo artist friend).

The treatment is, in a way, meta: On stage, the play would have unfolded with the audience located "inside" the physical space where the characters are shooting their Youtube content; now, the viewer watches from the other side of the "camera," chunks of the play unfolding as the supposed video recording.

The play itself is too long, takes unnecessary detours, and ends unconvincingly. But when it's good, it's really good, Vergara's writing calling to mind the finest moments of sketch comedy shows like "Bubble Gang" and "Ispup," but for the Duterte era. And the perfect casting includes Jerald Napoles and Anthony Falcon, so believable as the kind of people who would casually poke fun at Duterte's drug war on their Youtube channel, that you wonder just where the script ends and the improv begins.

'Titser Kit': A marvel of simplicity

Jobert Grey Landeza's "Titser Kit" is the opposite of Vergara's play. A conversation in a school storage room between a new student, who happens to be lumad, and the teacher who is his sole friend and confidante, it is devoid of noise and is a marvel of simplicity.

Director Adrienne Vergara's "staging" evokes the limits of the play's intimate physical (as well as social) space with just two alternating camera perspectives and through the clever use of close-ups.

The play, however, is riddled with a clumsy eagerness to arrive at moments of poignancy by way of nostalgia-as-exposition. Nevertheless, in the instances that it does land those moments, in the quiet gestures and small pauses of its actors (IO Balanon and JM Salvado as teacher and student, respectively), it becomes a deceptively simple but no less illuminating discourse on the unspoken trauma of children from violence-stricken places.  

'Multiverse,' 'Papaano Turuan ang Babaw Humawak ng Baril': Ravishing visuals

The inelegant handling of emotion also marks Juliene Mendoza's "Multiverse," one of two plays that know exactly what they want to achieve with their visuals--and execute those visuals with ravishing effect (the other being Daryl Pasion's "Papaano Turuan ang Babae Humawak ng Baril").

"Multiverse," directed by Fitz Bitana, runs away with its visual conceit, merging the superhero comic books of Marvel and DC with arcade video games of old. It also has the perfect stars (Iggi Siasoco and Vino Mabalot) to exude the mile-a-minute energy of its story of two brothers who rekindle bonds after the younger one's catastrophic spiral into alcoholism.

But the story's stumble into all-too-convenient melodrama is its undoing--when it starts rubbing emotions on the viewer's nose and relies on a disingenuous twist for its climax.

Pasion's play, on the other hand, looks like an oil painting, with its almost-static background of the light-deprived interiors of a meager home. The writing is also the festival's most poetic and lyrical--and to a certain extent, succeeds in intimating the personal change that affects the protagonist, a military underling's lowly wife who must finally confront the senseless violence that has long plagued her husband and her community.

But the play is overwritten, and combined with Erika Estacio's loose direction, comes across as a play of big moments and big emotions stifled by its technological platform, and too engrossed with its poetic and lyrical qualities. It also makes you wish to see Lhorvie Nuevo tackle the role of the wife onstage; here she can be affecting, but only to a degree.

'Mayang Bubot sa Tag-araw,' 'Blackpink': Burdened by narratives

Meanwhile, two plays feel more burdened than buoyed by the narrative messages they are so preoccupied with delivering.

Norman Boquiren's "Mayang Bubot sa Tag-araw," directed by Mark Mirando, apparently wants to bring to light the desecration of ancestral lands of indigenous peoples in the country, but spends an inordinate amount of time skimming the surface and dwelling on petty and less insightful matters. As the closest this festival has to outright protest theater, the play seems hesitant to dramatize the issues that demand dramatizing (relegating those to its final 10 minutes), or perhaps, too overwhelmed by the issues it initially sought to tackle.

It's even more baffling with Tyron Casumpang's "Blackpink," directed by Jethro Tenorio. It positions itself as progressive, an ally of the LGBTQ community, in creating the characters of a father who has long accepted his son's homosexuality, and of the son whose family rallies behind him to fight for his right to dance to a Korean girl group's song in the school talent show.

But as the characters unravel--the "gay" son reveals he is straight, and at one point, the father dictatorially commands his sons to admit to their homosexuality in the name of self-acceptance--the play becomes more confused, and ends up dropping its agenda in favor of a "fun" and "family-friendly" conclusion.

"Blackpink" is not exactly "I have gay friends, so I can't be homophobic" made manifest, but it sure resembles that friend who claims to be an ally, but nonetheless proceeds to bully (and betray) you, and ultimately tells you to forego and forget politics in the name of "friendship."

'Dapithapon,' 'Gin Bilog': Fragmented

As for Jay Crisostomo IV's "Dapithapon," directed by Sig Pecho, and Luisito T. Nario's "Gin Bilog," directed by James Harvey Estrada, what's most striking is how the translation from stage to screen seems to have significantly lost the written work's essence.

"Dapithapon" is a nostalgia trip for those who miss their adolescence in the presocial media age. Its day-in-the-life story of three boys in the twilight of high school thrives on dick jokes, bathroom humor, and just tons of broad comedy that it doesn't land all the time.

