Vincen, Without a T

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

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

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

From a public health perspective, the move was necessary.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Student-run

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No opening night

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

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

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

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

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

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

Strong business sense

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sad emojis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Taken up the cudgels

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

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

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

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

And within companies themselves, the wheels are already turning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://tinyletter.com/vincengyu.

See ya!

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

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Virgin Labfest: PH experiences its first 'virtual theater'

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

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

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

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

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

Substitute for live theater

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

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

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

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

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

'Pilot Episode': Brilliant

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Titser Kit': A marvel of simplicity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Dapithapon,''Gin Bilog': Fragmented

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Is virtual theater the future of the PH stage?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New commentary in today's Inquirer--website version here. Let me just add that coming home prior to the start of the March lockdown was the best decision ever.

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Iloilo as Wakanda

ILOILO CITY--Perhaps it's time we stopped referring to this city as the Philippine Wakanda. The title, referencing the fictional African utopia integrated into everyday language by the 2018 superhero film "Black Panther," aptly captured how local leadership marshaled its own pandemic response during the first half of the tear, when the national government couldn't even get its act together. These days, however, the moniker is being tossed around in various other contexts, a placeholder asserting this idea of the city as an infallible paradise.

One recent instance involved the Iloilo River Esplanade: On Twitter, it was hailed as a paragon of nature-friendly public infrastructure, the antithesis to that brainless dolomite beach reclamation in Manila Bay.

Separately, as authorities grappled with the rise of biking in Metro Manila--and preoccupied themselves with how best to earn from it--netizens swiftly pointed out how Iloilo already provided a model for this "new normal," justifying this claim with images of the eight-lane Diversion Road with its companion 11-kilometer bike lane. (So picturesque is the highway, in fact, that a year ago, pro-Duterte trolls even circulated a photo of it, claiming it was a picture of Davao City.)

A more clear-eyed perspective would celebrate the long-term vision that doubtless informed these projects--boosting the city's "habitability" and its attractiveness to tourists and investors--while also acknowledging their consequential imperfections.

A quick online search, for example, easily reveals how these esplanades, now stretching several kilometers, came at the expense of the original river flora. As late as two years ago, mangroves lining the river were still dying, as the construction work disrupted the tidal flow and water salinity necessary for the plants' survival. (Good news, though: A mangrove-replanting scheme has, from the looks of it, by far succeeded.)

And while anointing the city as the country's "bike capital" may not be totally off-base, at the very least it conveniently ignores, if not altogether erases, the local lived reality--how the past decade's mad rush to rehabilitate (and even "re-rehabilitate") the city roads, in a place with barely the inherent space to accommodate sprawling, simultaneous road works, meant month after month of perennial, time-consuming congestion spilling across districts.

This is not to diminish the achievements of a city whose push for progress has remarkably included green spaces and cultural heritage in the picture. But in the age of virtual information warfare, a nuanced perspective must always prevail, more so in instances touting supposed progress. In other words, facts--and therefore clarity--above all else.

Scholars have long noted the political nature of names: The very act of naming spawns its own power structure, eventually influencing future thought and action. Iloilo itself is no stranger to the politics of nomenclature: Remember back when someone declared it the "most shabulized city" in the country?

The present case is the complete opposite. Now we're dealing with a name connoting invincibility and impenetrability, at such a critical juncture in contemporary history. The danger, then, in ascribing a status of implied superiority to a single places goes beyond mere misrepresentation. It warps public consciousness, birthing instead an idea of the place that's devoid of imperfection and immune to criticism. To go by a tenet of propaganda, repetition is key to creating the reality. Keep upholding this myth of the Ilonggo Wakanda, and soon you'll have anything but. (In this era of right-wing populism, you might even get an army of blind believers to back you up.)

If there's anything the last four years in Philippine politics have taught us, it's that too much belief in something--or someone--eventually blurs the line between fact and fiction, blunting our collective judgment.

Our cities, and our leaders, should not be placed on pedestals. They must always be rendered on a human scale--to be praised where praise is due, and to be held accountable for their every shortcoming.

For Iloilo, that may mean commending its government for the way it has handled the pandemic these last six months (establishing accessible mass testing, sustaining open lines of communication, nurturing public-private partnership, etc.). But even this commendation should go hand in hand with recognizing tat these mechanisms haven't always been perfect or fully effective in curbing the threat of COVID-19.

Such a duality, in the bigger scheme of things, should be enough. Anything more--anything subscribing to ridiculous superlatives, like this perpetration of the Wakandan analogy--is unnecessary, and may even prove damaging in the long run.

In today's Inquirer, a rant--here.

* * * * *

Beyond the social media bubble

Recently, I was involved in a project that gathered the narratives of people who use drugs in the urban poor. In one Zoom meeting, the senior anthropologist of our team told us about a striking observation from a similar work. "It's easy for us to see that every single tokhang victim can be traced back to Duterte himself," she said. "But ordinary people in the communities don't always share this view. They can be angry at the police who violated their homes, or the masked assailant who killed their loved ones, but again and again I was told 'it's not Duterte's fault,' or, 'we can't blame the President for everything that's happening in the country.'"

I was reminded of this anecdote yet again on the morning of Dec. 21, roughly 12 hours after the deaths of Sonya and Frank Anthony Gregorio in the hands of Tarlac police officer Jonel Nuezca. That's really all you need to know about the crime: A Filipino policeman murdered two defenseless Filipino citizens in broad daylight.

As video footage of the incident went viral, social media was in uproar, the online furor nowhere more deafening than on Twitter. And it was so easy to believe that the unending deluge of tweets condemning the murders, demanding accountability across all levels of government and the police force, meant the entire nation was actually angry that day--that in every pocket of this archipelago, people were united in a state of rage, horror, and disbelief. It was easy to forget, no matter how many times this has been said, that the virtual world is but a bubble--and in the case of the Philippines, hardly anything like the "real" world.

Which begs the question: What do you do after posting that carefully worded series of tweets that gets shared by tens of thousands, or after typing the final period to that kilometric Facebook essay replete with academic references? What's next after you like and share that tweet or post or on-point meme?

The thing to understand about impunity in the police force is that it's not, to use the term Mr. Duterte's minions have desperately clung to in describing Nuezca's act of murder, "isolated." What I mean is, it's not only in the police and government where a culture of impunity thrives unchecked.

Seeing people call out the so-called "good cops" for staying silent, I couldn't help wondering: Where were these people when shit closer to their respective homes hit the proverbial fan? Because when doctors choose to stay silent over Health Secretary Francisco Duque III's weak-kneed handling of the pandemic, and when those working in private institutions simply watch as these institutions attempt to pass the burden of COVID-19 to public hospitals, that is also impunity. When writers choose to stay silent while a National Artist for Literature and a national writing workshop blatantly support the government's drug war, that is also impunity. And when lawyers and political scientists choose to stay silent as their former professors and current colleagues abet the running of this country to the ground, that is also impunity.

Obviously, not all doctors, and writers, and lawyers, etcetera.

Allow me, then, to further extend the Wieselian thought (the original being that "silence only helps the oppressor"): When all we do is make noise online, and only on matters that are beyond our own backyards, we are actually barely helping. I am not saying there is no point in voicing out our anger. I am saying we need to carry that anger into the real world. I am saying we need to walk the (virtual) talk.

There is a world beyond social media, its thought-provoking discourses and clout-chasing influencers. It may contain your neighbor who is proudly "apolitical." Your sibling who is a "timeline cleanser." Your parents' business partner who still supports Mr. Duterte because "he is good for business." Your lawyer friend who views the law as words on a page, and not something that should have moral and ethical guideposts. Hundreds of thousands of people who don't even use Twitter, and probably haven't seen, or heard, or seen and heard what Nuezca did on Dec. 20.

Amid this pandemic, which has worked so well to government's advantage in that it has become easier than ever to suppress organized action and stamp out dissent through covert operations, disrupting the fragile comforts of our polite and decent circles is maybe the best that we can do to bring the "discourse" outside our virtual echo chambers. This, too, will never be enough. But it can be a start.

Here we are again, at the end of another year of relentless downloading and watching. I'll skip the requisite intro on how it's been a particularly awful year, since I have that for my theater year-in-review coming out on Monday.

I started a Letterboxd, finally, and according to my log I saw 285 films between January 1 to December 31, 2020, and I know that count's off by at least one or two shorts that aren't in the site yet. That number also doesn't include the TV series I consumed, including six seasons of "The Americans" (nothing compares!) and "Schitt's Creek," four seasons of "Insecure," two seasons of "Ramy,""What We Do in the Shadows," and the horrible "The Kominsky Method," the disappointing "Lovecraft Country," the mixed-bag "Little America," the not-quite-there-yet "P-Valley," and the lazy fourth season of "Fargo."

The same annual disclaimer: This is a list of my favorite titles from this (2020) and the previous (2019) year, the latter to account for the "leftovers" that get screened quite late in the Philippines (such as Gerwig's "Little Women" and Mendes'"1917") or not at all. This is NOT a best-of-2020 list--but you may as well read it as such. If you're viewing this piece on desktop or mobile, there's a side bar to the right that lists everything I watched in the last 366 days. And if you're wondering why I've combined film and TV--which I started doing only last year--well, why not.

In order--though except for numbers one to four, the ranking barely matters, I think--my top 10 films and TV of 2020:

1. 'So Long, My Son'(dir. Wang Xiaoshuai)/ 'A Sun'(dir. Chung Mong-hong)

A tie between these two Chinese-language masterworks, because why not? Both films are basically redemption stories, about sons clashing with their fathers, about parents struggling and failing to understand their children. If there's anything you need to know about Chinese culture, it's that family is everything--salve and source of scorn, beginning and end of the stories that matter--and both films get that with penetrative accuracy. "So Long, My Son" is almost a history of the Mainland writ small, from the Boluan Fanzheng era up to the 21st century, as seen through the eyes of two families; "A Sun" is a genre-bending stunner from Taiwan, following the lives of one family in the aftermath of a grisly crime. Each left my Asian heart full; each, despite running over two-and-a-half hours, left me wanting more.

2. 'I May Destroy You' (BBC/HBO; dirs. Sam Miller & Michaela Coel)

The best shows don't only make you laugh, or cry, or laugh and cry; they also offer illumination, a new way of seeing things--and if you're lucky, a whole enough glimpse into another, better path forward. This is one such show.

3. 'Little Women' (dir. Greta Gerwig)

Pinnacle of literary adaptation. In the immortal words of one Saoirse Ronan, "Women!" Still can't believe this lost the Oscar, BAFTA, and WGA for Adapted Screenplay to, um, "Jojo Rabbit"!

4. 'PEN15' Seasons 1-2a (Hulu)

Seasons 1 to 2a, that's right, because all 17 episodes so far have been nothing short of great. Coming of age has never been this fun, or funny. And also sad. And absorbing to witness.

5. 'Aswang' (dir. Alyx Ayn Arumpac)

This is not a movie. This is our lives now. #WhenWillDaddyDigzDie?

6. 'First Cow' (dir. Kelly Reichardt)

Reichardt really said, No to lazy viewers! Best Picture 2020, yes please.

7. 'Insecure' Season 4 (HBO)

Exceptional in the way it captures the tenor of real, functional-dysfunctional, mature-immature adult relationships. Shoutout to Natasha Rothwell's Kelly, MVP supporting character.

8. 'Spontaneous' (dir. Brian Duffield)

Perhaps the most precise approximation of young love and/or falling in love in 2020. The teen rom-com, macabre humor, the apocalypse and post-apocalypse rolled into one.

9. 'Mank' (dir. David Fincher)

The year's most clear-eyed, crushing yet compassionate depiction of the creative process. Vision! Talent! Commitment!

10. 'The Vast of Night'(dir. Andrew Patterson)

If the sensations of Shelley's "Ozymandias" were distilled into a thrilling gabfest of a movie.

