PDI Review: 'Lam-ang' by Tanghalang Pilipino

My last production for the year--the website version here.

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'Lam-ang': Filipino musical theater's needed return to legend

Curtain call at "Lam-ang."

A marvelous sense of scale, local texture and atmosphere pervades "Lam-ang," Tanghalang Pilipino's new musical adaptation of the Ilocano epic poem "Biag ni Lam-ang."

In its best moments, the production has a hypnotic, phantasmagorical feel to it, summoning through the power of words and music a lost world that is unmistakably Filipino.

Unfortunately, it is burdened by Eljay Castro Deldoc's dissonant narrative rendering. Splitting the musical into two acts, Deldoc somehow has also written two entirely different shows: The first half, mesmerizing but also wearying to a degree, is clearly more in tune with the spirit of an epic; the second half is mind-boggling rom-com with shades of Disney's "Aladdin."

Where character and plot development matter most--and where tragedy presents itself as an opportunity to be mined, especially in the first act--Deldoc tends to pull back. As such, the main points of conflict comes across as cop-outs.

What "Lam-ang" ends up painting is a portrait of the hero as soft boy, reflected in the fact that JC Santos' portrayal of the titular character is more satisfying as miniature matinee idol than as boy prince-turned-arrogant anointed leader.

Direction by Fitz Bitana and Marco Viaña feels subservient to the structurally faulty writing, but it still manages to construct some visually arresting tableaus and even sequences of genuine tension.

It is admirable how this production wisely plays to its strengths. The direction, alongside JM Cabling's movement design and Meliton Roxas Jr.'s lighting design, works best in static moments, successfully evoking, oftentimes through simple sleights of hand, images of a close-knit community under siege from unseen forces. The ensemble here is visibly small, but an illusion of volume is achieved where it is needed, the sprawling set by Viaña put to effective use.

It is in moments of chaos when the cohesive illusion collapses, all three aforementioned elements still in need of military pruning. To put it plainly, you suddenly realize you don't know where to look, or even who is speaking or singing.

Except when Tex Ordoñez-de Leon is onstage, in which case all eyes and ears are on her. As the narrator Baglan, she hews closest to the ethereal, otherworldly quality of lore, while being the most forceful and transfixing presence in this show.

Anna Luna as Lam-ang's love interest Kannoyan also achieves that delicate balance of grace and commanding tangibility, while Paw Castillo as the warrior Sumarang elevates an atrociously underwritten role to a fiery embodiment of wrath and betrayal.

The overall picture is, in the end, a welcome and necessary return of Filipino musical theater to the realm of local legend.

More than the score, which at times feels dispensable, it is TJ Ramos' sound design that helps make that return possible, the soundscape he has crafted both advancing and expanding the visual narrative.

In fact, taken together, the final two scenes of "Lam-ang" are already pitch-perfect in their evocation of loss, yearning and infinite possibility. It's a pity it takes the musical a long and laborious while to get there.

PDI Opinion: Normalized inhumanity

My fourth piece for Inquirer-Opinion is dedicated to my alma mater--the website link here.

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Normalized inhumanity

There aren't enough beds to go around in our public hospitals. And if you think the country is in a hurry to fix this problem, think again.

At the Philippine General Hospital (PGH), where I was once a postgraduate medical intern, it is normal to see some admitted patients in the emergency room (ER) being accommodated on Monoblocs. In the charity wards at night, the bantays--the patients' assigned companions, sleep either on chairs or on cardboard sheets spread beside or under the patients' beds.

And that's only scratching the surface of the Philippine public health situation.

The old PGH labor and delivery room, before it was torn down to give way to what has become a protracted reconstruction, could get so crowded it resembled a parking lot: women on steel stretchers placed side by side, with just slivers of space in between for careful movement. Oh yes, charity patients used--and still use--uncushioned stretchers, usually outfitted with just a thin sheet of cloth to separate the woman's body from the cold surface.

At least the patients just stay in bed. I'd been in numerous in-house emergencies where the bantays had to push the drastically deteriorating, bedbound patient alongside the physician on duty all the way from the ward to Radiology. Where was I? Running--in a place where life is oftentimes a literal race to get things done--to have the needed scan approved and scheduled instantly by the radiologist on duty. Where was the hospital aide whose job it supposedly was to push the bed? Pushing another patient's bed.