But onscreen, the energy the play would have derived from portraying three hormonal teenagers in a single space is now fragmented and muted, so much so that the arrival of Ina Azarcon-Bolivar (as the larger-than-life teacher) late in the play becomes such a welcome disruptive force.

The fragmentation and lost-in-translation effect is worse for "Gin Bilog," an absurd comedy about three drunks whose night gets out of hand and ends morbidly. It would be pretentious to say with certainty how this play could have transpired on a physical stage, but this virtual version unfortunately comes across as rudimentary in so many ways, from the attempts at animation to the strangely catatonic delivery of the comedy.

'Wanted: Male Boarders,' 'Jenny Li': Utter delight

Instead, the other runaway success of this Labfest is in the Revisited section (traditionally, the three plays from the previous year chosen to return for the current season).

Rick Patriarca's "Wanted: Male Boarders," which distilled its central theme--that prejudice is learned, and can be unlearned--into its go-for-broke telling of three hypermasculine guys who must learn to live with their gayer-than-gay new housemate, now comes with a subtitle: "Vidjokol edition."

Pacing issues notwithstanding, what an utter delight this play directed by George de Jesus III has become. Not only does it makes punchlines out of the notion of phone and video sex in the age of smartphones, it has also fully committed to the idea of the smartphone as the stage, and cleverly situates itself in the time of the pandemic--which means TikTok, Snapchat filters, freezing screens, Kim Chiu's "Bawal Lumabas," Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande's "Rain on Me," and so forth.

The result is a completely new staging that would no doubt merit a spot in the Revisited section.

And among the staged readings we've caught, Buch Dacanay's "Jenny Li," directed by Nour Hooshmand, is one that demands to be seen.

It's ridiculous to call this a staged reading (it's a fully staged virtual production, come on!), and its use of a twist as dramatic device may comes across as deceptive and counterproductive in the context of the story it wants to tell.

But this is a play that addresses the unending issue of rape, male predatory behavior, and the exceptional bravery it always takes for victims to come forward--and does so with remarkable empathy and clearheadedness. A spot in the featured works section would have been more than deserved.

I Have Moved to TinyLetter

Just a PSA for anyone who still visits this space (thank you, I really appreciate it). This blog will now just be an archive of my published work. For the diary/ drama/ personal eme, subscribe to my TinyLetter: 

https://tinyletter.com/vincengyu.

See ya!

PDI Feature: Impact of COVID-19 on Filipino theater companies

Cora and I do the numbers and economics in today's theater section--here. I can only hope I never again see in my lifetime the theater community besieged by something as crippling and monstrous as this pandemic.

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'Sometimes, the show can't go on': How Filipino theater tries to cope

Twenty-eight productions of 22 companies in Metro Manila have been affected so far by the new coronavirus diseases (COVID-19) pandemic, which forced the government to lock down Luzon and suspend all public gatherings.

From a public health perspective, the move was necessary.

Yet, one simply cannot ignore the economic repercussions of this unprecedented shutdown.

"Theater is time-bound and time-sensitive. Very few productions are able to circumvent the idea of 'It's now or never,' which is why 'The show must go on' has become synonymous with the performing arts," says Pangasinan Rep. Toff de Venecia, the managing artistic director of The Sandbox Collective. "But COVID-19 is a different monster altogether. It has caught everyone in the industry off-guard."

Sandbox canceled 14 performances of a 16-show repertory run of "Lungs" and "Every Brilliant Thing," its two hit nonmusical plays from 2018 and 2019, respectively.

Postponing a single weekend of shows alone, De Venecia says, would already incur a loss for the company, as it grapples with "venue availability vis-à-vis the preferences of both ticket buyers and show buyers for rescheduled performances. What more postponing the whole run."

According to an industry insider, mounting a typical four-weekend run of an English-language nonmusical play by a non-Filipino playwright--covering licensing, salaries, production costs, administrative work and marketing--now costs anywhere between P2 and P4 million. A musical of similar pedigree costs at least P10 million.

For productions of homegrown material--without the need to pay for licenses and royalties overseas--the costs run anywhere between P800,000 (the minimum for nonmusical plays) and P2 million (the usual maximum for musicals).

To break even, or recover expenses, a production would have to net at least 15-20 percent return of investment. This translates to 50-60 percent capacity for every performances--which is hardly the case in the local theater scene, where audiences usually start filling houses only past the second weekend, from word of mouth.

Productions by university companies cost less to mount--according to another insider, P50,000 to P200,000 for a straight play, and around P1.2 million for a musical.

Student-run

Of the 28 productions sidelined by the pandemic, 13 were by student-run theater organizations or university theater arts programs.

That included Ateneo Entablado's (Enta) "Macli-ing," which had only the first of its three-week run; Ateneo Blue Repertory's (BlueRep) "Next to Normal," with a sold-out five-show opening weekend; and Tanghalang Ateneo's (TA) "Top Girls," which never got to open.

