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PDI Review: Virgin Labfest 15

July 6, 2019, 6:38 am
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Back to doing this, after a one-year hiatus. I am including here the phrases and sentences (italicized in brackets) that did not make the final draft, which you can view here.

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

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

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 Aptly enough, the 12 new works in this festival of "unpublished, unstaged" plays have accidentally coalesced into an examination of society's crux--the family as beginning and end, cause and effect, of every human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

'Fangirl'

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

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

'Wanted: Male Boarders'

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

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

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

'Anak Ka Ng'

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

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

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

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

'The Bride and the Bachelor'

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

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

'A Family Reunion'

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

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

'Huling Hiling,''Pag-uulyanin'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Surrogare,''Isang Gabi'

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

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

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

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

207 entries

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

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

Of course, the Labfest is about unveiling new, "virgin" works. But surely it can do better than settle for a world in which the likes of "Fangirl" and Dustin Celestino's punctiliously written "Mga Eksena sa Buhay ng Kontrabida" in the Revisited section are forced to exist alongside "Surrogare" and "Isang Gabi..." 
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PDI Review: 'Binondo, A Tsinoy Musical' by Maritess Alava-Young Foundation, Inc.

July 19, 2019, 7:08 pm
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Fifteen minutes into this show, I already wanted to walk out. The Inquirer.net version of my review here.

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'Binondo': A deeply flawed caricature of a culture

Why the title?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

August 5, 2019, 6:17 pm
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New op-ed in Inquirer Opinion! Website version here.

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'Cleaning up' Manila

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

August 9, 2019, 3:07 pm
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Think of Twin Bill as the young Red Turnip. The website version of my piece here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Third season

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The creative team of "Dancing Lessons" includes Kayla Teodoro (scenery), JM Cabling (choreography), Joseph Matheu (lights), Arvy Dimaculangan (sound) and Nicole Garcia (video graphics).
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PDI Feature: The Sondheim musicals of 2019

August 10, 2019, 3:29 am
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Who's a Sondheim nerd? The website version here.

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Stephen Sondheim is coming to Manila--three times

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

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

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

All-Filipino staging

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

August 17, 2019, 6:23 am
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My review of "Madagascar" in today's paper. Watching this, I felt like I was in one of those disgustingly extravagant children's parties in Corinthian Gardens or something. Dotnet link here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Comedic highlight

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ultimately, everything boils down to choosing the right material. After all, productions don't become full-blown productions overnight; they begin as scripts.  
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PDI Review: 'Mabining Mandirigma' by Tanghalang Pilipino

August 30, 2019, 6:51 pm
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Confession: I was never a fan of this musical. Right after the first act of the 2015 version, I wanted to leave out of boredom. I always thought it was a musical that didn't behave like a musical--that musicality was its very weakness. Not anymore. I might just see this a second time. The dotnet version of my review here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Woman as titular hero

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

September 6, 2019, 7:33 pm
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The thrill, nowadays, of a Lea Salonga concert lies in her guest performers. In that aspect, "Perfect Ten" certainly did not disappoint. The website version of my review here.

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'Perfect Ten': Lea Salonga still peerless


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

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

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

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

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

Chief surprise

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

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

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

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

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

September 9, 2019, 4:49 pm
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My latest opinion piece, on the Irene Marcos debacle last week, is in today's paper.

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'Theater and politics are inseparable'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What, then, has UP done, or is doing? Not much, by the looks of it. In fact, this isn't the first time the Marcoses have figured in the university's arts scene, either in name or in person. The issue, I predict, will proceed as such issues have mostly proceeded in this country: First, the outrage. Then, the discourse. Then, the amnesia. Then, the air kisses and bonhomie. 
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PDI Review: 'Rak of Aegis' by PETA - 2019 run

September 13, 2019, 5:30 pm
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I have now seen this musical 10 times--including three visits this year for this review, the Inquirer.net version of which is here.

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reason to revisit

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

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

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

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

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

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

September 20, 2019, 11:31 pm
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The Sondheim fanatic in me can somehow die happy having seen a topnotch production of this most challenging show. Dotnet version of the review here.

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'Passion' is a scintillating work of art

Company call at opening night of "Passion."

The key to unlocking James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim's "Passion,"which director Robbie Guevara has summoned to superlative life for Philippine Opera Company, is in a lyric late in the musical.

The soldier Giorgio, his life unraveled, sings to the ailing Fosca: "Love within reason--that isn't love."

Now juxtapose that with his earlier rebuke of what he calls her "insatiable, smothering pursuit" of him: "Love's not a constant demand; it's a gift you bestow. Love isn't sudden surrender--it's tender and slow; it must grow."

This plunge from reason to irrationality is the essence of "Passion"--what the American psychologist Robert Sternberg defined in his Triangular Theory as the maddening emotional and sometimes illogical component of love.