And yet, there aren't enough voices demanding the provision of more items from the government to employ more health care personnel. There isn't enough outrage at the fact that what is supposed to be our best government hospital still persists in primitive conditions.

It's reasonable to believe the people with the money and power to actually change things don't even grasp the ground-level reality of our public hospitals. Look at how our leaders justify their splurge on a multimillion-peso scam of an ornamental cauldron for the Southeast Asian Games, after having slashed next year's national budget for health by an infuriating percentage. In times of sickness, they inhabit a world of their own: plush suites that can give luxury hotels a run for their money, the bantays with their own beds, and massive TVs and high-speed internet access to pass the time. Even the apathetic middle class have a myriad of private hospitals to choose from; should they opt to go to PGH, there are still air-conditioned private quarters to check into.

The state of hospitals such as PGH is nothing new. In fact, it has been like this for so long, we hear the depressing anecdotes and instinctively think, "That's just the way it is."

As I write this, a hallway continues to substitute for the ER lobby of PGH, threatening to burst during peak hours with all the sweaty, tired bodies jostling for the attention of an overwhelmed team of medical professionals. A single converted ward--the main stand-in for what used to be a multi-part complex--is stretched ridiculously thin to accommodate almost all the patients admitted for emergency care. And these patients on their stretchers have spilled over into neighboring hallways and even a portion of the hospital's central elevator lobby.

We've heard again and again how our doctors are overworked and underpaid; how our nurses are overworked and even more underpaid. When a doctor tweets, "Ubos na ubos na ako (I'm totally spent)," it's now somehow taken as a fact of life and fodder for after-work conversation.

But at least resident doctors who go on 24-hour duties every three days get to go home to a bath, a warm meal and a soft bed at the end of it all. Ditto with nurses who drown in paperwork alone every shift. The luckiest even have well-appointed call rooms to retreat to during down times.

Our patients, on the other hand, have no choice but to endure the deplorable conditions of our government health care facilities, for lack of more humane and accessible choices. Suck it all up, to put it bluntly.

For our patients, it's already a battle just to be seen at the ER. In the wards, bantays continue to sleep on the floor, waiting for that day when the patient finally gets discharged or dies. Behold, this normalized inhumanity.

PDI Feature: Why theater remains relevant in our lifetime

In today's paper, to coincide with the Lifestyle section's anniversary, a manifesto of sorts. A debt of gratitude will always be owed foremost to him whom I consider my trailblazing mentor, Gibbs Cadiz, and Lifestyle editor Thelma Sioson San Juan. 

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Why theater remains relevant in our lifetime

Early in August 2016, just a little over a month since he'd been sworn into office, President Duterte gave his go signal for the burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng Mga Bayani. Needless to say, the uproar that ensued was deafening, the wounds inflicted by this national insult yet another sign that change, to pluck the words out of Duterte's mouth, had indeed come.

In October of that year, the Manila theater community unveiled its swift response in the best way it knew how. Organized in just two months, "Never Again: Voices of Martial Law" assembled nine one-act plays that became a collective reminder of the terrors of the Marcos dictatorship, and, as former Inquirer theater editor Gibbs Cadiz observed, a "stand against the tide of historical revisionism," endorsed so openly by the new government.

That festival, among many other reasons, is why the theater remains relevant in our lifetime--and why its documentation in these pages is more than a simple matter of weekly journalism.

History book in the making

Our stages are no longer just places to project the woes of the human condition and the possibilities of human invention. The theater is now a literal camera, a Filipino history book in the making, our cowitness to the gradual unraveling of society in the hands of morally bankrupt leaders.

A year into Duterte's deadly "war on drugs," Adrian Ho's "Sincerity Bikers' Club" at the Virgin Labfest was already examining how this futile crusade has torn apart even the smallest of communities. Dustin Celestino would take the introspection, the unfounded "othering" even among families, notches further with "Mga Eksena sa Buhay ng Kontrabida."

Halfway through the Duterte regime, we have seen two Lualhati Bautista novels come to life onstage--Guelan Luarca's adaptation of "Desaparesidos" and Pat Valera's musical rendering of "Dekada '70," both the most forceful reminders to "never forget" how our country arrived at its present predicament.

And the fearless Juana Change has toured the world--and will hopefully continue doing so--with her one-woman show "Tao Po"--a series of monologues from the imagined perspectives of both victims and perpetrators of the "drug war," and perhaps the fiercest indictment yet of this current administration's rising tally of crimes against humanity.