* * * * *

Thanks to Letterboxd for simplifying life for me. Here are the rest of my 5-star titles for the year, in alphabetical order:

'The Crown' Season 4 (Netflix)

Best season yet, largely because the series finally realized how it works best when it treats the Windsors for what they really are: spoiled brats who have no place in this world, except as fodder for gossip. And not one less-than-excellently written episode here!

'Driveways' (dir. Andrew Ahn)

Perfect little gem of a film. RIP Brian Dennehy.

'Fan Girl' (dir. Antoinette Jadaone)

A pleasurable, moths-drawn-to-the-flame electrocution. I love mess!

'For Sama' (dir. Waad Al-Kateab & Edward Watts)

My pick for Best Documentary Feature at the 92nd Oscars. Maybe doctor biases at play here.

'The Forty-Year-Old Version' (dir. Radha Blank)

I couldn't stop laughing, 1.

'Honey Boy' (dir. Alma Har'el)

Ninety-minute father-and-son emotional roller coaster. Excellent cardio substitute.

'Kalel, 15' (dir. Jun Robles Lana)

This greatly offended my devout Catholic mother, which is maybe the best endorsement for this all-around incredible film.

'Never Have I Ever' Season 1 (Netflix)

Pinnacle of wholesome teenage comedy-drama. (Is there such a thing?)

'Never Rarely Sometimes Always' (dir. Eliza Hittman)

Gut-wrenching parable of our times, and a masterpiece of a fuck-you to all the male garbage of the world.

'Overseas' (dir. Yoon Sung-a)

That this documentary about Filipino women training to become OFWs is set in my hometown, the subjects speaking my local tongue, only made it cut even deeper.

'Rewind' (dir. Sasha Joseph Neulinger)

Best non-Filipino horror film of the year. Also my pick for best non-Filipino documentary of the year.

'Schitt's Creek' Season 6 (CBC/Pop TV)

Peak "Schitt's Creek," as it completely let go of being just superb sitcom (a transition that began mid-Season 4) to become something more poignant.

'Sorry We Missed You' (dir. Ken Loach)

Chekhov's piss bottle. If this is really Ken Loach's farewell at Cannes, what a way to go!

'Unbelievable' (Netflix; dirs. Lisa Cholodenko, Michael Dinner & Susannah Grant)

Pinnacle of the police procedural. Merritt Wever: robbed of an Emmy!

'Watchmen' (HBO; dirs. various)

Pinnacle of superhero comic adaptation. Jean Smart: robbed of an Emmy!

'What We Do in the Shadows' Season 2 (FX)

I couldn't stop laughing, 2.

PLUS--my 4.5 stars, or 22 more titles not to sleep on, listed alphabetically:

'And Then We Danced' (dir. Levan Akin); 'Babyteeth' (dir. Shannon Murphy); 'Borat Subsequent Moviefilm' (dir. Jason Woliner); 'Cheer' (Netflix; dirs. Greg Whiteley, Chelsea Yarnell & Arielle Kilker); 'City Hall' (dir. Frederick Wiseman); 'Dark Waters' (dir. Todd Haynes); 'Elehiya sa Paglimot' (dir. Kristoffer Brugada); 'End of the Century' (dir. Lucio Castro); 'Fourteen' (dir. Dan Sallitt); 'Gulis' (dir. Kyle Jumayne Francisco); 'How To with John Wilson' Season 1 (HBO); 'I Hate Suzie' (Sky Atlantic/HBO Max; dirs. Georgi Banks-Davies & Anthony Nielson); 'Normal People' (BBC Three/RTÉ One/Hulu; dirs. Lenny Abrahamson & Hettie Macdonald); 'Saint Frances' (dir. Alex Thompson); 'Schitt's Creek' Season 5 (CBC/Pop TV); 'Sound of Metal' (dir. Darius Marder); 'Unorthodox' (Netflix; dir. Maria Schrader); 'Waves' (dir. Trey Edward Shults); 'We Are Who We Are' (HBO/Sky Atlantic; dir. Luca Guadagnino); 'Welcome to Chechnya' (dir. David France); 'What We Do in the Shadows' Season 1 (FX); 'The Wild Goose Lake' (dir. Diao Yinan)

* * * * *

I don't have a performance of the year for 2020--because a case can be made for each of these 25, in alphabetical order:

1. Riz Ahmed ('Sound of Metal')

2. Jennifer Aniston ('The Morning Show' Season 1)

3. Maria Bakalova ('Borat Subsequent Moviefilm')

4. Rose Byrne ('Mrs. America')

5. Elijah Canlas ('Kalel, 15'& 'Babae at Baril')

6. Viola Davis ('Ma Rainey's Black Bottom')

7. Brian Dennehy ('Driveways')

8. Charlie Dizon ('Fan Girl')

9. Julia Garner ('The Assistant')

10. Jack Dylan Grazer ('We Are Who We Are')

11. Zoe Kazan ('The Plot Against America')

12. Paul Mescal ('Normal People')

13. Cristin Milioti ('Palm Springs')

14. Elisabeth Moss ('The Invisible Man')

15. Josh O'Connor ('The Crown' Season 4)

16. Catherine O'Hara ('Schitt's Creek' Seasons 5-6)

17. Billie Piper ('I Hate Suzie')

18. Aubrey Plaza ('Black Bear'& 'Happiest Season')

19. Florence Pugh ('Little Women')

20. Gina Rodriguez ('Kajillionaire')

21. Amanda Seyfried ('Mank')

22. Jean Smart ('Watchmen')

23. Meryl Streep ('Let Them All Talk')

24. Merritt Wever ('Unbelievable')

25. Yong Mei ('So Long, My Son')

PLUS--25 more performers whose works I wholly recommend:

Ben Affleck ('The Way Back'); Paulo Avelino ('Fan Girl'); Antonio Banderas ('Pain and Glory'); Elizabeth Banks & Ari Graynor ('Mrs. America'); Reed Birney ('The Forty-Year-Old Version'); Hong Chau ('Driveways'); Olivia Colman ('The Crown' Season 4); Carrie Coon ('The Nest'); Paul Walter Hauser ('Richard Jewell'); Ethan Hawke ('The Good Lord Bird'& 'Tesla'); Lucas Hedges ('Let Them All Talk'& 'Waves'); Nicole Kidman ('The Undoing'); Shia LaBeouf& Noah Jupe ('Honey Boy'); Phi Palmos ('Kintsugi'); Charlie Plummer ('Spontaneous'); Jeremy Pope ('Hollywood'); Amit Rahav ('Unorthodox'); Saoirse Ronan& Timothée Chalamet ('Little Women'); Wu Chien-ho& Liu Kuan-ting ('A Sun'); Ramy Youssef ('Ramy' Season 2); Renée Zellweger ('Judy')

* * * * *

Non-2019/2020 titles that I saw for the first time in 2020:

5 Letterboxd stars:

'All About Eve' (1950, dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz)

'Batch '81' (1982, dir. Mike de Leon)

'Kisapmata' (1981, dir. Mike de Leon)

'One Cut of the Dead' (2017, dir. Shinichiro Ueda)

'A Rustling of Leaves: Inside the Philippine Revolution' (1988, dir. Nettie Wild)

4.5 Letterboxed stars:

'The Big Lebowski' (1998, dir. Joel Coen)

'Happy Together' (1997, dir. Wong Kar-wai)

'Punch-Drunk Love' (2002, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)

'Walang Rape sa Bontok' (2014, dir. Lester Valle)

* * * * *

FILMED THEATER

With live theater shut down, avid theatergoers like myself had to content ourselves mostly with filmed recordings of past shows. Here are the 5-star productions I recommend you run after, if you've yet to catch them (years indicate the cinema release or streaming premiere):

'Act One' (2015, Broadway premiere, Vivian Beaumont Theatre, Lincoln Center)

Loved this play and loved this production, but I loved the physical casting most of all. Tony Shalhoub as Older Moss Hart, Santino Fontana as Younger Moss Hart, and that kid as Kid Moss Hart is the definition of 'family resemblance'.

'All My Sons' (2011, West End revival, Apollo Theatre)

One of those casts you wish you could have seen live, with Daniel Lapaine's George Deever as the standout.

'Company' (2008, Broadway revival, Ethel Barrymore Theater)

My definitive "Company." 11/10 would recommend to anyone who wants to get into Sondheim, or musical theater, or both.

'Coriolanus' (2014, London revival, Donmar Warehouse)

Talk about sense of fcking space.

'Falsettos' (2017, Broadway revival, Walter Kerr Theater)

Stephanie J. Block losing the Tony for Featured Actress in a Musical is what? Homophobic.

'Hamilton' (2020, Broadway premiere, Richard Rogers Theater)

My hot take: It's pretty good.

'She Loves Me' (2016, Broadway revival, Studio 54)

Shallow and pretty and intent on having an all-around old-fashioned good time. Come for Laura Benanti, stay for Zachary Levi. The Tony for Scenic Design (beating "Hamilton") was the definition of justice.

'South Pacific' (2010, Broadway revival, Vivian Beaumont Theatre, Lincoln Center)

Revelatory revival of an old dame, thanks to Bartlett Sher. And Kelli O'Hara--a goddess on earth.

'A Streetcar Named Desire' (2014, London revival, Young Vic)

Tennessee Williams for the #MeToo era.

* * * * *

A link to my past lists. Interesting time capsules, these lists, as I don't necessarily agree with some of my choices anymore.

The Decade in Film 2010-19

The Year in Film & TV 2019

The Year in Film 2018/ 2017/ 2016/ 2015/ 2014

The annual theater yearender published in the January 4, 2021 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, also accessible through my TinyLetter and the paper's website.

* * * * *

10 plays of remembrance and thanksgiving

This is not a best-of list of the kind we annually publish in these pages. Ten months into the pandemic, our stages remain hopelessly shuttered. The arts, from the looks of it, are barely on government’s main agenda.

So I write this as both remembrance and thanksgiving: a last glance at that seemingly alien time when we could still sit side by side in a darkened house; and a gesture of gratitude to how theater and its tireless makers have found ways to reach us, the audience, even in the midst of our social isolation.

Much of my “theatergoing” in 2020 was in the form of streamed theater—either archival recordings or altogether new pieces tailored to the virtual platform—and not just limited to Filipino works. Among others, I saw a modern-day adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull” from New Zealand; three new plays by Richard Nelson from New York’s The Public Theater; past London stagings of “A Streetcar Named Desire” (with Gillian Anderson) and “Red” (with Alfred Molina); and—what would have otherwise been an impossibility—Stephen Sondheim’s 90th birthday concert as it unfolded in real time.

This list is devoted to the Filipino landscape. Back in January of last year, I wrote about “10 things to look forward to” in Philippine theater. Now, taking stock of this annus horribilis for live entertainment, I leave you with 11 that made 2020 a little more bearable.

1. ‘Next to Normal’

A university company tackling a rock musical about a family grappling with its matriarch’s bipolar disorder? In an ordinary year, this Ateneo Blue Repertory production would be topping yearend lists—and would have run longer. Directed by Missy Maramara, this was “Next to Normal” with its insides fully exposed— emotionally lacerating, deeply moving, with Cris Villonco and Jef Flores in career-best performances. It was the real deal.

2. Jaime del Mundo and Reb Atadero in ‘Amadeus’

Taal Volcano’s January 2020 eruption feels like a lifetime ago already. That Sunday, as ashfall slowly peppered the roofs and streets of Metro Manila, Del Mundo and Atadero delivered the year’s first great performances as Antonio Salieri and Mozart, respectively, in Company of Actors in Streamlined Theatre’s two-show-only staged reading of this Peter Shaffer play.

3. Rody Vera’s script for ‘Under My Skin’

Premiered by Philippine Educational Theater Association (Peta), Vera’s new play was more than just a Filipino face for the HIV-AIDS epidemic. It was also a breathtaking translation of complex science into dramatic language at once illustrative and accessible—suggesting how much better off we’d be if only our best scientists were also potent communicators.