Collectively, they incurred P1,121,011.39 in losses, according to the Council of Organizations of the Ateneo.

Missy Maramara, director of "Next to Normal," says: "In student-run companies, the students raise the funds, make the decisions and do the legwork. We apply for grants from the school; we don't get automatic subsidies. The university support comes in the form of minimal expenses for the use of the venues. So our only streams of revenue are ticket sales, sponsorships and the occasional gig."

According to Maramara, "Next to Normal" lost around half a million pesos because of cancellations. "Productions of the following year are dependent on the financial capacity of the previous year, so it's a deficit the company will bring over to its next production."

This snowball effect is felt not only on a micro level (e.g., detailed finances), but also on a macro scale (e.g., the planning of a company's entire season).

Sandbox's sister company, 9 Works Theatrical, has postponed one of two productions set later in the year for next year, says managing director Santi Santamaria.

The 11-year-old company's original lineup included a new jukebox musical using the songs of former Rivermaya frontman Rico Blanco, and the stage adaptation of the Whitney Houston vehicle "The Bodyguard."

No opening night

Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group has preemptively canceled its production of "Oliver!," set for June. Its maiden offering for 2020, "The Band's Visit," managed only a couple of invitational technical dress rehearsals (March 11-12) and shuttered before opening night.

Repertory Philippines' (Rep) "Anna in the Tropics" never got to open, while its "Carousel," to be directed by De Venecia and originally set for May, has been postponed.

"Batang Mujahideen," the production of Tanghalang Pilipino (TP), resident theater company of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), was the earliest casualty of the pandemic.

Even before its late-February opening night, it already had to cancel five of its 12 performances, as the schools that bought those shows backed out in compliance with the Department of Education's memorandum on prohibition of educational trips.

Despite losing roughly P400,000 from those canceled shows, however, artistic director Fernando "Nanding" Josef chooses to think of TP as somehow lucky. "The onset of the epidemic happened at the tail end of our season. Our Actors Company (AC) and staff were psychologically prepared for the 'off-season' mood, and the show itself was well-received by audiences and critics, so morale did not get too low. Plus, one of the show buyers that backed out instead transferred its reservation to the rerun of 'Lam-ang' in September."

In the meantime, some reevaluation of existing structures and internal policies is needed--what Josef calls starting "a solid, sustainable program of in-depth reflection, analysis and new creative collective action."

Strong business sense

Rep artistic director Liesl Batucan, for one, notes that "there are advantages to being a company that's been in the business for a long time. [Late company cofounder] Tita Bibot Amador ran Rep very well; she had a strong business sense. Now we have financials--not a lot, but enough to help us not shut down the whole year--and the human resource infrastructure."

As Santamaria puts its, "Unlike normal businesses that are accustomed to monthly income flow, theater has trained us to be naturally prudent, as we only really earn or lose income whenever we have a production."

It's this ephemeral nature of local theater that De Venecia sees as both boon and bane. "It's a kind of cushion in that we don't have tremendous overhead, as opposed to those who maintain facilities or have regular employees. But as arts organizations, our engagement with audiences is seasonal and transactional. We put up a show, engage with paying audiences and disengage soon after--which is maybe why theater companies work so hard to scream in a crowded market to attract fickle audiences.

"As producers, we can't not look ahead; we still have to make plans and provisions for future programming. But if anything, this pandemic has compelled micro-, small and medium enterprises such as ours to start thinking medium-term rather than short term--to think of plan B or C in light of force majeure."

Moving forward, after all, is not as easy as it sounds. Rescheduling canceled shows must consider the availability of venues, that of artists and behind-the-scenes personnel.

There is also the emotional toll the sudden forced closures have inflicted on the artistic community.

"Our circles are not just tightknit, but also concentric," says De Venecia. "Workers in the industry vacillate between capacities and capabilities--one actor in this show is a producer in the next, and so on. There is literally one degree of separation within Philippine theater.

Sad emojis

"When we announced the postponement of Sandbox's shows via Viber, 'It is what it is,' said most of our team with sad emojis. We couldn't even have a proper face-to-face company call because by then, Metro Manila was already on community quarantine."

Maramara says "Next to Normal" was already looking into adding shows because it had sold out its three-week run. "People tell us, 'At least you got to open.' That is true, and we are grateful, but that doesn't diminish the intensity of the loss. This isn't a contest of whose pain is greater."

No doubt, it's an even more trying time for freelancers--artists who earn on per-project basis--who constitute majority of the community.

As Audie Gemora, Philstage president and Trumpets artistic director, puts it, "The initial disappointment over the lockdown was frustration over not being able to perform after having prepared for months.

"Then came the realization that it meant loss of income, with no clear view of when this crisis will be resolved."

"COVID-19 has brought the plight of the freelancers into play and provided a startling new viewpoint into their vulnerability," De Venecia says. "Before Congress adjourned last March 11, we tackled an Occupational Safety Bill about the performing arts, known as the Eddie Garcia Bill. It is now in the technical working group (TWG) stage.