Witness

The Inquirer Lifestyle Theater section has borne witness to all these plays--and hundreds more. Since its inception seven years ago, it has remained the only one of its kind: a weekly venue for Filipino theater writing that sees both print and online distribution through a national broadsheet.

Our coverage has always known no bounds--be it a university venue or a fancy casino house, a late-night cabaret or a hole-in-the-wall reading--so long as it is physically possible for us to reach the theater.

We were there when it was just insiders who were noticing the boom of local theater through an increasing annual number of productions. We have seen this community thrive through the decade and eventually take up its cudgels in the continuing fight for social justice. And we intend to be there, writing with the level of fair-minded insight and passion our theater so deserves, for decades to come--for all the cycle of change yet to unfold.

PDI Review: 'Walang Aray' by PETA - 2019 lab

It's ironic how the less heavy-handed-political a Peta show gets, the better it turns out. The dotnet version of my "review" here. I've been told this show already has the go signal to join next year's season, ergo I smell a hit.

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Peta's 'Walang Aray': Rare, intelligent gem

Curtain call at the first of two "preview" performances of "Walang Aray."

It feels premature to review "Walang Aray," the new musical by Philippine Educational Theater Association (Peta), mainly because what was shown to the public during its two-performance run last October was supposedly a "laboratory" production.

Indeed, what we saw was a full-fledged musical that was obviously put together in a limited amount of time. The rough edges, in both the material and the staging, were pretty evident.

And yet, it was also evident that, should Peta play its cards right--give this show the intricate incubation it deserves, then rightfully put it in next season's lineup--the company might just be looking at its next surefire hit.

Joyous romp

"Walang Aray" is a joyous romp that feels unmistakably of our time. It is essentially Severino Reyes' classic zarzuela "Walang Sugat," only now it sings pop, thrives in irreverent humor, and gladly lets the past and the present bleed into each other. Think star-crossed lovers by way of "Romeo and Juliet," but set in a satirist's Philippine Revolution.

The libretto is by Rody Vera; the music by Vince Lim. Together they have created what is probably the smartest--and funniest--musical piece to have hit the Peta Theater Center since "Kung Paano Ako Naging Leading Lady" four years ago.

And "Walang Aray" does share one fine trait with that other musical: It captures the idiosyncrasies of modern Filipino culture in a way that is both refreshing and mind-tickling.

There are front-act performers who sing about being front-act performers; lecherous priests and gossiping maids (swelling in number as they gabble their way down the neighborhood street); self-absorbed gym buffs led by Reyes' Miguel, now a man-child with an identity crisis hoisted to surprising farcical heights by Bene Manaois; the underrated Gio Gahol in only his first musical leading role as Tenyong; and a deliciously shrill and overbearing mother figure in the excellent J-mee Katanyag, who gets to choke on her food in slow-mo and gawk in horror at her own criminal hand after slapping her daughter (Shaira Opsimar).

The production directed by Ian Segarra could use some more tightening, some more fine-tuning with the comedy, some more calibration to make everything and everyone move in perfect synchrony.

All of which could happen when the musical runs again--because it should. As it was, "Walang Aray" was already a massive trip--one of those rare, intelligent gems that leave you slightly cramped and dyspeptic from too much well-earned laughter. 

PDI Review: 'Antigone vs. the People of the Philippines' by Tanghalang Ateneo

When was the last time I raved over a Tanghalang Ateneo show? The dotnet version of this review here.

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Why you shouldn't miss Ateneo's 'conyo'-infused 'Antigone'

Information board at the theater lobby.

How often does it happen that a production staged mostly by theater newbies leaves you thoroughly enthralled by curtain call, and beyond excited for its playwright's next work?

Rarely, actually, which is why, on that account alone, Tanghalang Ateneo's (TA) "Antigone" becomes one of those pieces of theater that shouldn't be missed.

Those familiar with the eponymous Greek tragedy by Sophocles upon which this play is based will be in for a wonderful surprise with this lucid and concise Filipino-language adaptation by Sabrina Basilio. Those entering the theater cold will nonetheless stumble upon a production of admirably outsized virtues.