4. ‘Joseph the Dreamer’

Trumpets’ revival of its musical take on the titular Bible story was a literal party. Fueled by Myke Salomon’s musical direction and MJ Arda’s choreography, this was RuPaul’s Drag Race meets dance concert meets Susan Sontag’s “Notes on ‘Camp’,” a church for the zany and unabashedly gay, with the divine Alys Serdenia presiding.

5. The theatricality of ‘Batang Mujahideen’

What stayed with you was the sheer theatrical vision of this Tanghalang Pilipino (TP) play about the unending violence in Mindanao: the actors shifting characters and timelines in seconds; D Cortezano’s lights and Arvy Dimaculangan’s soundscape evoking the fever of war; the unnerving quiet of Lhorvie Nuevo’s turn as an extremist leader; bullets climactically raining down on the stage—all woven together by Guelan Luarca’s direction.

6. Open House roundtables

Part of Philippine Legitimate Stage Artists Group’s (Philstage) fundraising campaign for theater workers sidelined by quarantine measures was a series of roundtables streamed via Facebook. Beyond intimate peeks into the very craft of theater—the sessions gathered directors, sound designers, even critics (for which I was a discussant)—these roundtables were also early coping mechanisms, an admirable attempt at bringing together a newly splintered community.

7. ‘Pilot Episode’ and ‘Wanted: Male Boarders, Vidjokol Edition’

At last year’s Virgin Labfest, the annual festival of one-act plays that marked the first major, collective effort in the country at “Zoom theater,” the best entries were the ones that figured out how to transpose to the screen a script that was originally intended for the stage. Part of what made “Pilot Episode” a brilliant visual explication of mental illness was its manipulation of multiple frames and cameras; “Boarders,” on the other hand, employed its ribald themes to its advantage, committing to the idea of the smartphone as stage (and arena for phone sex), in the process ruffling certain feathers and raising discussions on what constitutes “tasteful art.”

8. ‘The Price of Redemption’

In just 20 minutes, TP’s amalgamation of excerpts from this Anton Juan play, available on YouTube, is at once a perceptive deconstruction of “Zoom theater,” a (meta-)commentary on our lives in quarantine, and a fervid reminder that the Filipino’s fight for social justice is far from over.

9. 12th Gawad Buhay Awards

Disclaimer: I’m a jury member for these awards, which some amusingly compare to the Tonys. Let me say, then, that last year’s ceremonies, broadcast via Facebook and YouTube, were the most efficient of late (Tonys, take note)—showing how such events can be (relatively) concise yet also highly entertaining. Two of many highlights: Kakki Teodoro’s acceptance speech (I’m not crying, you’re crying!); and, halfway through, music icon Gary Valenciano’s soul-cleansing rendition of “Could You Be Messiah?”

10. Streaming Filipino theater

That Resorts World Manila’s jukebox musical “Ang Huling El Bimbo” reached seven million views and raised over 12 million pesos when it streamed for 48 hours last May was no mean feat. Now, as Manila-based companies release recordings of past shows online, either for free (as in the case of Tanghalang Ateneo on YouTube) or for a fee (like Peta’s “Care Divas” on KTX.ph), one implication is that, for the first time, these homegrown productions can be viewed by anyone anywhere in the country, even abroad. It’s a system that’s still figuring itself out, but it’s also one that points to a progressive way forward—a step toward a more democratic Filipino theater.

11. ‘The Band’s Visit’

My personal temporal marker between the pre- and post-COVID days: As government announced the first lockdown measures in March, I was literally watching a preview of this Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group production, the cast giving what felt like the performances of their lives knowing full well they would no longer officially open. How ironic that this Broadway musical, about a troop of musicians arriving in the wrong town, depicted the beauty of human connection—that which the pandemic soon made us learn to fear. The production itself was first-rate, from Bobby Garcia’s direction, the design elements, to the pitch-perfect ensemble led by Vera and an incandescent Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo.

First review of the year (Inquirer website version here). And from the way things are happening--or not happening--in this country, it's looking more and more like another year of Zoom theater. Ugh.

* * * * *

Breathing fiery life into strange, hybrid art form

In an interview last month, actor-director Ron Capinding laid out the existential crisis that has gripped the theater industry for the past year: either go virtual—“online and recorded”—or perish. With his new adaptation of Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex” under Tanghalang Ateneo, Capinding more than averts this metaphorical death; he breathes fiery, forceful life into a strange, hybrid art form.

Sophocles’ tragedy is now “Password: Oedipus Rex,” styled “password: 03d1pu5_R3x” like a boomer reading challenge, and staged as a series of Zoom conferences unfolding in a digital, modern Philippines. What a ticket affords the viewer is an edited recording—a practical decision, given the erratic nature of internet connection in the country.

This “Oedipus,” however, is clear from the outset that it is foremost a creature of the stage. It embraces its theatrical roots, wasting no effort to adopt a more filmic realism and hide its desire to be mounted on an actual, physical platform. The performers act in the heightened vocabulary of stage performance, spouting the classical language of Rolando Tinio’s Filipino translation with no hint of trying to make themselves “small,” as is the norm in cinema. The result approximates the exhilarating experience of a front-row seat.

Retains the basics

Capinding’s adaptation, which he also directs, retains the basics of the Greek classic. By now there is essentially no spoiling the story. The beginning sees Oedipus as ruler of his land, husband to Jocasta, and hungry for answers to his predecessor’s murder. By the end, he would discover that his predecessor was his father, whom he had unwittingly slain, and that his wife is his own mother.

It’s a tale as morbid as it is delirious. By twisting it just enough, tinkering with narrative bits and pieces, Capinding has made an adaptation that perfectly fits the Philippines we now know. He and his cast commit entirely to the transposition—and therefore make it wholly believable, even as seers turn up and ancient gods are invoked.

Oedipus is now president, hotheaded goon and self-confessed murderer, whose erratic behavior throughout the play is the very definition of small-dick energy. He hears what he wants to hear and does what he wants to do. In an ingenious piece of casting, his second-in-command, Kreon, is now a woman—whom he vilifies throughout the course of the story and blames for his predecessor’s murder. Around him—this play’s point of view—are adorers who will blindly support him to his very end. After the story has wrapped up, and Oedipus’ rule has ended, you suspect they might call for his reinstatement as ruler, even his eventual burial as a hero.

The Zoom format

The Zoom format makes the play even more disorienting. Parts of it unfold as media interviews, some as press briefings, complete with introductions from a sort of press secretary. In these briefings, Oedipus rambles like a mad man, hurling accusations and curses left and right. You wonder at some point if he might start talking about drugs.

It’s not a perfect format, however. In one scene, for example, Oedipus screams at a seer who has appeared alongside him in a media interview: “Lumayas ka sa paningin ko!” Then the scene continues; nobody has left. Are we to believe that this impetuous Oedipus wouldn’t have just tossed his device to the floor and stormed off?

Another weakness of the Zoom format: You actually feel the script’s verbosity. Anyone who spent the past year working from home would be familiar with Zoom fatigue.

In an actual theater, we’d take in not just the performer delivering a monologue, but everyone and everything else around this performer. The Zoom play, on the other hand, almost demands that you glue your eyes to the screen, hyper-focused only on that one face speaking at length within that one box—and in this specific case, made no easier by the challenging baroque Filipino of Tinio’s script.

But somehow you don’t mind these weaknesses, which sound like nitpicks in the bigger scheme of things. Capinding and his creative team have more than surmounted the challenge of applying their skills for the theater to this so-called virtual stage. “Password: Oedipus Rex” not only sustains your attention; it grabs you by the neck, pulls you into its world—which you willingly enter.

Mesmerizing

How can you not, with Yan Yuzon’s Oedipus at the helm? Yuzon is a hurricane in the role, as mesmerizing as he is frightening. Even his vilest words mean something, that you understand how he could amass such a following. Opposite him, as Jocasta, Miren Alvarez-Fabregas is the epitome of regal calm. Their scenes together, particularly the revelatory act-one ender, make you long for the day when we can finally return to the theaters—and hopefully watch these two titanic actors revisit these roles.

Speaking of performance, how is film and TV star Marian Rivera-Dantes—easily the main draw of the production—as Kreon? There’s a palpable reverence to the material that Rivera-Dantes somehow doesn’t completely lose, which can make her come across as tonally insipid at times and sets her apart from the other performers who attack their roles with unrestrained playfulness. Nonetheless, it’s a capable performance that makes you hungry to see what Rivera-Dantes would be like on the physical stage.

At the end of play, Rivera-Dantes’ female vice president, owning the moment completely, tells the ruined Oedipus: “Sumunod ka na lamang. Tapos na ang iyong kapangyarihan.”

The original play carries in that scene heavy sadness—it's Oedipus himself, after all, who begs Kreon to have him exiled. Watching it now, however, in this specific point in contemporary Philippine history, with our specific set of leaders, this scene rings quite differently: In the current scheme of things, it's a vision of a kinder future.

In 2021, given the continuation of my work-from-home situation, my self-imposed non-socialization beyond my immediate family, and the almost complete absence of local theater, I set out to watch as much as possible. According to my Letterboxd, my final tally was 384--a new personal record. That number includes not only the full-length releases of the year, but also short films, limited series or miniseries, recordings of live theatrical performances, rewatches (hello, 'Phantom Thread' and 'Moonlight'), and old work that I was seeing only for the first time (more on this in the final section).

On the other hand, that number excludes the television that I consumed--seven seasons of 'Veep'; four seasons of 'Better Things'; three seasons of 'This Country' (plus a special); three seasons each of 'Broadchurch' and 'Sex Education'; two seasons of 'Feel Good'; the second seasons of 'Staged' and 'The Morning Show'; the second half of the final season of 'PEN15'; the final seasons of 'Insecure' and 'Pose'; and a season each of the following new and returning shows: 'Dead to Me', 'Girls5eva', 'Hacks', 'I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson', 'Loki', 'Made for Love', 'The Other Two', 'Reservation Dogs', 'The Sex Lives of College Girls', 'Schmigadoon!', 'Succession', 'What We Do in the Shadows', and 'The White Lotus'.

Moreover, that number fails to account for the shows that, for one reason or another, I couldn't stomach or simply didn't have the drive to finish beyond an episode or two, such as 'Bridgerton', 'Euphoria', 'Mythic Quest', 'Only Murders in the Building', 'Rutherford Falls', and the new season of 'Never Have I Ever' (whose first season I loved).

The same annual disclaimer, then: This is a list of my favorite titles from this (2021) and the previous (2020) year, the latter to account for the "leftovers" that get *released* quite late in the Philippines or that I didn't get the chance to see during the previous year. If you're viewing my blog in desktop mode, the side bar on the right provides an exhaustive accounting of everything I watched in 2021. I always make a top 10, but of course it's more fun to have more than 10, and anyway, my top three, maybe four, are basically interchangeable. And one last thing: What a year for HBO!

1. 'Drive My Car' (dir. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)

A modern masterpiece: cinema as a spiritual literary experience.

2. 'The Other Two' Season 2 (HBO Max; dirs. various)

Note-for-note and episode-by-episode a perfect season of television, its critique of gay, celebrity, and social-media cultures best epitomized by this singular, iconic passage: "I'm his son. I'm straight. And I'm from Kansas."

3. 'Bo Burnham: Inside' (dir. Bo Burnham)

In the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Burnham gave me exactly the kind of unhinged I didn't know I needed: an existential meltdown in the form of musical comedy.

4. 'Succession' Season 3 (HBO; dirs. various)

If Shakespeare featured UTIs, dominatrix-style role play, missent dick pics, Adrien Brody in elaborate layers, and the most erotic bathroom conversation between the guy from "Weeds" and one of the kids from "Home Alone."

5. 'Collective' (dir. Alexander Nanau)/ 'Flee' (dir. Jonas Poher Rasmussen)/ 'Procession' (dir. Robert Greene)

Three documentaries--on corruption within the Romanian health system, an Afghan refugee's arduous flight to freedom, and an art-therapy group among survivors of abuse from Catholic priests--proving how the pursuit for truth and the act of truth-telling can sometimes be the most cathartic and most frightening things.