Such madness is ever present in Guevara's staging of this musical, in which Giorgio, already the lover of the married Clara, is reassigned to a rural military outpost and finds himself the unwitting object of Fosca's obsession. And out of madness, Guevara has fashioned a living, breathing, scintillating work of art--a production that illuminates extensively the work at hand, allowing the audience a deeper understanding of what they're seeing and hearing, as only great theater does.

Auditory knockout

Among Sondheim's works, "Passion" is perhaps the most difficult musically. Performed without intermission, it is almost sung-through, such that it is hard to differentiate where one quasi-operatic melody ends and the next begins.

But under musical director Daniel Bartolome's baton, the score becomes an auditory knockout, and the singing in this production surely qualifies as one of the year's most sumptuous and accomplished.

Even bigger of a triumph is the synergy between Guevara's vision and his first-rate design team, how everything and everyone onstage looks and feels like they belong to the same make-believe world and exist on similar musical and dramatic wavelengths.

This "Passion" is a bizarre, bedazzling dreamscape come to life, thanks to Jason Tecson's painterly set and Shakira Villa Symes' ravishing play between light and darkness.

Most importantly, the twisted love triangle at the helm, too, comes across as cut from the same genius fabric.

The centerpiece is Shiela Valderrama-Martinez's titanic, haunting portrait of tragedy as Fosca--desperation and alienation, the "other-ed" and the spurned all combined to create what is so far the year's most breathtaking performance by an actress in a musical.

Opposite her, Vien King delivers this production's curve ball turn as Giorgio, his character's onstage journey undertaken so convincingly with admirable restraint. And Jasmine Fitzgerald--like King, in only her first major stage role--is a stunning presence as Clara.

Side by side, King and Fitzgerald are a paragon of conscientious costuming (the drop-dead gorgeous gowns by Zenaida Gutierrez) and makeup (by Myrene Santos): They literally look like they walked out of an otherworldly painting.

Even the casting and attack to the characters work in ways that subvert expectations. King's Giorgio, for instance, isn't some strapping, debonair soldier, but almost an adolescent--lustful and lost, his emotional turmoil between Clara and Fosca--and ultimate undoing by the latter--therefore, made more believable, if not inevitable.

And as the outpost commander, Raul Montesa, through sheer quiet, elevates what could potentially be a wallflower supporting part into this production's most convincing inhabitant.

The key to this production, then, lies in how it alternates between quiet and nose--between deafening silence and the overwhelming rush and surge of feeling through song. It is its title, after all.

This "Passion" isn't mere by-the-books chamber opera; it is its love triangle made manifest--it creeps on you like subtle sickness, until you are completely in its thrall, unable to look away yet also unable to resist looking.
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PDI Review: 'The House of Bernarda Alba'/ 'Ang Tahanan ni Bernarda Alba' by Dulaang UP

September 27, 2019, 6:13 pm
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In today's Inquirer, my review of a show that encapsulated the Filipino word "sayang"--the website version here. I really do have very fond memories of Repertory Philippine's "August: Osage County."

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'Bernarda Alba' in English and Filipino: Which one succeeds?

Curtain call at "Ang Tahanan ni Bernarda Alba."

Two new versions of Federico García Lorca's "La casa de Bernarda Alba" are running in repertory under Dulaang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas: an English translation, "The House of Bernarda Alba," by Daisy Lopez; and another in Filipino, "Ang Tahanan ni Bernarda Alba," by Alexander Cortez, who directs both versions.

Neither one realizes its full potential to be gripping family-under-fire drama. The model here is the telenovela--yet Cortez seems blithely unaware of that, choosing instead to tone down his productions in the many places where they would have benefited from a more theatrically amplified approach.

Barbed confrontations

"Bernarda Alba" traps a family of women in mourning under one roof, the only male presence a suitor who is never seen by the audience.

The play is structured as a series of barbed and sometimes high-octane confrontations--mother versus daughter, sister versus sister--yet Cortez rarely delivers the kind of dramatic tension achieved by, say, Repertory Philippines'"August: Osage County" in 2014.

The English version, in particular, is a painful exercise in half-hearted anachronism: There is a visible attempt to make the performances look and sound like creatures of the past, inhabitants of a crumbling world evoked by designer Gino Gonzales, but the effort is oftentimes constrained. These actors, as shepherded by Cortez, are still very much of the present time--and acting in varying tones and registers at that.

There is also the matter of the script itself: Why the vestiges of Spanish expressions--and even a considerably lengthy passage delivered by one character in the language--when the point here is translation? How does this elevate the new text from the perspectives of both the actors and viewers, exactly?

Between the two versions, the Filipino is the more successful one. At least the entire cast is uniformly comfortable with the language, and the telenovela aesthetic is more clear-cut.

But both versions still highlight the tricky thing with anachronism--it has to be deliberate, or the whole endeavor will look like silly pretend-play. The same goes with the balance between drama and comedy that both productions struggle with: The comedy should be done really, really well--hopefully leaving the audience in stitches--so that the drama can land really hard. Failing that, you get a show that occasionally hits its stride, but never sustains its momentum.