Basilio's script is key to "Antigone's" success. Before this production, she already has three indelible turns this year as featured actress--as the abused Martha in Ateneo Blue Repertory's "Spring Awakening" (stealing the spotlight with just one number--"The Dark I Know Well"); as the activist Chedeng in TA's "Dolorosa"; and, most remarkably, as the very convincing Japanese girlfriend of the male lead in the Virgin Labfest's "A Family Reunion."

Actress as playwright

That the actress is just as capable a playwright is one of "Antigone's" many pleasures.

The crux of Sophocles is its titular character's defiance of the king's edict to disallow any form of burial for her brother, who died an enemy of the state.

Basilio places this story under her microscope, then weaves around it a world of her own--Sophocles deconstructed, a post-"Antigone" "Antigone." The warring elites of the original have all fallen from grace, the once powerless citizens in the background now in power, anarchy the new name of the law. Everyone involved in the whole royal-versus-royal shebang is made to stand trial in the people's court, in a performative arena where the convicts are made to "reenact" their crimes for the benefit of the viewers.

Parallel

A fundamental parallel is first drawn between the felonious burial in Sophocles' play and that of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos' in the Libingan ng mga Bayani three years ago. From there, Basilio crafts more parallels between the original and her adaptation, those ancient, almost abstract issues resonating with the horrors of the present.

The result, now titled "Antigone vs. the People of the Philippines," isn't exactly wholesale narrative transposition, but an organic mirroring of present-day Philippine politics in the events and dialogue of the play. How Basilio is able to entwine the drama of real life with her fiction in a way that doesn't feel strained at all is perhaps the play's most admirable achievement, a paragon for those who aspire to write political theater.

This "Antigone" also succeeds in demarcating class, and the subtle infusion in the dialogue of the "conyo" sensibility--that mixed tongue of English and Filipino that has always been a point of mockery against affluent schools such as Ateneo--adds a surprise meta dimension to the production.

Prose and poetry

The technique involved here is also breathtaking: Basilio tells her story through an amalgam of prose dialogue and "balagtasan" poetry, and the latter is a gold mine of unexpected rhymes that should make literary aficionados swoon.

Even more swoon-worthy is how the cast performs the verse as natural dialogue, the poetry coming across as pedestrian language, which only further highlights the skill involved in the writing.

The production is a whole other matter, of course, this being run by a cast of new recruits to the company. In Tata Tuviera's retaso-laden set that grants the production a low-key apocalyptic aesthetic, the cast performs with a raw energy that director Tara Jamora Oppen understandably has some difficulty containing and modulating, but what strikes you by the end is the multitude of promising talent that can easily be groomed for the stage.

This rawness is further reflected in this production's major shortcoming--its lack of mastery of "order in chaos," especially in the sequences portraying anarchic disorder, but also in the percussion-heavy sound design that, though enhancing the primal atmosphere, tends to drown out the dialogue and action.

Still, the overall picture is an immensely gratifying one. And by curtain call, avid theatergoers can breathe a confident sigh of relief: The future of Filipino theater is indeed in safe hands.

PDI Review: 'Cats' - The 2017 Asian Tour in Manila

When I saw "Cats" for the first time a little over nine years ago, it was only my sixth time in the theaters of Manila (and seventh, because I'd see it again). Before it, I'd only seen Atlantis' "Spring Awakening" and the rerun of "Avenue Q"; Rep's "Sweeney Todd" and "Equus"; and and the first run of 9 Works' "Rent." How time flies. The dotnet version of this review here.

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'Cats': Joanna Ampil's 'Memory' is one for the books

My view of the junkyard.

One main criticism against the Manila premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Cats" nine years ago was its lack of clarity. Not only did "many of the songs sound unintelligible," as former Inquirer theater editor Gibbs Cadiz wrote about the Asia-Pacific touring production, the musical also came across as directionless carnival entertainment.

None of those problems are evident in the current Asian tour of "Cats" at The Theatre at Solaire.

A character in Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" summarized this musical best: "It's about cats. Singing cats!" And dancing ones, too, as the story gathers its anthropomorphic felines to decide who will proceed to a new life (because, you know, they get to have nine), the resulting revelry resembling a theater-school bacchanal, with high kicks and high Cs in place of inebriation.

What constitutes the score is basically a bunch of poems by the literary luminary T.S. Eliot set to melody, each song devoted to a particular cat, all of it essentially "audition pieces," as the cats vie for that once-a-year chance at rebirth.