6. 'PEN15' Season 2 Part 2 (Hulu; dirs. various)

This show starring two thirty-something women pretending to be teenagers around an ace ensemble of actual teenagers deserved to run forever.

7. 'The White Lotus' Season 1 (HBO; dir. Mike White)

In which grandpa is a power bottom, mother is a nymphomaniac, hotel manager gets to eat, Sydney Sweeney demonstrates how scary Gen Z can be, and the one and only Jennifer Coolidge teaches the world how to pronounce "chaise."

8. 'Red Rocket' (dir. Sean Baker)/ 'Titane' (dir. Julia Ducournau)

The closest simulations this year to being on uppers, each an absolute, exhilarating trip anchored by lead performances that would have been very worthy winners in their respective categories at Cannes 2021.

9. 'Judas and the Black Messiah' (dir. Shaka King)

Knife-sharp in its constant shifts between brash, electric psycho-thriller and states of fragility, tenderness, and loneliness. My pick for Best Picture from the contenders of the 2020-21 season.

10. 'Everybody's Talking About Jamie' (dir. Jonathan Butterell)/ 'Tick, Tick... Boom!' (dir. Lin-Manuel Miranda)

Two movie musicals that are nothing short of sublime miracles, each managing to expand upon, make sense of, and completely transform their source materials to become heartfelt, messy, flamboyant creatures pulsing with genuine life.

* * * * *

Thanks again to Letterboxd for simplifying life for me. Here are the rest of my 5-star titles for the year, in alphabetical order:

'76 Days' (dirs. Hao Wu, Wuxi Chen & Anonymous)

Some of the most harrowing, heartbreaking 90 minutes of the year, plunging the viewer back to Wuhan at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, where health workers weren't so much glorified heroes as simply bodies in desperate need of rest.

'Ascension' (dir. Jessica Kingdon)

Capitalism and unfettered consumerism in present-day China rendered in mesmerizing, almost-wordless sequences.

'Better Things' Season 4 (FX; dir. Pamela Adlon)

Every seemingly unhappy family is actually happy in its own, secret way.

'C'mon C'mon' (dir. Mike Mills)

Either the sweetest, most incisive portrayal of modern adult-children relationships, or the most convincing ad of late for not having kids.

'The Crime of the Century' (HBO; dir. Alex Gibney)

Outstanding investigative journalism, historiography, and qualitative research rolled into one as it dives deep into the opioid epidemic, medical authoritarianism, and a very specific brand of greed endemic to the U-S of A.

'Exterminate All the Brutes' (HBO; dir. Raoul Peck)

A towering, four-hour distillation of the centuries-old White tradition of premeditated bloodshed.

'The Father' (dir. Florian Zeller)

The most painful, truthful, and compassionate portrayal of dementia I've seen.

'Feel Good' Seasons 1-2 (Channel 4/ All 4/ Netflix; dirs. Ally Pankiw & Luke Snellin)

In which Mae Martin shows the world what genius can do with just 12 episodes.

'Girls5eva' Season 1 (Peacock; dirs. various)

These girls are on fire! 'Cause if you plan on telling a joke, why not make ten? And then a hundred?

'Hacks' Season 1 (HBO Max; dirs. Lucia Aniello, Desiree Akhavan & Paul W. Downs)

At first glance the Jean Smart show, but obviously so much more than that. The epitome of comedic spark.

'Insecure' Season 5 (HBO; dirs. various)

A balm of a show that allowed its characters to just be real people--grappling with low-stakes situations, navigating relationships, muffling their hurts, finding success.

'Mare of Easttown' (HBO; dir. Craig Zobel)

Incest, but make it an entire town. If you've seen this show and think of it as primarily a whodunit, you probably need to see it again.

'Minari' (dir. Lee Isaac Chung)

This is how you do metaphors. This is how you do endings.

'Nomadland' (dir. Chloé Zhao)

An evocation of loss--and the quiet, almost imperceptible sadness it engenders--that deserved every bit of attention it received last awards season.

'The Queen's Gambit' (Netflix; dir. Scott Frank)

Fairy tale, sports thriller, bildungsroman, redemption story, addiction narrative, and superhero saga whose underlying credo appears to be the subversion of expectations.

'Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)' (dir. Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson)

Film as hypnosis. Hypnosis as documentary. Documentary as music. Music as stand-in for the cadences of history.

PLUS--20 more titles not to sleep on, listed alphabetically:

'Allen v. Farrow' (HBO; dirs. Kirby Dick & Amy Ziering); 'Bad Trip' (dir. Kitao Sakurai); 'City So Real' (National Geographic; dir. Steve James); 'The Green Knight' (dir. David Lowery); 'Hive' (dir. Blerta Basholli); 'Holler' (dir. Nicole Riegel); 'It's a Sin' (Channel 4; dir. Peter Hoar); 'Life' (in 'The Year of the Everlasting Storm'; dir. Jafar Panahi); 'Luca' (dir. Enrico Casarosa); 'The Power of the Dog' (dir. Jane Campion); 'Prayers for the Stolen' (dir. Tatiana Huezo); 'Quo Vadis, Aida?' (dir. Jasmila Žbanić); 'Riders of Justice' (dir. Anders Thomas Jensen); 'Romeo & Juliet' (dir. Simon Godwin); 'Schmigadoon!' Season 1 (Apple TV+; dir. Barry Sonnenfeld); 'The Sex Lives of College Girls' Season 1 (HBO Max; dirs. various); 'Shiva Baby' (dir. Emma Seligman); 'This Country' Season 3 (BBC Three; dir. Tom George); 'The Underground Railroad' (Prime Video; dir. Barry Jenkins); 'Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy' (dir. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)

* * * * *

My contribution to perpetuating our actor-centric film culture is this list of *45* performances that I truly enjoyed/ loved/ still can't stop thinking of (and where absence is of course not in any way a measure of *quality*):

1. Bob Balaban ('The Chair')

2. Murray Bartlett ('The White Lotus' Season 1)

3. Mayra Batalla ('Prayers for the Stolen')

4. Nicolas Cage ('Pig')

5. Pauline Chalamet ('The Sex Lives of College Girls' Season 1)

6. Jodie Comer ('The Last Duel')

7. Jennifer Coolidge ('The White Lotus' Season 1; 'Single All the Way')

8. Penélope Cruz ('Parallel Mothers')

9. Ariana DeBose ('Schmigadoon!' Season 1)

10. Kaitlyn Dever ('Dear Evan Hansen')

11. Chase W. Dillon ('The Underground Railroad')

12. Aunjanue Ellis ('King Richard')

13. Isabelle Fuhrman ('The Novice')

14. Andrew Garfield ('Tick, Tick... Boom!'; 'The Eyes of Tammy Faye')

15. Renée Elise Goldsberry ('Girls5eva' Season 1)

16. Kathryn Hahn ('WandaVision')

17. Keeley Hawes ('It's a Sin')

18. Marielle Heller ('The Queen's Gambit')

19. Anthony Hopkins ('The Father')

20. Jayne Houdyshell ('The Humans')

21. Oscar Isaac ('Scenes from a Marriage')

22. Matthew Macfadyen ('Succession' Season 3)

23. Kych Minemoto ('Masalimuot ya Tiyagew ed Dayat')

24. Ruth Negga ('Passing')

25. Dev Patel ('The Green Knight')

26. Jesse Plemons ('The Power of the Dog'; 'Judas and the Black Messiah')

27. Simon Rex ('Red Rocket')

28. Natasha Rothwell ('The White Lotus' Season 1; 'Insecure' Season 5)

29. Molly Shannon ('The White Lotus' Season 1; 'The Other Two' Season 2)

30. Samantha Sloyan ('Midnight Mass')

31. Jean Smart ('Hacks'; 'Mare of Easttown')

32. Kodi Smit-McPhee ('The Power of the Dog')

33. Lakeith Stanfield ('Judas and the Black Messiah')

34. Dan Stevens ('I'm Your Man')

35. Jeremy Strong ('Succession' Season 3)

36. Lili Taylor ('Paper Spiders')

37. Emma Thompson ('Cruella')

38. Mia Wasikowska ('Bergman Island')

39. Aimee Lou Wood ('Sex Education' Seasons 2-3)

40. Steven Yeun ('Minari')

41. Brittany S. Hall & Will Brill ('Test Pattern')

42. Carey Mulligan & Bo Burnham ('Promising Young Woman')

43. Julianne Nicholson & Evan Peters ('Mare of Easttown')

44. Kieran Culkin, Adrien Brody, & Justin Kirk ('Succession' Season 3)

45. Joaquin Phoenix, Gaby Hoffmann, & Woody Norman ('C'mon C'mon')

* * * * *

A list of 15 where the sound, score, music, or musical rendering rocked:

1. 'The Winner Takes It All' needle drop in 'Bergman Island'

2. 'The Killing of Two Lovers', sound and music work

3. 'We Don't Talk About Bruno' in 'Encanto'

4. Jonny Greenwood's scores for 'Spencer' and 'The Power of the Dog'

5. 'Saint Maud', sound and music work

6. The use of the spiritual 'Were You There' in 'Midnight Mass'

7. Dan Romer's central motif for 'Luca', the best for a Pixar movie since 'Up'

8. 'Zola', sound and music work

9. Emilia Jones performing Joni Mitchell's 'Both Sides, Now' in 'CODA'

10. 'When the Sun Goes Down' sequence in 'In the Heights'

11. 'Shiva Baby', sound and music work

12. Hans Zimmer's score for 'Dune'

13. 'Obituary' by Alexandre Desplat in 'The French Dispatch'

14. The soundscape and score for 'C'mon C'mon'

* * * * *

The best use of black and white:

'Passing', dir. Rebecca Hall; cinematography by Eduard Grau

* * * * *

5-Letterboxd-star, non-2020/2021 titles that I saw for the first time in 2021:

'4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days' (2007, dir. Cristian Mungiu)

'Asako I & II' (2018, dir. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)

'Barking Dogs Never Bite' (2000, dir. Bong Joon-ho)

'Capote' (2005, dir. Bennett Miller)

'Farewell My Concubine' (1993, dir. Chen Kaige)

'Happy Hour' (2015, dir. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)

'Himala' (1982, dir. Ishmael Bernal)

'How to Survive a Plague' (2012, dir. David France)

'Moral' (1982, dir. Marilou Diaz-Abaya)

'Mother' (2009, dir. Bong Joon-ho)

'Letters from Iwo Jima' (2006, dir. Clint Eastwood)

'Little Children' (2006, dir. Todd Field)

'The Lives of Others' (2006, dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)

'Quiz Show' (1994, dir. Robert Redford)

'Rosemary's Baby' (1968, dir. Roman Polanski)

'Sense and Sensibility' (1995, dir. Ang Lee)

'United 93' (2006, dir. Paul Greengrass)

'Yi Yi' (2000, dir. Edward Yang)

* * * * *

A link to my past lists, which are best read as time capsules of what I'd seen so far when I wrote each of them, and what I thought about the stuff I listed in those particular moments in time:

The Year in Film and TV 2020/ 2019

The Decade in Film 2010-19

The Year in Film 2018/ 2017/ 2016/ 2015/ 2014

Hello, it's me. Good for you if you still visit this site. Some *personal* news: After 9-ish wonderful years, I have officially said goodbye to Inquirer-Lifestyle. I will now be writing theater-related articles for CoverStory PH under--surprise, surprise--dear old Gibbs. This one, on Virgin Labfest 17, was my first piece; came out two months ago. Click here for the website version. Since I have no photo to go with the piece, here, instead, is me with Art, Gibbs, Cora, and Emil--the final (and my fondest) iteration of the Inquirer theater critics team (2012-2020)--at Sentro in Greenbelt 5 last month:

* * * * *

Virgin Labfest: 'Untried, untested, unstaged' plays back on stage this June

Exactly two years and three months since Covid-19 shut down all of Manila theater, the Virgin Labfest will return on June 16–26 to the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), marking the reopening of in-person theatrical performances in the capital region.