It's the actors who save the day in the end. The Filipino version features Gigi Escalante's towering turn as the tyrannical matriarch (giving life to the adage "less is more"), with Gel Basa and Sarina Sasaki providing captivating presence as two of the daughters. (Sasaki is a luminous find in our books. She stands out simply by sounding the most natural and comfortable with the Filipino translation.)

The English version, meanwhile, has Frances Makil-Ignacio in an expectedly forceful turn as Bernarda Alba, but the most indelible performance belongs to Stella Cañete-Mendoza, who never, ever sags into predictability and all but disappears into the archaic time and place of the play, as the housekeeper Poncia.

Which brings us to a final thought: What exactly is the purpose of having the same actors perform both languages for such a limited run? This applies mainly to the actresses portraying the daughters--most of them are allotted only six performances in each staging, which is less than ideal time to fully master the demands of the play.

We are aware, of course, that this is standard practice for the company, to have actors perform in both languages, as it had done in its myriad productions that were in more than one--but to what end? The only acceptable end being a performance that masters the character in both languages, of course. 
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PDI Review: 'Himala: Isang Musikal' by 9 Works Theatrical and The Sandbox Collective

October 4, 2019, 6:50 pm
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We had a collective theater yearender for 2018, but if it were only me, I'd have ranked this production first. Second would be "Desaparesidos"; third, "Waitress"; fourth, "Manila Notes"; fifth, "The Kundiman Party"; sixth, "Dekada '70"; seventh, "Silent Sky." The website version of this review here.

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'Himala': A Filipino vision of the apocalypse

Curtain call at the 2019 rerun of "Himala: Isang Musikal."

You want to know how the end of days might look, and feel, and sound like in this part of the world?

9 Works Theatrical and The Sandbox Collective's "Himala: Isang Musikal" offers an answer at once frightening and enthralling. And like a true miracle, this returning production directed by Ed Lacson Jr. has somehow improved upon its already perfect form.

All the elements in Ricky Lee and Vincent de Jesus' adaptation of Ishmael Bernal's classic film about a young woman, Elsa, who claims to have seen the Virgin Mary--and the subsequent cycle of fanaticism and hysteria that descends upon her desolate town--were already in tip-top shape in least year's run--the first fully staged production since the musical's 2003 premiere at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

What's most striking this time around is how seamless everything feels--no more grand distinctions, if there were any, between the big song numbers and the small book (or dialogue) scenes, the story flowing from start to end like a single, continuous breath.

Space and motion

Worth mentioning as well--something many seem to take for granted--is how rigorous of a movement piece this production is. There's no obvious choreography to speak of here. Instead, what Lacson and assistant director JM Cabling have built this production upon is a precise and deliberate awareness of space and motion working in conjunction, so that the viewer somehow always knows exactly where to look or which character to follow at every given scene and moment.

It is this unstylized movement design that transforms many scenes in this production into exercises of gripping--and often breathtaking--crowd control, its cast of some 40 actors leading the audience by hand into an ocean of order and disorder, "immersive theater" at its finest.

The triumvirate of actresses leading this production remain in spectacular shape: Aicelle Santos (now alternating with Celine Fabie) as Elsa, Neomi Gonzales as Elsa's chaste companion Chayong, and, as Nymia (Chayong's polar opposite), Kakki Teodoro--this writer's personal pick for the best featured performance by an actress in a musical last year.

Sheila Francisco (alternating with May Bayot-de Castro, who was Elsa in 2003) is now Nanay Saling, frail and painfully helpless in the uncontrollable spiral of things; while Victor Robinson III gives a performance that is completely devoid of ego and unnecessary ornamentation as Chayong's suitor Pilo.

There are, in fact, no small roles or performances in this "Himala." Everyone and everything in it is perfectly calibrated and timed to create a world of desperate people hungry for a savior--and willing to bend and stretch the limits of the truth to attain salvation in whatever form.

The ravishing theatrics will thrill you to the bones. After that, it is the taste of fear that remains in you: Here is where we may well be headed--a Filipino vision of the apocalypse. 
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PDI Review: 'Katsuri' by Tanghalang Pilipino

October 11, 2019, 5:55 pm
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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 shoulder 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.
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PDI Review: 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street' by Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group

October 18, 2019, 7:48 pm
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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.
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PDI Feature: Theatre Titas and 'Macbeth'

November 1, 2019, 6:22 pm
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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.
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PDI Review: 'The Quest for the Adarna' by Repertory Philippines

November 1, 2019, 6:39 pm
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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.
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PDI Review: 'Cats' - The 2017 Asian Tour in Manila

November 15, 2019, 7:13 pm
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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 potent tug at the heartstrings.

As emotional highlights go this year, Ampil's rendition of this song is clearly one for the books.
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PDI Review: 'Antigone vs. the People of the Philippines' by Tanghalang Ateneo

November 23, 2019, 6:16 am
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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'

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.
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PDI Review: 'Walang Aray' by PETA

November 29, 2019, 5:56 pm
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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. 
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