"There is a need to find out how many artists there are, and how the pandemic has affected them, since many are not covered by formal employer-employee contracts, and thus, the recent Department of Labor and Employment assistance of P5,000 for displaced workers, for example.

"The displacement of creative workers is an economic reality that the Creative Workers Welfare Bill that I refiled in the 18th Congress hopes to address, by providing access to secondary livelihoods for our affected stakeholders. I've also filed a Freelancer Protection Bill, which is now in the TWG stage."

Taken up the cudgels

In the absence of concrete legislation, theater artists themselves have taken up the cudgels to raise funds for creative works most vulnerable to this lockdown.

A coalition involving Philstage, Artists Welfare Project, Silly People's Improve Theater-Manila, Third World Improv, Ticket2Me and Theater Actors Guild has put up Open House, an online serial fundraiser whose programs have so far included classes on movement (with Jack Yabut) and hurdling auditions (with Rony Fortich), an episode of the five-year-old cabaret series "One Night Stand," and even a song interpretation workshop delivered by Gemora himself.

Another group--made up of JK Anicoche, Laura Cabochan, Jopie Sanchez, Komunidad, Sipat Lawin and the Concerned Artists of the Philippines--has set up #CreativeAidPH, which has gathered much-needed preliminary data on the specific extent of the lockdown's financial toll, from a pool of nearly 500 respondents.

"We have also reached out to CCP and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts to realign their budgets for the displaced workers," says Gemora.

And within companies themselves, the wheels are already turning.

In the case of TP, Josef says it "should continue its research-oriented programming of theater," citing the company's recent partnership with the Asian Institute for Distance Education (AIDE) as an important cushion for these down times.

Under AIDE, TP has launched an online certificate-granting workshop in performing arts led by Remus Villanueva, under its Kamalayang Pilipino Workshop in the Arts program. "We can develop more modules for scriptwriting, production design, etc., and employ not only the AC, but other artist-teachers who are temporarily out of work because of the pandemic," says Josef.

Preexisting coalitions among university organizations have also proven beneficial, as evidenced by the Ateneo theater companies. Starting last year, TA, BlueRep and Enta have collaborated on TresPass, a season pass for their productions running simultaneously toward the end of the school year.

"When the pandemic hit, and everyone's morale plunged, we turned not only to members of our own organization, but reached out to other companies as well," says Maramara.

"It was the officers of all three companies who worked out logistical and financial concerns with the university's Performing Arts Cluster and Office of Student Activities.

"The companies are now competing with compassion. The students talk to each other, which is the best way to learn what each of us can offer."

As with all industries wrestling with this global crisis, the Filipino theater community is starting to come to grips with changes that can permanently alter the landscape. To paraphrase De Venecia: "More than moving forward, this pandemic is forcing us to restrategize and contend with the reality that sometimes, the show cannot go on."

PDI Opinion: Adding fuel to the COVID-19 inferno

What a fucked-up time we are living in now. Every hour, something infuriating just seems to happen in this country. The website version of this rant here.

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Adding fuel to the COVID-19 inferno

It's hard not to envy the Singaporeans. Through a televised address on March 12, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong laid out in a mere 11-and-a-half minutes the state of his country amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and his government's plan of action. The speech was clear, concise, and, most importantly, reassuring, the gist of it being: We are wading on uncharted waters, but your leaders are on top of things.

How nice to have a government--or even just a head of state--that actually knows how to talk to its people, instead of sending them into alternating states of panic and paranoia.

The same day as Lee's address, President Duterte also faced his nation. He was two hours late to the scheduled broadcast, and when he finally appeared, it was to announce--in increments--the provisions of the Metro Manila quarantine. "Announce now, details to follow" was the gist of the whole affair, as if the document he was reading were the most banal and unimportant thing.

Days later, his lackey, presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo, also took to the podium. Mind you, this was before the actual announcement of the "enhanced quarantine"--now the whole island of Luzon was to be locked down. Among the many things Panelo said: The Cabinet was about to propose a Luzon-wide lockdown to the President (so why was he already blabbing about it to the media?); the country was taking South Korea's lead in locking down (Korea has done no such thing); eating bananas and gargling saltwater would prevent you from getting COVID-19 (they won't); and the operations of such services as supermarkets and food cargo deliveries would be impeded (the Department of Trade and Industry had to quickly go on record to refute that statement).

Neither instance was out of character; anyone who has lived through all three-and-a-half years of Mr. Duterte's presidency should by now be familiar with its penchant for chest-beating and noise-making set to maximum. "We can say what we want and get away with it" has always been the gist of this government.

It's only rational, then, to think that, for all the proactive actions it has indeed taken, this government remains blithely unaware of just how extraordinary and precarious a time we are living through--that now, more than ever, the unhinged minds occupying its highest echelons must take responsibility for every single word they utter.