Or so the plan goes, according to the organizers of the 17th edition of this annual festival of “untried, untested, unstaged” plays.

“Of course, if a Covid-19 surge happens in June, the plan will have to change drastically,” says playwright and festival cofounder Rody Vera. As it stands, the Labfest is gearing for a hybrid approach: two weeks of in-person shows at the CCP, followed by at least another two weeks of streaming of the plays’ recordings.

“This year, we hope to at least restore the thrill of performing live, [but] one thing we learned [in the past two years] is the importance of making good videos of performances,” Vera says. “Filmed well, these recordings can extend the festival’s life. The online setup may not be as thrilling as live theater, but the reach is so much more, given the short time frame.”

In 2020, the festival’s 16th edition saw the first large-scale effort in the country at virtual or “Zoom” theater, in reference to the videoconferencing software that swiftly became a lifeline for theater folk worldwide. Last year, the festival showcased no new works, opting instead to stream recordings of previous Labfest plays.

12 new works

This year’s edition will feature 12 new works: 10 from 2021’s call for submissions, plus two that were unable to mount online productions in 2020 (“Bituing Marikit” by Bibeth Orteza and “‘Nay May Dala Akong Pansit” by Juan Ekis).

Portions of the usual side events will also be returning to in-person setups, such as the Playwrights’ Fair (with four of 10 sessions to be conducted live at the CCP) and the Writing Fellowship Program (aiming for a live presentation of the fellows’ outputs on closing day). Others, like staged readings and the Revisited set, have been scrapped for now.

Also part of the Labfest’s pandemic-related precautions is a reduced seating capacity of 60 percent, or 136 seats of the Tanghalang Huseng Batute, where all performances will transpire.

As longtime festival production manager Nikki Garde-Torres puts it: “There is a semblance of normalcy, [but] we are also in an in-between where the pandemic and the possibility of higher alert levels remain. It feels like I am relearning how to do live shows.”

“Many are still scared of performing live,” Vera says, “and many members of the public will, presumably, still be afraid of returning to the theater—and I guess we just have to accept that.”

Giddiness, excitement

Despite that fear, the CCP these days is also abuzz with a kind of “giddiness,” to quote Garde-Torres, as face-to-face rehearsals go in full swing.

In the words of Marco Viaña, incoming festival codirector (alongside Tess Jamias), it’s the excitement of “once again being in the same room as your fellow theater artists, some of whom you’ve only seen or talked to online for the last two years.”

Viaña, who was initially apprehensive about taking the position—“I’ve only ever acted for the festival; I have no experience as playwright, director, or stage manager”—also attributes that excitement to the theater artist’s need to be with an audience: “These artists simply cannot wait to once again perform live before the public. For sure, punung-puno ng puso ang mga pagtatanghal na ‘yan” (the performances will be bursting with heart).

“What remains to be seen,” says Vera, “is whether the audience will match that excitement.”

Second article for CoverStory PH is out today--here.

* * * * *

'Mula sa Buwan': In the spirit of defiance

When “Mula sa Buwan” returns on Aug. 26 at Samsung Performing Arts Theater in Circuit Makati, it will not be the same creature that played to packed houses every performance four years ago.

In turning Edmond Rostand’s “Cyrano de Bergerac” and Francisco “Soc” Rodrigo’s Filipino translation of that play into a musical, director and co-creator Pat Valera recentered the story on college-age Filipinos whose lives are upended by World War II. But, while the pre-Covid-19 version of the show highlighted its romantic and spectacular elements, Valera says this staging will underscore the spirit of defiance coursing through the musical.

In part, Valera attributes this change in direction to what he calls the “great pains” inflicted by both the pandemic and the recent presidential election. The musical, whose score he wrote with William Elvin Manzano, will still be about “wide-eyed, idealistic misfits” who “cling to their friends and the power of stories and the theater”; this time around, however, the focus will be on how these misfits dream of a better world and fight for space for their future.

Deeper probe

Anyone familiar with the musical or its source material will know how that future turns out to be anything but bright for its characters. Hence, Valera’s rewriting of certain lines and character motivations to be reflective of this age of disinformation: in place of mere escapist entertainment, a deeper probe into our ways of (mis)remembering the past, and, in the case of the titular character, questioning the very notion of (anti-)heroism.

Of course, the changes may not be immediately apparent even to the most ardent fans of this musical, says Valera. Instead, for those who have seen the multiple hit iterations of this show that ran from 2016 to 2018, the most obvious change will be an old face becoming the new lead.

From playing the handsome but vacuous Christian in the musical’s 2018 staging at Ateneo de Manila University, Myke Salomon will now assume the part of the poetry-spouting Cyrano, in addition to serving as the show’s new musical director.

The decision did not come easy to Salomon, though. “It took me weeks to agree to play the part,” he says. “To be honest, I had lost hope. There was a point [during the last two years] when I kept asking myself whether I would still be able to do live theater. I did not want to leave the theater; theater left. That was the hardest part.”

Salomon describes the moment he agreed to do the role as a Moses-with-the-burning-bush situation: “I did not want to stay home anymore,” he says, so he decided to jump in and join the show—“atrophied” performing skills notwithstanding.

Besides, it is an almost completely new show, says Salomon. For instance, among its cast of 27, only four performers will be tackling parts they had already played in the show’s earlier runs. Salomon also shares Valera’s recalibrated vision of the show’s characters as now fighting for their own safe spaces, and, in the case of his Cyrano, as someone fighting for the displaced artists and dreamers, arguably harking back to the earlier days of the pandemic that destabilized the entire theater community.

1st since the pandemic

When it opens, “Mula sa Buwan” will become the first Filipino-language musical to do so since the pandemic started. More significantly, it will be the first production to play the recently inaugurated, 1500-seat Samsung Theater. Gab Pangilinan will return to the role of Roxane, while Markki Stroem will be the new Christian.

This return engagement has been almost a year in the making, says Valera, beginning with industry and audience surveys he co-initiated with Philstage (or the Philippine Legitimate Stage Artists Group, Inc.) in late 2021. It looks like it has widespread audience support going for it. As of July 8, the show had sold almost half the seats allotted for its 13-performance run, according to Valera.

“People are definitely coming, and because of that, we are definitely pressured.” This pressure, says Valera, has become the fuel that inspires everyone involved to give performances worthy of an industry reopening.

In 2022, I rejoined society, resumed meeting up with friends, revenge traveled-ish. Also returned to the cinemas (thrice!--'Bones and All' during QCinema, 'Wakanda Forever', the new 'Avatar') and the theatre! My Letterboxd tally reflected this: just a measly 209 entries, compared to the previous year's 384. Not complaining, obviously; wouldn't swap, say, ten more entries for that first trip to Bangkok. My tally doesn't include TV, of course, and the side bar on the right of this blog listing everything I saw during the year does not account for the shows I dropped/ couldn't be bothered to finish--shows old and new, like the abysmal fifth season of 'The Crown' (sorry, Lesley Manville!), or beloved, new stuff like 'Yellowjackets', 'The Bear', 'Bad Sisters', 'This Is Going to Hurt' (the most ridiculous premise for a conflict, if we're being real; Ben Whishaw, whom I love, wasn't enough to keep me going).

So, the same annual disclaimer: This yearender accounts for titles from this year (2022) and leftovers from the previous one (2021). As someone who lives in the Philippines and whose movie- and TV-watching life is therefore largely dependent on piracy, I find it pointless to watch *everything* (meaning all the awards contenders) before writing a yearender, seeing as such a goal is always impossible to achieve hereabouts. It's called a "year" ender, after all. Fuck the Whiteness of trying to be a completist.

Anyway, I tried making a top 10; ended up with 12. My top three's pretty much set; they epitomize the year onscreen for me and are listed alphabetically because I refuse to commit to a firm top three like some grade-conscious high school kid. After that, it's nine more titles that, further down the list, can easily be swapped for the rest of my five-star titles. Blah blah blah.

1. 'Barbarian' (dir. Zach Cregger)

Anytime someone asks me what's the one movie from 2022 they should watch, this is my answer.

2. 'Better Things' Season 5 (FX; dir. Pamela Adlon)

The best way to describe this perfect, perfect show: It feels like it's cut straight out of its makers' hearts; there's not a false note in its depictions of familial and generational conflict, familial and generational happiness, our human fears, our mortality.

3. 'Close' (dir. Lukas Dhont)

Starts out as a portrait, almost fantastical, of the fragility of male friendships, only to become a wrenching meditation on the incomprehensibility of grief. There can only be so much happiness, this film asserts, and so much time for it.

4. 'Abbott Elementary' Season 1 (ABC; dirs. various)

This show is the very definition of joy. I'm not including Season 2 just yet--it's still ongoing and is even better than this pilot season.

5. 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' (dirs. Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert)/ 'Turning Red' (dir. Domee Shi)

Two excellent films about the ways mothers love and ruin their daughters; about the ways daughters love and ruin their mothers back.

6. 'Ramy' Season 3 (Hulu; dirs. various)

The pathway to greatness: less serious religious blather, more religious-adjacent absurdity.

7. 'Atlanta' Season 3 (FX; dirs. Hiro Murai, Ibra Ake & Donald Glover)

The sense of thematic and narrative adventure, the balls to push boundaries in its interrogation of what it means to be a Black person today, was unmatched. Still strikes me as weird (if not downright illiterate) that the nonlinearity of its 10 episodes has been a widespread source of negative criticism, when to me it's precisely this refusal to abide by the rules of sequential storytelling that made this season quite effective.

8. 'What We Do in the Shadows' Season 4 (FX; dirs. various)

Season 3 was a letdown; this new one was just one riot of an episode after another, culminating, probably, in Matt Berry's delivery of this gem of a line from the ultimate gas pain-inducing episode: "Trust me. Gay is in. Gay is hot. I want some gay. Gay it's gonna be."

9. 'Athena' (dir. Romain Gavras)

Loud, chaotic, very angry, all high emotion like a present-day Greek tragedy by way of 'X2', Brad Pitt's 'Troy', and the Battle of Helm's Deep.

10. 'The White Lotus' Season 2 (HBO; dir. Mike White)/ 'Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery' (dir. Rian Johnson)

Epitomes of a fun time masquerading as whodunits. The whodunit is never the point, of course; it's Jennifer Coolidge becoming an instant Twitter meme with "These gays, they're trying to murder me," and Daniel Craig (and his stewpid accent) not gagging from a throat spray because, presumably, he's used to stuff being shoved down his throat.

* * * * *

The rest of my 5-star titles, as per Letterboxd:

'Avatar: The Way of Water' (dir. James Cameron)

Narrative broadness notwithstanding, the audiovisual spectacle of the year (and I didn't even see it in 3D).

'Derry Girls' Season 3 (Channel 4/ Netflix; dir. Michael Lennox)

Siobhán McSweeney should be president of the world, and Nicola Coughlan's Clare deserves a spinoff.

'Fire Island' (dir. Andrew Ahn)

So much fun, but also, insane how it nails every single time it evokes the side-eye emoji, often in extended and consecutive sequences.

'The First Wave' (dir. Matthew Heineman)

This gave me war flashbacks; easily one of the great COVID documentaries of the last three years.

'Great Freedom' (dir. Sebastian Meise)

The wealth of feeling it offers in every frame, the way it evokes history, entire life stories, with only the barest bodies, faces almost devoid of expression, the most piercing silences--it's an absurd tragedy, really, that this didn't make the Oscars final five, while that inept Yak movie from Bhutan did.

'Heartstopper' Season 1 (Netflix; dir. Euros Lyn)

Terrific queer fantasy that's sure to melt your defenses unless you're made of granite.