Perceived plotlessness

It's all silly song and dance, and it's this perceived plotlessness that can understandably turn off viewers in search of more, shall we say, formalist offering.

But nowhere in Lloyd Webber's oeuvre is the art of make-believe more vital and accorded such high regard than in this musical, which arguably also features the composer's most accomplished, eclectic score, the genres spanning gospel to burlesque to Elvis-inspired rock to traditional Broadway anthem.

And this touring production delivers Lloyd Webber's songs with remarkable crispness. Mathieu Serradell's musical direction is, in truth, the inadvertent star of the show.

The achievement extends beyond plain singing (which is expectedly terrific). It includes the choices of phrasing (individual and choral) and modulation, and bits and pieces of instrumental tinkering, that collectively make this production sound like a reinvention most worthy of a brand-new recording. And making the score of a grand old dame of musical theater sound like a completely new piece is no mean feat.

True-blue storytelling

It is remarkable, too, how the songs here come across as occasions for true-blue storytelling, and not just for bombastic theater--for instance, Elizabeth Futter (as Jellylorum) and Andrew Keelan (as Gus) turning "Gus: The Theatre Cat" into a genuinely affecting moment of nostalgia; or Erica-Jayne Alden (as Demeter) and Alexandra Wright (as Bombalurina) infusing "Macavity" with a real sense of loathing and danger.

It also helps that this production takes after the latest West End and Broadway revivals in omitting the self-indulgent "Growltiger's Last Stand" and putting "The Awful Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles" after "Gus." Such changes only serve to tighten the show, the once "Awful Battle" now actually making narrative sense.

The dancing here is nothing short of mesmerizing, the choreography at times spilling across the theater, which has become testament to the lengths that stage technology can be pushed: lights sprawling all over the ceiling, a gigantic tire rising from the iconic junkyard set.

But the real spectacle remains human in form. The 10-minute-long, Act I dance-o-rama titled "The Jellicle Ball" is still a thrilling highlight, while the sight of Harry Francis effortlessly executing to perfection those 20-plus balletic turns in "Mr. Mistoffelees" is simply breathtaking.

Of course, the main draw for Filipino theatergoers should be Joanna Ampil's turn as the faded glamour cat Grizabella--a role the acclaimed actress has already performed across Europe and China.

Grizabella gets to sing the 11 o'clock number "Memory," which immediately secures her the ticket to rebirth. And in Ampil's hands, the song becomes one of those exceptional moments that musical theater worshipers live for: The way she deliberately mines its dramatic arc infuses the number with palpable pain and sorrow, and the climax is a potent tug at the heartstrings.

As emotional highlights go this year, Ampil's rendition of this song is clearly one for the books.

PDI Review: 'The Quest for the Adarna' by Repertory Philippines

Two articles in the Inquirer today! The first one--here--is a review of a show that I had to see twice because it has a cast chockfull of freakin' alternates. 

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'The Quest for the Adarna': Good script, remarkable stagecraft, but...

Curtain call during my second serving of "The Quest for the Adarna."

The most remarkable thing about Repertory Philippines' "The Quest for the Adarna" is Luna Griño-Inocian's condensation of the labyrinthine "Ibong Adarna" into a 90-minute, English-language musical that somehow still feels faithful to the original.

Like hacking through a thick forest, Griño-Inocian has found a way to simplify the Filipino epic poem into something easily accessible--and, more importantly, fun. What was once just required text for high school students is now a treasure hunt by way of Disney.

Disney can be a good thing, of course--especially when you're catering mainly to preschool and grade school kids. The parts that really move the story forward, anyway, are all there: three princes, two envious brothers, a love story, an elusive, magical bird--all woven into a classic formula where heroes find true love and goodness triumphs over evil.

No melodic hook

However, a good script is nothing without quality music, and it is in this arena where "Adarna" loses steam.

Rony Fortich's music manages to be both too complicated and too generic that even after multiple viewings of this show, none of the melodies really stick with you. (The most memorable musical moment, in fact, happens to be a song about the legendary bird's petrifying excrement--and that's partly because it is done as a rap number.)

There's a reason it's called a "musical." Think, for instance, of the Disney shows that "Adarna" takes after: The music is always the first thing you remember about them. "Adarna," on the other hand, has nothing that remotely resembles a melodic hook.