In the two instances cited above, what transpired afterward was only expected. Perhaps for the nth time within the span of two weeks, many people in Metro Manila found themselves panic-buying, prodded by vague, doomsday-like proclamations from above to head to groceries, pharmacies, and other establishments. In other words, crowding in public places--and, quite possibly, transmitting the virus among themselves. The pictures of these crowds--the indirect result, it must be emphasized, of the government's reckless mouth--are just some of the stuff that health care workers' nightmares are made of these days.

And it isn't just its mouth this government can't control; it also doesn't care about the kind of messages it sends out to its already anxious and agitated people.

The country running short on testing kits for the virus? Let's have asymptomatic politicos get tested, anyway, violating the algorithm set by the Department of Health, and have them parade their results in public. Meanwhile, patients under investigation for COVID-19 are dying in our hospitals without even knowing if they were positive for the virus.

A pandemic laying siege to our fragile health care system? Let's have a law-and-order solution to this public health problem, with checkpoints manned by the military, ill-equipped and clueless about the necessary hygienic precautions (though hopefully not as clueless now).

Nobody expects any government to get through this pandemic perfectly. But the least it can do is provide a reassuring voice to its people, and show them it is exhausting every possible means to get them through this unprecedented time--something numerous local government units, through the leadership of their mayors and governors, seem to be achieving.

Our national government, on the other hand, is only adding fuel to the Philippine COVID-19 inferno. Not only are we facing a virus the world still knows very little about, we must also deal with leaders who don't know how--or don't care--to talk to us like they actually want us to survive this pandemic.

PDI Feature: Theater cancellations amid COVID-19

Fucking pandemic. The website version here.

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Cancellation notices simply heartbreaking

How does one even begin to take stock of unprecedented loss--much less learn how, or what, exactly to feel?

It's a thought worth pondering these days of the Luzon quarantine, which shuttered nine theater productions and led to either the postponement or cancellation of 18 more, including eight slated to open the week the quarantine was announced.

Make no mistake, this was a necessary move. We still know very little about the enemy--and we're not even being dramatic in calling COVID-19 "the enemy"--though we know for certain it thrives in close quarters. Logic only followed that the theater, an art form that breathes through human proximity and intimacy, should close immediately.

A necessary move, no doubt. But it doesn't make it any less heartbreaking. Unlike Broadway or the London's West End, whose marquees dimmed all at once following organized edicts from above, the Manila theater industry instead endured day after day of pounding uncertainty.

"The show must go on" has always been a powerful adage, fueling productions even in times of man-made disasters or natural calamities, and fuel productions it did in the weeks leading to the quarantine announcement.

State of limbo

At first, it was just Tanghalang Pilipino's (TP) "Batang Mujahideen" preemptively canceling performances, its show buyers--mostly schools--withdrawing their participation, given the pandemic's looming threat.

Then with the initial suspension of classes in Metro Manila from March 10 to March 14, the university productions were sent into what could have only been a harrowing state of limbo. (Do they make up for canceled performances? Extend the run? Close altogether?)

Even on the night of the quarantine announcement itself, two productions--Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group's (ATEG) "The Band's Visit" and Repertory Philippines' (Rep) "Anna in the Tropics"--were more than ready to open, should they have been allowed to do so, while the international tour of "Matilda the Musical" carried on at The Theatre at Solaire.

Now, only drawn curtains and heartbreak magnified. When the theater has become so integral to your life, as it has been to the writers of this section--when your weekends are plotted according to the varying runs of productions, and chasing after shows across the region's scattered stages has become a way of life--the sight of these productions posting closing or cancellation notices one after another can be a most gut-wrenching experience.

Perched distantly as surveyors of the scene, we cannot even claim to imagine how much more difficult a time it has become for the artists themselves--the writers, directors, performers, designers, musicians, publicists, crew members, who actually keep our stages running and burning bright.

Economic impact

The economic impact of this pandemic will be brutal. Perhaps it may be too early for a thorough assessment of the damage that these closures and cancellations have brought upon Philippine theater, but already we are seeing just how fragile the fabric of an industry we have touted to be "booming" all these years remains.

What of our freelancers? What of our practitioners who are also breadwinners? What of those for whom theater and the performing arts are, clichés be damned, truly the world--financially, as much as artistically?

So it has been heartening, to say the least, seeing our theater artists themselves take up the cudgels, in the many ways they know how. Some have brought their craft online, through storytelling sessions and concerts on Facebook Live, or even streamed yoga and dance sessions.

Others have started advocacy and awareness campaigns against the pandemic through song.

Most important, #CreativeAidPH, led by JK Anicoche, Laura Cabochan, Jopie Sanchez, Komunidad, Sipat Lawin and the Concerned Artists of the Philippines, has launched an online platform to gather concrete data from individuals on the economic and financial damage the pandemic has so far caused--which is exactly the kind of moving-forward step the industry needs.

The next time you use the word "resilient," theater practitioners better be at the top of your mind.