'Marcel the Shell with Shoes On' (dir. Dean Fleischer Camp)

Watched this with a stupid smile plastered on my face the entire 90 minutes, which is to say if you're gonna do pure and earnest, you better make something of this caliber.

'Revolution of Our Times' (dir. Kiwi Chow)

Not flawless by any measure, but this really is the only depiction--unflinching and deeply infuriating--of #ACAB you will ever need to see.

'River of Tears and Rage' (dir. Maricon Montajes)

Necessary viewing; harrowing and enraging, and thoroughly does justice to the assiduous, tireless journalism from which it draws.

'RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars' Season 7 (Paramount+/ WOW Presents Plus)

Returned temporarily to the church of Ru for this "All Winners" season and can 100% say it was the right decision; there wasn't a bad or even meh episode, and everyone really turnedt it outtt.

'The Sex Lives of College Girls' Season 2 (HBO Max; various)

I thought the relative aimlessness and ADHD pacing of this season would be a turnoff, but not even halfway through, I was already totally onboard and laughing my brains out.

'Soul Fish' (dir. Zurich Chan)

Absorbing, perceptive, revelatory in its concise explication of how happy, and intimate, and close we all used to be as people.

'Tár' (dir. Todd Field)

Most lived-in, most entertaining depiction of power of late.

'West Side Story' (dir. Steven Spielberg)

A great adaptation of a beloved, if problematic, film; a great movie musical--surely one of the 21st century's best.

'The Worst Person in the World' (dir. Joachim Trier)

Messy existential crisis, but make it really sexy.

PLUS--it was a great year for movies and TV (it always is, if you're paying attention), so first, the 4-star titles from the L-app list (a.k.a. full-length films, shorts, comedy specials, "episodes" of anthology series):

'Aftersun' (dir. Charlotte Wells); 'Alingasngas ng Mga Kuliglig' (dir. Vahn Pascual); 'All Quiet on the Western Front' (dir. Edward Berger); 'Benediction' (dir. Terence Davies); 'Bones and All' (dir. Luca Guadagnino); 'Bros' (dir. Nicholas Stoller); 'Cinnamon in the Wind' (dir. Bo Burnham); 'Decision to Leave' (dir. Park Chan-wook); 'Fresh' (dir. Mimi Cave); 'Kun Maupay Man It Panahon' (dir. Carlo Francisco Manatad); 'Last Days at Sea' (dir. Venice Atienza); 'Licorice Pizza' (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson); 'The Lost Daughter' (dir. Maggie Gyllenhaal); 'The Murmuring' (in Guillermo del Toro's 'Cabinet of Curiosities'; dir. Jennifer Kent); 'Nope' (dir. Jordan Peele); 'The Outside' (in Guillermo del Toro's 'Cabinet of Curiosities'; dir. Ana Lily Amirpour); 'Psychosexual' (dir. Doron Max Hagay); 'Random People' (dir. Arden Rod Condez); 'Rothaniel' (dir. Bo Burnham); 'Simple as Water' (dir. Megan Mylan); 'Spring Awakening: Those You've Known' (dir. Michael John Warren); 'The Territory' (dir. Alex Pritz); 'The Tragedy of Macbeth' (dir. Joel Coen)

AND THEN--11 more TV titles (or seasons thereof) that I wholly recommend:

'Atlanta' Season 4 (FX; dirs. various); 'Barry' Season 3 (HBO; dirs. Bill Hader & Alec Berg); 'Cheer' Season 2 (Netflix; dirs. Greg Whiteley & Chelsea Yarnell), except the Jerry episode, which was a solid five stars; 'Hacks' Season 2 (HBO Max; dirs. Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs & Trent O'Donnell); 'Irma Vep' (HBO; dir. Olivier Assayas); 'The Kangks Show' Season 1 (WeTV; dir. Antoinette Jadaone); 'Pachinko' Season 1 (Apple TV+; dirs. Kogonada & Justin Chon), although episodes 4 and 5 were flat-out great, I cried over a scene involving freakin' rice; 'The Rehearsal' Season 1 (HBO; dir. Nathan Fielder), a five-star show with a four-star ending; 'Severance' Season 1 (Apple TV+; dirs. Ben Stiller & Aoife McArdle), a four-star show with a five-star ending that was, to borrow from James Poniewozik, simply stupendous; 'Slow Horses' Season 1 (Apple TV+; dir. James Hawes); 'Somebody Somewhere' Season 1 (HBO; dirs. Robert Cohen & Jay Duplass)

* * * * *

Always fun to promote actor-centrism, so here's an alphabetical list of 23 performers I want to draw attention to (as opposed to a list of "the best"--like what does that even mean? Everyone on this list can be described as the best, and many others from the year who fit that description are not here.)

1. Jeanne Balibar ('Irma Vep')

2. May Calamawy ('Ramy' Season 3)

3. Pauline Chalamet ('The Sex Lives of College Girls' Season 2)

4. Meghann Fahy ('The White Lotus' Season 2)

5. Mike Faist ('West Side Story')

6. Sarah Goldberg ('Barry' Season 3)

7. Alana Haim ('Licorice Pizza')

8. Brian Tyree Henry ('Atlanta' Seasons 3-4)

9. Kate Hudson ('Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery')

10. Janelle James ('Abbott Elementary' Season 1)

11. Kim Min-ha ('Pachinko' Season 1)

12. Gabriel LaBelle ('The Fabelmans')

13. Anna LaMadrid ('The Rehearsal' Season 1)

14. Anders Danielsen Lie ('The Worst Person in the World')

15. Paul Mescal ('Aftersun')

16. Aubrey Plaza ('The White Lotus' Season 2; 'Emily the Criminal')

17. Sheryl Lee Ralph ('Abbott Elementary' Season 1)

18. Mark Rylance ('Bones and All')

19. Rachel Sennott ('Bodies Bodies Bodies')

20. Bill Skarsgård ('Barbarian')

21. Sami Slimane ('Athena')

22. Tramell Tillman ('Severance' Season 1)

23. Anamaria Vartolomei ('Happening')

PLUS--13 more unforgettable performers:

Angela Bassett ('Black Panther: Wakanda Forever'); Nicole Beharie ('Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches'); Cate Blanchett (Tár); Olivia Colman ('The Lost Daughter'; 'Landscapers'; 'Heartstopper' Season 1); Kerry Condon ('The Banshees of Inisherin'); Janice de Belen ('Big Night!'); Dolly de Leon ('Triangle of Sadness'; 'The Kangks Show' Season 1); Sabrina Impacciatore ('The White Lotus' Season 2); Dakota Johnson ('Cha Cha Real Smooth'; 'The Lost Daughter'); Margaret Qualley ('Maid'); Conrad Ricamora ('Fire Island'); Taylor Russell ('Bones and All'); Michelle Yeoh ('Everything Everywhere All at Once')

* * * * *

A list of notable sound work, cinematography, standout scenes, anything but individual actors:

1. The opening dance sequence of 'After Yang'.

2. Best opening credits/ theme music is a three-way tie between the new seasons of 'Pachinko', 'Severance' and 'White Lotus' (okay, maybe the last one takes the crown for sheer replayability).

3. Speaking of music: "Wherever I Fall" from the Peter Dinklage-headlined 'Cyrano', and Kathleen's yassified cover of "Pure Imagination" as the perfect welcome to 'Fire Island'.

4. Speaking of music, pt. 2: The original songs of 'Turning Red', all making full use of Jordan Fisher's heaven-sent falsetto and now unjustly snubbed at the Oscars.

5. Speaking of music, pt. 3: The musicscapes of 'Heartstopper' Season 1, 'Tar', 'Everything Everywhere All at Once', 'Bones and All', 'Wakanda Forever', and 'Close' (this last one, especially, with how it uses silence as stand-in for sound).

6. Speaking of sound: The insane soundscape of 'Nope'.

7. Speaking of sound, pt. 2: That great, great, great sound engineer scene in 'Memoria'.

8. Cinematographers flexin': Hoyte van Hoytema ('Nope'), Bruno Delbonnel ('The Tragedy of Macbeth'), Janusz Kamiński ('West Side Story'), Kim Ji-yong ('Decision to Leave'), Florian Hoffmeister ('Tar').

9. The camera work in 'Athena', a jaw-dropping combination of cinematography and choreography.

10. That truck scene in 'Licorice Pizza'.

11. All hail the editors of 'Tar', 'Barbarian', 'Bones and All' and 'Everything Everywhere All at Once'.

12. Two from 'The Rings of Power' (the new Lord of the Rings series from Amazon): The Khazad-dûm ruveal in episode 2 and, even more impressive, the Mt. Doom ruveal in episode 6, a satisfying (if admittedly nonsensical) payoff for those of us who obsessively studied/followed the show's Middle Earth geography.

13. How, in the first season of HBO's 'The Gilded Age', Carrie Coon's grandiose outfits were always just the slightest bit off or tacky because she's new rich and probably had nobody to teach her the ways of the old.

14. Line readings: "I started therapy!" --Michelle Williams, a comedy queen in 'The Fabelmans'; "Oh god, did your mom get assassinated?" --Pauline Chalamet in 'The Sex Lives of College Girls' Season 2; "Gutom? Take home?" --Lotlot de Leon versus the police in 'On the Job: The Missing 8'; everything that emerged out of Kate Hudson's mouth in 'Glass Onion'.

15. The ensemble of 'The Lost Daughter'.

* * * * *

Finally, I didn't get to see as many non-2021/22 titles as I would have liked, but here are the three that easily merited five Letterboxed stars from me:

'Platoon' (1986, dir. Oliver Stone)

'The Savages' (2007, dir. Tamara Jenkins)

'The Visitor' (2007, dir. Tom McCarthy)

* * * * *

Links to my past lists, which are best read as time capsules of what I'd seen so far when I wrote each of them, and what I thought about the stuff I listed in those particular moments in time:

The Year in Film and TV 2021/ 2020/ 2019

The Decade in Film 2010-19

The Year in Film 2018/ 2017/ 2016/ 2015/ 2014

So... I wrote my first "official" theater review (published by an actual publication, as opposed to just "Facebook reviews") after... over two years?? Last one was Tanghalang Ateneo's virtual Oedipus Rex! Anyway, can't think of a better way to return to this than with an actual phenomenon (website link here).

* * * * *

'Hamilton' -- Astonishing stagecraft

"Hamilton," Lin-Manuel Miranda's rap musical about the eponymous Founding Father, has finally landed in Manila--the first stop of a new international tour that replicates the exact production currently running on Broadway and London's West End.

This is, in other words, essentially the same production that's won every major theater award conceivable in the West, and whose live stage recording released on Disney+ three years ago was a global success among Covid-captive home viewers.

You wouldn't immediately know all that, however, just from watching this production: Even as it brims with dazzling theatricality and refreshing erudition, it also feels surprisingly small, rid of its status as a phenomenon, pared down to human size.

It's a show that's almost oblivious to its own celebrity, even as entrance applause (erupting to diminishing returns) dotted the first 15 minutes of its 21 September gala performance at The Theatre at Solaire.

Instead, it knows when to build up to the big musical moments, which are few and far between, and does so organically and therefore quite satisfyingly. The logical progression of the narrative and individual character drama--the musical's unassailable structural precision--are rendered very clear; put bluntly, it is a storytelling apologist's wettest dream.

Never mind that the musical itself--evidently a product of modern-day liberalism, the politics of the American Dream made manifest through the eyes of 21st-century immigrants--is by now indivisible from the very valid criticisms it has received from many corners of American scholarly thought.

For the uninitiated, Hamilton tells through rap the rise of the Founding Fathers, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, as they built America in the latter half of the 18th century. Admittedly, given what we know now and what we've been through since the musical premiered in New York in 2015, it feels weird, to say the least, to be watching a show that hero-worships to varying degrees the likes of Washington, Jefferson, and Hamilton--all products of and complicit to the sins of their time.