There are remarkable moments of stagecraft, too, achieved by the concerted (as well as individual) efforts of set designer Joey Mendoza, lighting designer John Batalla and costume designer Tata Tuviera--instances of puppetry and shadow play, swift changes of setting, or nifty bits of choreography (by PJ Rebullida) that allow the stage and its inhabitants to really come alive.

But the whole of Asia has been splattered onstage--and by that, we mean an oftentimes visually stunning aesthetic that tends to be more confusing than unifying, the individual elements standing out as disparate components of stagecraft rather than working toward a harmonized look and feel. An attempt to make sense of it all, therefore, is a dizzying exercise in scouring the continent.

Standouts

The uneven cast of thousands (or so it feels, given how each major role has at least two alternates) has standouts in the perfectly cast Luis Marcelo as the vain and vapid Prince Diego; Justine Narciso as the spunky Maria Blanca (by way of Disney's "Mulan"); and Hans Eckstein, in a much-welcome scenery-chewing role as the hermit who tackles the aforementioned rap number.

The Adarna, alas, is nothing more than a glorified cameo, with four perfectly skilled actresses made to play rooster for majority of their stage time and conclude the show with a bizarre, out-of-place, gospel-inspired finale.

In the end, however, any assessment of "Adarna" should return to how it delivers that most vital of elements in children's theater. And "Adarna" delivers joy in spades. Whatever the faults in the material and the execution, it cannot be denied that the production jointly directed by Joy Virata, Jamie Wilson and Naths Everett more than sustains its young audience's attention and opens up their imaginations.

A thorough critical reading of the piece is always important; sometimes, however, the final verdict may come in the form of juvenile engagement: the boisterous cheering and fidgeting, and participation during the sing-along segments, that dominated both occasions this author caught this production.

In the larger scheme of things, that may just be the most necessary applause.

PDI Feature: Theatre Titas and 'Macbeth'

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the only surefire sustainable way of staging Shakespeare in Manila is through the university companies. So props to ye who hath balls to do so outside the campuses. The website version of this piece here.

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From Theatre Titas, 'Macbeth' for millennials and Gen Z

Something wicked this way comes--again.

Only eight weeks ago, Manila was shook by the sudden cancellation of the Rose Theatre Company's international touring productions of "Macbeth" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream," intended to play a weeklong stint in repertory at The Theatre at Solaire.

Now, a new "Macbeth" is sharpening its knives in preparation for opening night next weekend. This homegrown production is care of the fledgling company Theatre Titas, with direction by Carlos S. Cariño.

"[The] Philippine market is ready to pay premium prices for a Broadway musical, [but it] may not be ready to pay the same for a straight play--be it Ibsen, Beckett or Shakespeare," say Titas cofounders Cheese Mendez and Chesie Galvez-Cariño.

In fact, the last time an international production of Shakespeare made a splash in Manila was in 2015: "Hamlet" by London's Globe Theatre--and even that played only two performances in the relatively diminutive Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

Still, the Titas remain undaunted. "It's not cheap to mount a play, much less import one," they say. "Then there's the challenge of convincing would-be audiences that watching Shakespeare can be exciting and rewarding.

Naturally political

"So marketing our 'Macbeth' has become all about teasing the audience and showing them little by little all that's intriguing about this 17th-century play: a usurper, a tyrant, murder, betrayal, witches. Some hit musicals today [like 'Hamilton'] even use lines from the show.

"How do you make Shakespeare new? You don't. What [Shakespeare] says is as old as time. The reality of a tyrant ruling over a nation, silencing those who oppose his will, is still so prevalent and current. 'Macbeth' is naturally political, so there's no need for us to intentionally tie up his character or situations to any political persona. The audience will make those connections and conclusions naturally.

"[Viewers] may not find common ground with someone who murders his way to becoming king, but there will always be someone in the audience who knows what it's like to want something so badly that he or she is willing to defy all odds to get it and turn a blind eye at the consequences of his or her actions."

The bigger challenge, the Titas say, is in reaching the millennial and Gen Z generations--how to show a young audience that Shakespeare is "not just words on a page [or] characters and lines to memorize for tests."

"The challenge for Carl, our director, and the entire cast and crew, is to tell 'Macbeth' the way Shakespeare originally envisioned and staged it: with a simple set and minimal props, through an actor-centric production that will speak the lines of The Bard with clarity and meter.