So--for now--take your virtual bows:

"Anna in the Tropics" and "Carousel" (Rep); "The Band's Visit" and "Oliver!" (ATEG); "Bogus Pokus" (Harlequin Theatre Guild); "Dekada '70" (Black Box Productions); "Enrico IV" (TP); "Every Brilliant Thing" and "Lungs" (The Sandbox Collective); "In the Heights" (Broadway Theatre Troupe of Ateneo); "Juan Tamban" (Dulaang ROC); "Kublihan," "Kung Paano Maghiwalay" and "Swipe Right, Siz" (College of St. Benilde Theater Arts); "Macli-ing" (Ateneo Entablado); "Matilda the Musical" (GMG Productions); "Nana Rosa" (Dulaang UP); "Next to Normal" (Ateneo Blue Repertory); "Once a Panahon" (Juliene Mendoza/9th Studios Creative Hub); "Ang Pangahas na si Pepe Rodriguez" (Teatro Tomasino); "Rashomon" (ViARE); "The Revolutionists" (Cast); "Tabing Ilog the Musical" (Star Hunt/ABS-CBN); Tamdula 3 (FEU Theater Guild); "Top Girls" (Tanghalang Ateneo); "Under My Skin" (Peta); and "Walang Damit ang Hari ng La Mancha sa Mata ng Hangal" (Dulaang Sipat Lawin).

We'll see you in the theater when this pandemic is over. The day our curtains rise again is the day we look forward to the most.

PDI Review: 'The Band's Visit' by Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group

This was the last production I saw before the Metro Manila quarantine was enacted. The website version here. The original Broadway cast recording has been a go-to mental-health break for days now.

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'The Band's Visit' was simply perfect

Years from now, we will talk of Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group's "The Band's Visit" and remember how it was forced to close even before it could open.

The irony will not be lost on us: how a musical about human connection had to dim its lights prematurely because of a pandemic that spread, among other means, through human contact.

Fatalists might even claim the musical's book set it up for that irony. "You probably didn't hear about it. It wasn't very important," goes the opening supertitles, referring to the story of a fictional Egyptian police orchestra that winds up not just in the wrong town, but also in the wrong country.

Overnight, the musicians are adopted by the Israeli townspeople--allowed into their homes, and for that brief span, into their "bleak" and "boring" lives.

Anything but boring

This Atlantis production was anything but bleak or boring. It was, in fact, one of the finest musical productions to have graced our stages in at least the last decade.

As directed by Bobby Garcia, we saw and understood exactly why this show--written by Itamar Moses and scored by David Yazbek--deserved its Tony Award for Best Musical.

"The Band's Visit" is a true-blue "book musical," the kind of song-and-dance theater that favors sound storytelling over spectacle; where the singing and dancing aid the narrative, instead of the narrative merely interspersed between musical numbers.

The New York Times called it "an honest-to-goodness musical for adults," and that assessment is just about right. Very little, in terms of incident, may seem to happen in this 90-minute show, but my, does it open up human worlds and histories as evocatively and eloquently as it illuminates the ordinary and seemingly inconsequential in the lives of its characters.

That, and more, we gleaned from Garcia's production, its compact yet measured pacing reflective of the wisdom and insight that went into its making. And it wasn't just Garcia's direction--everyone involved in this production did topnotch work.

Farley Asuncion's musical direction was remarkable for its clarity, as for its illusion of simplicity.

Faust Peneyra's set was of a piece with Adam Honoré's lights. The deceptively barren walls and sparingly outfitted performance space could have revealed its tricks only through the genius lighting design.

Seamless

Odelon Simpao's costumes and Justin Stasiw's sound design were essential to the seamless creation of the world of this musical, and GA Fallarme's projections heightened effectively the parts of the show where they were needed.

And that cast? Not a false note: Reb Atadero's girl-baffled Papi; the easy-to-miss groundedness of Bibo Reyes' Itzik and Steven Conde's Simon; Mark Bautista delivering a performance of composed suavity as Haled; even Maronne Cruz's brief but realized turns as Julia and a bus station clerk, to name a few.

The star pairing of Rody Vera (as orchestra conductor Tewfiq) and Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo (as café owner Dina) was of an entirely different level--two lead performances that glimmered with that rare sort of intelligence, when an actor knows exactly how much to give or withhold in every single scene, and in the process, expand the world of the musical way beyond its perceived limits.

If it isn't clear enough, yes, if there were such a thing as a perfect production, "The Band's Visit" was just about it. Very few saw it during its invitational technical dress rehearsals. It was beautiful. It was important. And it should visit us again the moment we get past this pandemic--hopefully soon. 

PDI Review: 'Next to Normal' by Ateneo Blue Repertory

Manila theater is officially shut down. It has been heartbreaking, to say the least. This one, in particular, is a huge loss. The website version here.

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'Next to Normal': 2020's best local musical you'll miss due to Covid-19

The COVID-19 (new coronavirus) outbreak in Metro Manila this past week virtually crippled what had promised to be a bustling month for theater, with as many as 13 canceled productions for this weekend alone.

Among the casualties is "Next to Normal"--and it's especially hard not to feel dejected over this one: This new staging by Ateneo Blue Repertory (BlueRep) may well be the year's best local musical production.