Moreover, the way the musical intentionally casts non-white actors to play these historically white figures (and slavers) can, depending on how one looks at it, come across as a stroke of meta subversion or "revisionist and insulting nonsense," to quote one critic.

Unique brilliance

Again--all valid criticisms, which some have suggested are actually part of the musical's unique brilliance. Watching the musical (through this particular production) in Manila, however, you entertain those thoughts mainly in retrospect.

Inside the theater, it's all those aforementioned merits--and more!--that surround you: a show that's so technically precise in ways that highlight the material's inventiveness, a feast of astonishing stagecraft, a display of just how good musical theater can get when given vast resources.

Despite the title, the crux of this production is DeAundre' Woods' Aaron Burr (Hamilton's archrival, if you will). It's a performance for which the phrase "no notes" seems to have been coined. Whenever Woods disappears from the stage, you look for him.

But, more importantly, the genius of Woods' performance is in how it becomes the anchor through which the musical itself can be better understood: as a story of wanting and longing, a warning against the folly of ambition, a morality tale run parallel to the uncertainty and messiness of nation-building.

When Woods sings (and brings down the house with) Burr's first big solo "Wait for It," you instantly comprehend the song--and, for that matter, the musical.

Arguably, Burr is the central and meatiest role here. Next to Woods' interpretation, however, the smallness and silliness inherent to the story Hamilton tells become all the more coherent. You grasp how Hamilton and his posse were essentially just kids bumbling their way through a revolution. It's all very grand on paper, but it's also a journey chockfull of pettiness and foolishness--and on that stage, a history lesson that revels in its occasionally juvenile, highly accessible nature.

Three other male performances stand out in the process: Jason Arrow's Hamilton, who convincingly pulls off the title character's transformation from "young, scrappy, and hungry" to world-weary; Darnell Abraham's Washington giving gospel-preacher-showdown realness; and Brent Hill's King George literally putting the "mad" to delectably comic effect in his interpretation of the famed mad king.

Dreamcasting

Elsewhere, this is a production that's supplied with all the right parts--but, on a local stage as technologically impressive as The Theatre at Solaire (the best acoustics in Metro Manila, hands down), it also invites "dreamcasting"--permitting you to imagine in real time how certain Filipino theater performers cast in certain roles would, without a doubt, totally slay those parts.

No matter: As it is, this Hamilton is one that lives up to the hype surrounding its supposed brilliance--while simultaneously earning that reputation before a live audience night after night.

Among other spots of pure artistry, it has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it onstage costume change involving the terrific ensemble early in Act I, a historical battle conjured through frenzied dance, and entire scene changes and moments evoked simply through the deliberate arrangement of performers' bodies (that climactic bullet scene, anyone?).

In lieu of an arduous and expensive trip to New York or London, this production more than does the job.

Haven't written one of these in ages—and won't be writing one in at least the next two years. Here is the website link in The Daily Tribune.

* * * * *

2023: No, it wasn't 'Groundhog Day' for local theater

Curtain call at Uncle Jane, March 2023.

Making art requires money—and our stages are still reeling from the pandemic lockdowns. It makes sense that many companies revived old productions throughout the year to lure paying audiences back to the theater, from 9 Works Theatrical’s Tick, Tick… Boom! to Full House Theater Company’s Ang Huling El Bimbo.

Among the returnees I caught, Laro was the most successful; director John Mark Yap’s take two at this Floy Quintos play nailed the rhythm and, more importantly, the light-and-dark balance of its updated queer politics—and boasted some of the year’s richest performances, from Phi Palmos, Gio Gahol and Jojo Cayabyab to Jeremy Mayores, Noel Escondo and Al Gatmaitan.

But 2023 didn’t lack for original work—contrary to what one writer described as the “Groundhog Day” situation of local theater.

There were gems to be found everywhere if one actually looked. Some disappeared all too soon: Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo’s “I’m Still Here” from Follies at September’s One Night Stand cabaret (cast her as Phyllis in that musical or Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, please!); Arman Ferrer’s spine-chilling “Awit ni Isagani” from El Filibusterimo the Musical at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’s 54th anniversary concert; Miren Alvarez-Fabregas’ rendition of “Sonnet 104” at Sari-Saring Soneto: An Evening of Shakespearean Sonnets, making a case for a live version of Tanghalang Ateneo’s Password: Oedipus Rex from 2021, where she slayed as Jocasta.

Banner year

More notably, it was a banner year for our actresses: Gab Pangilinan in The Last Five Years, Shaira Opsimar in Walang Aray, Kim Molina in ZsaZsa Zaturnnah the Musical, Felicity Kyle Napuli and Wincess Jem Yana (a star is born!) in Sandosenang Sapatos.

Shamaine Centenera-Buencamino proved, yet again, she’s a national treasure, aging and de-aging literally before our eyes in a matter of seconds in Dulaang UP’s Sidhi’t Silakbo. And Adrienne Vergara was twice a standout: as Medea in Sidhi’t Silakbo (please let her do the full thing!) and, in a knockout comedic turn, as a director battling a dramaturge from hell in the Virgin Labfest’s Ang Awit ng Dalagang Marmol.

Two plays by Guelan Luarca could, in the ways they spoke to each other, well be regarded as one. Under TP, Luarca premiered Nekropolis—the best piece of theater writing I’ve encountered of late, and inarguably a crucial artistic documentation of the Duterte years. Borrowing from Michel Foucalt, Achille Mbembe and Vicente Rafael, Luarca dramatized the concept of “necropolitics”—how power is wielded to decide who is worthy or unworthy of life. The result was a lucid questioning of the lives we lead and the worlds we build when death and fear are normalized.

The second play, under TA, was Ardor. Clearly a fictional take on the ongoing revolutionary movement in the country, it was as much about activists as it was about the pitfalls of ideology, with a solution that points toward anarchy: Might as well burn down this world you’re inheriting if it’s run by those with such contempt for the poor, the marginalized and the ones genuinely fighting for the causes of the first two. Better stay friends than be “too political,” right? Despite the production’s shakiness, I found myself, for a brief moment, becoming a millennial doomer.

Which brings me to Uncle Jane, Nelsito Gomez’s crisp, modern-day adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. This is my pick for best theater production of 2023, and Missy Maramara’s turn as the titular character, the theatrical performance of the year.

No doomer vibes here; instead, I gained from it a more practical, less incendiary outlook. Here’s a play about people who feel like their lives have been wasted on one thing or another; who feel like their efforts toward something have been taken for granted. Yet in the end, they still find hope, no matter how muted, and chances at pursuing better possibilities.

Hope for 2024

My foremost hope for 2024 is simple: That every production finds its audience, gets its makers paid, and turns a handsome profit.

Among the lined-up shows, I’m most looking forward to 9 Work’s restaging of Rent, the rock musical about impoverished New Yorkers living in the shadow of the HIV epidemic. Almost 14 years ago, the company staged this musical for a new generation of Filipino theatergoers, myself included. Now it will be interesting to see how the musical and its down-with-oppressive-systems, “no day but today” ethos will resonate in a painfully different decade.

Additionally, I’m excited to see two of our most thrilling musical theater voices summon an original work to life: Gab Pangilinan and Vic Robinson in Pingkian, TP’s Emilio Jacinto musical.

Three lessons from 2023 to bring into the new year, then: One, as illustrated by Virgin Labfest 18, is that a new thing always needs ample nurturing. With far longer incubation, this year’s festival of one-act plays unveiled its strongest lineup in years. Obviously, developing new plays takes time and material and human resources. But when a thing is painstakingly nurtured, the result can be something wonderful.

Second, getting artists to “cross over” into theater is a smart way of filling seats. But, in Walang Aray, only Alexa Ilacad (from the duo KDLex) triumphed in her theater debut (commanding—and funny!—as Julia).

In Tabing llog, The Musical, Miah Canton and Vino Mabalot stood out among the panoply of Star Magic kids, delivering two of the year’s most compelling performances while giving crash courses on theater performance. A full house is always a welcome sight; a blundering newbie, not really.

Finally, Barefoot Theatre Collaborative’s marketing for The Last Five Years was breathtaking in its efficiency, and worth studying for other companies. Barefoot knew and understood today’s chronically online audiences. It mastered social media. It turned the show into an event: The trip to the theater as something Instagrammable, from the LED billboard, the set (and venue) design, to the decked-up washrooms.

It could all have been just a rare confluence of right show-right people-right time, of course, but still—what a genius way to sell out a run!

What a crazy, terrific year for chaotic bisexuals! In 'Passages', Franz Rogowski is possessed by the spirit of the protagonist in Mike Bartlett's 'Cock' and cheats on Ben Whishaw (of all people!) with the lady from 'Blue Is the Warmest Colour'. In 'Anatomy of a Fall', Sandra Hüller is almost out-acted by (of all creatures) a dog. In 'Afire', the bisexuals die in a forest fire; in 'Saltburn', the bisexual is on fire. And 'Poor Things' establishes, once and for all, that people are (born) bisexual unless proven otherwise. ('Maestro' also has a bisexual, but I'm not a fan of this movie.)

Speaking of "movies," I saw only 167 in 2023, according to my Letterboxd. That includes miniseries and short films. By comparison, I logged 209 entries in 2022, and 384 the year before that. What does this mean? Simple, really--we're really back, and by 'we', I mean the world. I started my thing with USyd in March (I'm supposed to be writing my thesis now, but here we are). I went to India, to Delhi and Jaipur and Agra, and saw cows and monkeys roaming the city streets like they owned them. I went to Hong Kong and walked the alleys of Sheung Wan during typhoon signal T9 (thanks, Sedricke!). I went to the Thai-Myanmar border with scholars from many parts of the world and saw the refugee camps and daily, illegal crossings across the Moei River. I returned to Dumaguete and finally met Sir Mike in person; I returned to Taiwan and ran into a former schoolmate in Jiufen. Oh, and I also went to the theater--lots of times. The best productions I saw were in Sydney: Belvoir's 'Scenes from the Climate Era' and Red Line's 'A Streetcar Named Desire', but I digress.

In mid-October, as we slowly realized that Israel's out to nuke the whole of Gaza and was just using the 7th as a pretext, I lost my appetite for anything facilely White, American, Caucasian, Jewish, which is why I've yet to watch the second season of 'The Gilded Age' (I'll get to it next week, promise). We truly are living in a fucked-up age, and it continues to amaze me how some people--some dearest and nearest to me--seem so blithely unaware of that fact. I'm not a doomer; I'm a realist (I have a prominent Capricorn placement). COVID has been allowed to rip through society. The Marcos-Duterte empire shows no signs of slowing down. The people of Palestine are being genocided by Israel and the US before our eyes. It's January--and hot as hell in Iloilo, when in past years it had been cool. What a time to be alive.

Anyway, the usual disclaimer: This list considers the stuff I watched in 2023 and the leftovers from 2022. Richard Bolisay, in his Substack, said it best: "The best part of list-making is the limitation..." In other words, get over yourselves and stop acting like you're American critics who need to watch all the awards contenders before making a yearender, and just make that goddamn yearender. Nobody cares. It's just a list. This year, I have a top 14--but really, the only placement I'm a hundred percent sure of is my number one. After that, it's anybody's game.

1. 'How To with John Wilson' Season 3 (HBO; dir. John Wilson)

Decades from now, a new generation of cinephiles and TV-philes will hopefully look back at 2023 and unearth this gem of a show, and be introduced to its singular brilliance. John Wilson is more than a filmmaker; he is scribe, anthropologist, historian, comedian, court jester, investigative journalist, private detective, and psychiatrist rolled into one. All hail the great documenter of humanity's endless capacity for absurdity.

2. 'Interview with the Vampire' Season 1 (AMC; dirs. various)

When I think of this show, the word that comes to mind is SCREAM. Imagine Patti LuPone and Nathan Lane having a baby and forcing that baby to do a musical directed by Martin Scorsese after he's had one too many shots of tequila. This is 'Mean Girls'in the golden age of bisexual liberation. As the vampire Lestat, Sam Reid is so mother, father, and GOAT in this. Of the mediocre tenor in the opera he's watching, he wonders, "Are they pulling talent from roadside gas stations?" Like I said, GOAT.