"It will be a fast-paced 'Macbeth' and a very kinetic one, with movement--[by former Philippine Ballet Theater artist Joanna Foz Castro]--as a very important element of our staging."

Starring alongside an 18-person ensemble will be Tarek El Tayech in the titular role, with Issa Litton and Anne Gauthier alternating as Lady Macbeth.

PDI Review: 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street' by Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group

For a while there, I was torn between "Spring Awakening" and "Passion" as my pick for Best Musical-Non-Filipino Material. Happy to say this "Sweeney Todd" solves that problem. The website version of my review here. Trivia: The 2009 Repertory Philippines production was only my second trip to the theater at the time.

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'Sweeney Todd': Bobby Garcia's reinvention of the musical a triumph of vision and staging

Program centerfold.

God, that's good!

That's the title of the tongue-twisting Act II opener of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," but it may as well be a blurb for director Bobby Garcia's dimension-defying reinvention of the musical for Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group.

A mark of a true masterpiece is its malleability to interpretation without losing its genius. And across four decades, "Sweeney Todd"--which Michael Billington called "Sondheim's dark masterpiece" in The Guardian--has been dissected every which way, from John Doyle's 2005 Broadway revival that transplanted the story to a lunatic asylum, its actors doubling as musicians; to the latest Off-Broadway incarnation that repurposed its venue into an actual pie shop.

Garcia's "Sweeney Todd" arrives 10 years after the last Manila production--Repertory Philippines' "agreeably staged" version, to quote former Inquirer Theater editor Gibbs Cadiz's appraisal, with an "incandescent Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo as [Sweeney's sidekick] Mrs. Lovett."

But Garcia focuses neither on the Grand Guignol theatrics that this tale of a barber who bakes his customers into pies has become identified with, nor on fulfilling orthodox expectations of a "Sweeney Todd" set in what the lyrics call the vermin-infested "great black pit" of Victorian London.

Sliver of sanity

Instead, he has set his sights on finding that elusive sliver of sanity amid the deafening madness.

His "Sweeney" is no primal scream, but a prolonged, muffled psychotic breakdown, unraveling on the derelict, multi-story car depot designed by David Gallo and lit with masterly exactitude by Aaron Porter, this industrial decay a magnified stand-in for the state of mind of its leading characters.

Eschewing spectacle, Garcia has zoomed in on the human-sized psychodrama at "Sweeney's" core, allowing his production to throb with muted rage.

This rage finds its center in Jett Pangan's Sweeney, around whom Garcia has wisely spun and scaled down his production.

The whole conceit makes sense: While Pangan doesn't quite achieve the level of monstrous terror that's become synonymous with the character's monumental Act I breakdown, "Epiphany," his interpretation is of a piece with the show's vision.

Pangan's Sweeney pulses with a cracked man's soul, his madness just beneath the skin, surfacing every now and then.

It makes sense that he, as with the whole cast, should be dressed by Rajo Laurel in clothes that look pretty normal at first, until you start noticing the tiny jarring details and intentional mismatches.

Clarity

Pangan also delivers Sondheim's wickedly tricky score with remarkable clarity--a skill he shares with Lea Salonga, whose Mrs. Lovett, a delirious hurricane of deviousness and devilry, sprinkled with lust, is one of the most accomplished stage creations we've seen this year and surely qualifies as a career high for the actress.

Pangan simmers; Salonga is the explosive fire underneath.

Clarity can very well be this production's calling card. You hear it in Gerard Salonga's musical direction of the ABS-CBN Philharmonic Orchestra, in Justin Stasiw's sound design, and in the seven-person ensemble's deft handling of their characters and harmonies. Sondheim has probably never sounded this good nor precise hereabouts.

As well, clarity marks four notable featured turns: Mikkie Bradshaw-Volante's Johanna, Arman Ferrer's Beadle Bamford, Andrew Fernando's Judge Turpin and especially Nyoy Volante's come-from-behind, rollicking slam dunk as the charlatan Adolfo Pirelli--all of them straight out of some fever dream.

You wonder, in fact, how Gerald Santos' lost-boy attack on the sailor Anthony, or the too-aseptic Toby and Beggar Woman of Luigi Quesada and Ima Castro, respectively, could have found their way into this production.