It's easy to say that BlueRep had a straight path to victory. The material, after all, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, and masterpieces are harder to bungle. But it is precisely how this "Next to Normal" highlights what a masterpiece the musical is that makes the production an unmissable work.

Emotionally lacerating

Once again codirecting with Darrell Uy (after last year's ravishing "Spring Awakening"), Missy Maramara helms this production--and again, sidesteps the temptation to yield to the material's rock-musical roots. The result is "Next to Normal" with its insides fully exposed--an emotionally lacerating, meat-of-the-matter treatment that only brings to light the airtight, organic quality of Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey's writing and music-making.

Another way to put it: Maramara's production visibly makes sense of the material--of the lyrics, and of the story itself. The plunge into the unraveling lives of the fictional Goodman family (consisting of Diana, who has bipolar disorder, her husband Dan and daughter Natalie) never once feels rote or dishonest. Every element in this production, both human and nonhuman, is intertwined.

This "Next to Normal" becomes an even more outsized accomplishment when one considers the physical space it is given: Ateneo de Manila University's Gonzaga Fine Arts Theater, a cramped box of a room that the affluent school has somehow passed off as an actual "theater." Why this place is home to this show is topic for lengthier talk, but one thing's clear: This place does not deserve this masterpiece and the tremendous talent it employs.

Overcoming limits of space

Yet somehow we should also thank this venue, if only for the chance to witness the topnotch skill involved in this production, how it has overcome the limits of space through intelligent direction and design.

Tata Tuviera's set reflects the fragile state of the Goodman family, especially Diana's state of mind, and effectively evokes the story's needed spaces, working hand in hand with Franco Ramos' efficient movement design, Miyo Sta. Maria's strategic lighting and Cholo Ledesma's crystal-clear sound design. And Tuviera's costumes, take note, are fine specimens of what one might label "no-costumes costumes."

Main draw

The main draw of any "Next to Normal" would be rightfully its Diana--a Herculean part requiring any actress to wander stoutheartedly what the lyrics call the "manic, magic days and [dark], depressing nights." But guided by Maramara, and on the strength of its actors, this production becomes at once the individual and converging stories of Diana, Dan and Natalie.

Cris Villonco is, simply put, heartbreaking as Diana, but equally so is Jef Flores as Dan; they are breathing, singing, open wounds, and we'd be heaven-blessed to come across a more magnificent pair of leading performances this year. As Natalie, Nikki Bengzon (alternating with Jam Binay) is a vision of clarity, in every sense of the word, and one of the most exciting newcomers to the scene we've seen of late.

In fact, so thoughtfully staged is this production that it even makes you care about the Goodmans' son Gabe (Tim Pavino, affecting and in wondrous voice, alternating with Adrian Lindayag), Natalie's boyfriend Henry (Carlos de Guzman, immensely likable, alternating with Davy Narciso), and Diana's doctors (Jobim Javier, alternating with Jason Tan Liwag, who is "authoritative as a man of science," notes former Theater editor Gibbs Cadiz).

In the program, Maramara writes: "The hope of art is to sublimate human experiences [into] a form that allows for manageable confrontation." On that account alone, this "Next to Normal" is a success. It is also a musical triumph (the musical direction by Ejay Yatco), and a powerfully moving time at the theater. It is the real deal.

PDI Review: 'Dekada '70' by Black Box Productions

I like this show less now than when I first saw it two years ago, but it's still an important, must-see piece. The website version of this review here.

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'Dekada '70': The revolution is alive in this musical

Pat Valera addressing the audience post-show two years ago. The production has returned to the same venue this year.

Plays set in or centered on the Marcos dictatorship (these days, interchangeable in certain ways with the Duterte administration) all come to us with that singular, oft-intoned message: Never forget. Pat Valera's musical adaptation of the Lualhati Bautista novel "Dekada '70" tells its audience exactly that, but in all capital letters.

There is no denying the revolution, in its myriad forms, is alive in this musical, which has been enjoying a sold-out rerun at Ateneo de Manila University. That can only be for the best.

One can argue that the resistance taking the form of song and dance is, in effect, preaching to an echo chamber--the sort of people willing to shell out money for an obviously anti-Marcos (and by extension, anti-Duterte) piece of theater are in all likelihood long on the same page as the play itself--but lest we forget, today's high school kids weren't even born during the second Edsa Revolution, and their K-12 curriculum has made a joke out of Philippine History as a subject.

In that sense, "Dekada '70" should stick around this notoriously amnesiac nation for as long as it can, hopefully packing every performance not just with theatergoers who are there on their own dime, but more importantly with scores of students, their parents and teachers.

Far from perfect, but...

Never mind that both the play and its current iteration under Black Box Productions are far from perfect.

"Dekada '70" examines literally a decade of life under martial law through the eyes of the comfortably middle-class Bartolome family. The stage version actually feels like watching a decade unfold.

There are two--not just one, but two!--plays-within-the-play, on top of drawn-out song numbers that bleed into each other and scenes that either repeat previous points or gratingly spell the point out for the audience.