This "Sweeney" is, in the end, a triumph of vision and staging. See, for instance, how Garcia stages "Johanna"--considered one of Broadway's finest love songs--with stark, revealing intimacy; how he plots Act I's knotty quartet scene ("Kiss Me"/"Ladies in Their Sensitivities"), working with his designers to let Anthony and Johanna's blossoming romance to float with urgency just above the Beadle and Turpin's pairing; how the macabre humor of this most macabre of musicals actually--in more surprising ways than one--translates as humor.

We could go on, which is to say, this "Sweeney's" gifts and virtues run aplenty, it leaves you hungry for more.

PDI Review: 'Katsuri' by Tanghalang Pilipino

This is one of those instances when I hate the word count, because there is just so much to say about and unpack in this play. Still, rare is that production that manages to rise above the shortcomings of its source material. The website version of my review here.

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'Katsuri': The triumph of acting

Curtain call at "Katsuri."

Tanghalang Pilipino's "Katsuri," directed by Carlitos Siguion-Reyna, transplants the farmhands of John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" from the American Great Depression to the "howling wilderness" of present-day Negros Island, where, in the last three years, over a hundred individuals--including farmers, lawyers and left-wing advocates--have met their violent ends, often in the hands of unidentified assailants.

This daring change in milieu is praiseworthy: Theater can and should be instrumental in scrutinizing the moral deficiencies that have become emblematic of the Duterte administration.

But it is this very milieu in which "Katsuri" flounders. What Bibeth Orteza's Filipino-Hiligaynon adaptation fails to establish adequately is the climate of fear that must pervade this "howling wilderness," now downscaled to the plantation where George and Toto (Steinbeck's Lenny) seek employment.

Either that, or the point seems to be the normalization of murder in this landscape of perpetual poverty, in which case the play similarly stumbles.

Specter of death

The figure of an armed, masked man hounds the opening scenes (and some others) like a specter of death. An orating counselor is felled by a gunshot. Yet life goes on, the characters seemingly unflustered, if not unaffected, by the carnage.

Further along, another shot rings, and one character (whose dog is supposedly the bullet's recipient) says, in obvious denial: "Magsasaka naman 'yun, hindi aso, 'di ba?"

None of that adds up to a coherent make-believe world. Blood-soaked Negros is merely convenient setting--placeholder for the urgent "now," but inconsequential to this supposed adaptation.

And convenience should never be the end point: In the struggle for social justice, even art must be held accountable to its own form of moral responsibility.

The problem is that Steinbeck never had to deal with the added burden of portraying the vastly different plight of the sakada. His farmhands roamed the country because that was the era of migrant work.

Orteza, meanwhile, drags the sakada into the picture, even the "nanlaban" phenomenon of extrajudicial killings, but disappointingly defers to Steinbeck in the end.

The more you think about "Katsuri's" ambition, the more the writing's faults come to light.

For instance, George and Toto--burly, blundering, incapable of blending with any crowd--supposedly escape from Hacienda Luisita because of rape allegations, and manage to reach Negros completely unhampered--under this government of heavy policing?

Unable to trust the viewer to get the moralizing points, Orteza busies her script with motherhood statements, foreshadowing set up to a shine, glaring violations of the cardinal rule of "Show; don't tell."

We can also do without the Hiligaynon interjections since they never feel organic in the way that the language is vital to Glenn Sevilla Mas' "Games People Play," or Bisaya is to Alexandra May Cardoso's "Ang Sugilanon ng Kabiguan ni Epefania."

Still, that "Katsuri" ends up a gripping two-and-a-half hours is only testament to the superb ensemble playing--never mind that individually, some performances are stained with showy artifice. If only for the deeply entwined turns of Jonathan Tadioan as Toto and Marco Viaña as George, a ticket should be warranted.

Tadioan gets the showier part, what film parlance would call Oscar bait--a role, in this context, imbued with an obvious defect, it would be hard not to notice when done really well.

And Tadioan does Toto's mental disability really, really well; the unwavering consistency of his technique is astounding. (That the role is written in monotone is a different story altogether.)

But Viaña--upon his mighty shoulders rest the weight of this story, its moral fulcrum, and the gravity of George and Toto's actions (both intended and accidental). His journey, from loyal friend in search of safe pasture to tired farmhand eager to blend in and ultimately to hand-of-God who decides who gets to be men and who gets to be mice, is a peerless triumph of acting.