Throughout this production, the volume, both auditory and emotional, is set to maximum; the action is always an approximation of fear and confusion; the moments of silence become literal breaths of fresh air, you would think this show might one day outlaw the mere act of breathing. And, by the way, the exhausting pace that this production insists on actually shows, most visibly taking its toll on the performers toward the end of both acts.

It's still an excellent cast, though, and taken on its own, the score by Valera and Matthew Chang gives us some genuinely heart-stopping anthems.

Stella Cañete-Mendoza's performance alone is still worth the price of admission; the narrative journey she brings the audience along, her transformation from subdued matriarch to empowered woman, remains a most accomplished creation of the stage.

Note, as well, that her real-life husband Juliene is playing her onstage husband--and that we can probably make notebooks of notes out of studying their masterful pairing.

When Cañete-Mendoza's Amanda finally asserts her personhood--"My God, Julian, it's a woman's world, too!" she tells her husband--it's as perfect a moment as any for applause. Fast-forward to a few minutes later, and husband and wife reconcile, earning a tender moment between themselves. Then, the play launches into song--in itself, a terrific piece of music, but in the context of the production, like rubbing the script on the viewer's nose.

That's "Dekada '70" in a nutshell.

PDI Review: 'Batang Mujahideen' by Tanghalang Pilipino

Between this and PETA's "Under My Skin," it's shaping up to be a great year for the original Filipino play. The website version of this review here.

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'Batang Mujahideen': Magnificent drama told through facts

Curtain call during the closing performance of "Batang Mujahideen."

A puppet figures in Tanghalang Pilipino's (TP) premiere of Malou Jacob's "Batang Mujahideen." It is the character of Fatima, who witnesses her father's death at the hands of a Christian extremist, and is later transplanted to an Abu Sayyaf training camp. We see her learn to use a gun, take necessary steps to become the title character--child jihadist--in the definition that militants have reduced "jihad" to.

Fatima is only a piece of the puzzle. The larger world of the play is set in March 2000, when the Abu Sayyaf raided two schools in the island-province of Basilan and abducted over 50 individuals, including students, teachers and a Roman Catholic priest. Fatima learns to hate; the kidnapping victims learn the taste of fear.

How these two narrative strands intertwine is but one of the many strengths of this play, which, though written by Jacob, is also devised--developed and written further--by director Guelan Luarca and the TP Actors Company (AC) that comprise the cast, with dramaturgical input from Dominique La Victoria.

The end point is something we already know: Violence begets violence. An entire school coming under a terrorist attack may not be of the same contextual scale as a father being brutally murdered before his child's eyes, but the seed of fear, and more importantly, of hate, is planted all the same.

No cop-outs

The play acknowledges that as a fact of life; it serves us drama through facts, and not cop-outs. But more importantly, the play recognizes that the path to a violent end is preceded by a constant push and pull between fighting for peace and giving in to the temptation for revenge. This inward interrogation is ever present in the play, in the way it structures its plot points and in the words of its characters: The cycle of violence may often prevail, but its path to victory isn't easy. Everywhere there are people who still believe in goodness, and who will stand by goodness, despite the odds.

Luarca captures all that and more. His production flows with an assured rhythm, like a cogent debate, brimming with ironic calm and intellectual rigor. He lets his actors shift between playing narrators and characters in the story at a brisk pace that never sacrifices clarity. There are arresting scenes of violence, even some coups de theatre, but these are interspersed between lengthy moments of quiet, the play somehow insisting on storytelling and conversation--the power of words!--as salvation.

Flawless

The design of this production is fundamentally flawless. Marco Viaña and Paw Castillo, in addition to designing the costumes, have created a set that resembles a classroom jungle, with flexible blocks and staircases to conjure different worlds and timelines. D Cortezano (lights) and Arvy Dimaculangan (sound) are reliable as always, turning in topnotch work; their contributions are most essential in materializing violence onstage, complementing Jomelle Era's movement design.

Among the cast, Manok Nellas and Jonathan Tadioan are forceful presences in their multiple characters, but the standout is longtime AC member Lhorvie Nuevo. Hewing to the prologue's promise to disregard age and gender, Nuevo plays fallen Abu Sayyaf head Khadaffy Janjalani with an acute understanding of the combined power of kindness and silence. Marlon Brando in "Apocalypse Now" and Joe Pesci in "The Irishman" both knew this: Sometimes, the softest voice in the room is the most frightening of all. Amid the theatrical carnage, you can't help looking at, and for, Nuevo.

There are faults in this production, of course--graphics that come up short in a logistical sense, performances that are either far less commanding than a role demands or hammy to a degree, lines of dialogue that are distractingly on-the-nose polemical.

No matter, "Batang Mujahideen" is still magnificent, astutely crafted theater. It runs for less than 90 minutes, which is nothing if not intelligent use of such brief stage time. It has five remaining performances (no thanks to COVID-19!), but deserves to run for plenty more.