3. 'Afire'(dir. Christian Petzold)/ 'Anatomy of a Fall'(dir. Justine Triet)

I'm chalking this joint placement up to recency bias. Two European films that knock it out of the park with, among other things, their portrayals of writers and their relationships with people. In the first, the writer seems determined to be a pain in the ass to everyone around him. In the second, the world is a pain in the ass to the writer, whose pain-in-the-ass husband's death is being pinned on her by a French court where lines from a novel can apparently pass for evidence. If Sandra Hüller wins the Best Actress Oscar, I'll stop wearing underwear for life.

4. 'Taylor Mac's 24-Decade History of Popular Music' (dirs. Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman)

Just an incredible, incredible celebration of queerness, and as a recording of live performance, one of those "I wish I could have been there" pieces of art.

5. 'The Other Two' Season 3 (HBO Max; dirs. Chris Kelly, Sarah Schneider & Charlie Gruet)

This is a show that really gets its audience, knows exactly what they know, and has a firm grasp of the insane times they're living in. Staged dinner at Applebees, anyone? (Molly Shannon deserves all the awards and has gotten none, which is how you know the human race is doomed.)

6. 'Somebody Somewhere' Season 2 (HBO; dirs. Robert Cohen, Jay Duplass & Lennon Parham)

It is almost miraculous that, amid the noise, the theatrics, the varying 'largeness' of shows like 'Succession', 'Abbott Elementary', and 'The Last of Us', there exists 'Somebody Somewhere'--a show about welcoming the silences, small and deafening, that life throws at us seemingly at random. Bridget Everett and Jeff Hiller, as an odd couple in the American Midwest, drink, laugh, fight, make up, make noise, and make do. I love them so much.

7. 'May December' (dir. Todd Haynes)

He's a queer one, ~~Julie Jordan~~ Todd Haynes. I mean, getting Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore to do a lisp-off?

8. 'Oppenheimer' (dir. Christopher Nolan)/ 'Poor Things' (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)

Two very movie movies that I saw in the cinemas, and which I think should be seen in cinemas and no place else. Both shot by their cinematographers like rent's overdue, both anchored by fearless lead performers--Cillian Murphy and Emma Stone--who deserve to sweep their respective awards races. And, incidentally, both epitomizing Powhatan's immortal line: "These white men are dangerous."

9. 'Succession' Season 4 (HBO; dirs. various)/ 'Abbott Elementary' Season 2 (ABC; dirs. various)

Both of these shows could be ranked higher, of course, but I wanted to highlight the others first. I was there in 2018 when very few people hereabouts were talking about 'Succession', and I was there when Jeremy Strong finally bellowed, "I'm the eldest boy!" This final season really went all in on the King Lear-ness of it all, to phenomenal results. Meanwhile, no other show has embodied 'joy' quite like 'Abbott'. I suspect we'd be a calmer, better world if only more people watched it.

10. '20 Days in Mariupol' (dir. Mstyslav Chernov)/ 'All That Breathes' (dir. Shaunak Sen)

Two vastly different documentaries about the wreckage--human and animal--left behind by empire's endless capacity for evil. The latter should have won last year's Oscar for Documentary Feature; the former should be winning this year's.

* * * * *

The rest of my 5-star titles, in alphabetical order:

'Brand X' (dir. Keith Deligero)

Perfect short film. Absurd Bisaya humor on point. Must watch with the biggest crowd imaginable.

'Fleishman Is in Trouble' (FX on Hulu; dirs. various)

A triumph of writing and structure, its seamless, intelligent use of narration worth studying for other filmmakers, and finding the consummate vessel in the amazing Lizzy Caplan (a.k.a. Janis Ian!).

'Joyland' (dir. Saim Sadiq)

A film that revels in the beauty of storytelling--narratively, visually, textually, dramatically--and so thoroughly earns our joy in watching it.

'No One Will Save You' (dir. Brian Duffield)

Duffield is now two for two in my book, as someone who adored 'Spontaneous'. And I've been saying this since 'Unbelievable': Kaitlyn Fcking Dever is a Fcking Actress!

'Past Lives' (dir. Celine Song)

A Sondheim song come to life.

'Retrograde' (dir. Matthew Heineman)

A documentary that perfectly captures America's habit of betraying its "friends."

'Rye Lane' (dir. Raine Allen-Miller)

Fun, funny, trippy: a film that dares to and more than succeeds in evoking the rush and high of falling in love.

'Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse' (dirs. Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers & Justin K. Thompson)

The highest praise I can give this film is to call it a 2.5-hour acid trip, as if it were repulsed by the mere idea of letting the viewer's senses settle even just for a fraction of a moment.

'What We Do in the Shadows' Season 5 Episode 5 (FX; dir. Yana Gorskaya)

Formally titled 'Local News', but better known as 'The Abduction of the Journalist Joanna Roscoe'--the comedic peak and lone highlight of an otherwise mid season.

'Women Talking' (dir. Sarah Polley)

A coup de cinemá in the way it deploys language as primary vessel for imagination, in the way it deploys imagination to conjure radical alternatives, in the way it turns gender polemics into cinematic language. Rooney Mara is best in show here--she with the mystical face of one who's just gotten off The Mayflower.

PLUS--24 four-star titles I wholly recommend:

'12 Weeks' (dir. Anna Isabelle Matutina); '11,103' (dirs. Mike Alcazaren & Jeannette Ifurung); 'Argentina, 1985' (dir. Santiago Mitre); 'Babylon' (dir. Damien Chazelle); 'Beyond Utopia' (dir. Madeleine Gavin); 'Bold Eagle' (dir. Whammy Alcazaren); 'Bottoms' (dir. Emma Seligman); 'Cunk on Earth' Season 1 (BBC Two/ Netflix; dir. Christian Watt); 'Dead Ringers' (Prime Video; dirs. various); 'The Horror of Dolores Roach' Season 1 (Prime Video; dirs. various); 'Joy Ride' (dir. Adele Lim); 'Kapag Wala nang mga Alon' (dir. Lav Diaz); 'Kokomo City' (dir. D. Smith); 'The Last of Us' Season 1 (HBO; dirs. various), although episode 3--'Long, Long Time'--was a 7-star, heartbreaker of an episode; 'Lucky Hank' Season 1 (AMC; dirs. various), although episode 5--the dinner party--was topnotch: Suzanne Cryer's out-of-nowhere scream upon finding out she's getting published in The Atlantic was too real; 'Mga Handum nga Nasulat sa Baras' (dirs. Richard Jeroui Salvadico & Arlie Sweet Sumagaysay); 'Nimona' (dirs. Nick Bruno & Troy Quane); 'Palengke Day' (dir. Mervine Aquino); 'Passages' (dir. Ira Sachs); 'R.M.N.' (dir. Cristian Mungiu); 'Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie' (dir. Davis Guggenheim); 'Talk to Me' (dirs. Danny & Michael Philippou); 'The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar' (dir. Wes Anderson); 'You Hurt My Feelings' (dir. Nicole Holofcener)

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What follows is a list of my 30 favorite screen performances of the year, in many ways the MVPs of their respective films or TV shows. I have opted to exclude performances I have already mentioned earlier--for example, Kaitlyn Dever in 'No One Will Save You'. So make of this what you will, but also go check them out.

1. Murray Bartlett ('The Last of Us' Season 1)

2. Rose Byrne ('Platonic' Season 1)

3. Hong Chau ('The Whale'; 'Showing Up')

4. Daisy May Cooper ('Rain Dogs' Season 1)

5. Kieran Culkin ('Succession' Season 4)
6. Jennifer Ehle ('Dead Ringers')
7. Claudia Enriquez ('12 Weeks')

8. Milo Machado Graner ('Anatomy of a Fall')
9. Lily Gladstone ('Killers of the Flower Moon')
10. Ryan Gosling ('Barbie')
11. Taraji P. Henson ('Abbott Elementary' Season 2)

12. Stephanie Hsu ('Joy Ride')
13. Cedrick Juan ('GomBurZa')

14. Jane Krakowski ('Schmigadoon' Season 2: 'Schmicago')
15. Ronnie Lazaro ('Kapag Wala nang mga Alon')
16. Justina Machado ('The Horror of Dolores Roach' Season 1)
17. John Magaro ('Past Lives')
18. Rachel McAdams ('Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.')
19. Charles Melton ('May December')
20. Carey Mulligan ('Maestro')
21. Park Ji-Min ('Return to Seoul')
22. Pedro Pascal ('The Last of Us' Season 1)

23. Chris Perfetti ('Abbott Elementary' Season 2)
24. Rosamund Pike ('Saltburn')
25. Margaret Qualley ('Sanctuary')
26. Bella Ramsey ('The Last of Us' Season 1)

27. Margot Robbie ('Babylon')

28. Sarah Snook ('Succession' Season 4)
29. Ben Whishaw ('Passages')
30. Ramy Youssef ('Poor Things')

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I have 10 more things to point out:

1. Lawrence Ang's editing of 'Leonor Will Never Die'.

2. Justin Hurwitz's all-timer, Oscar-losing score for 'Babylon'. 'Voodoo Mama', 'Gold Coast Rhythm', and 'Manny and Nellie's Theme'--and variations of the last two thereof--on loop.

3. Nicholas Britell's closing themes for 'Succession' Season 4 made the closing credits an event in themselves.

4. Say what you will about 'Barbie', but that production design is insane.

5. The Trinity test scene alone in 'Oppenheimer' makes the price of admission worth it, but unquestionably the highlight of the film is the one with the small crowd of White Americans going gaga over news of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Through sly use of light and sound, Nolan evokes pure horror.

6. The animation of 'The Boy and the Crow' is the best I saw in 2023; it's a shame this short film feels like an abruptly abandoned idea.

7. The wonderful deployment of theatrical sensibilities in 'The Wonderful Life of Henry Sugar'.

8. The pitch-perfect playing of literary types by the ensembles of 'Lucky Hank' and 'You Hurt My Feelings'. Writers being petty and nasty and butthurt? Sign me up!

9. Prime Video's 'Dead Ringers' as a written thing--to quote James Poniewozik of The New York Times, "a wondrous monster that firmly answers the questions too many adaptations fumble with: Why bother and why now?

10. The second season of Netflix's 'Heartstopper' was a chore to go through, but its explication of bisexuality--the accompanying dread, confusion, uncertainty and self-doubt, and the world's biphobia--was dazzling and piercing in its truthfulness.

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Finally, here are three non-2022/23 titles that I saw for the first time this year and rated five Letterboxd stars:

'Reds' (1981, dir. Warren Beatty)
'Jaws'(1975, dir. Steven Spielberg)
'The Talented Mr. Ripley' (1999, dir. Anthony Minghella)

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Links to my past lists, which are best read as time capsules documenting what I'd seen and where I was at the time I wrote them:

The Year in Film and TV 2022/ 2021/ 2020/ 2019

The Decade in Film 2010-19

The Year in Film 2018/ 2017/ 2016/ 2015/ 2014

Look who's back in the Inquirer. (Crazy turn of events these past few years, but here we are.) I'll post a link to the website(?) version if and when I find out how. Anyway, I saw this show twice and liked it even less the second time around. I also want to point out that it's somehow indicative of how much time has passed that the first three plays I saw in Manila when I first moved there have all been restaged already.

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'Rent' is due: Spectacular at times, but sorely misses the point

The 2024 cast of 9 Works Theatrical's 'Rent' on media night curtain call, joined by members of the 2010 cast.

Fourteen years since it was last mounted professionally in Metro Manila, Jonathan Larson’s “Rent” is back at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, Makati City, once again produced by 9 Works Theatrical and directed by Robbie Guevara.

This return is much welcome: For a new generation of Filipino theatergoers (no doubt brought up on “Hamilton” and “Dear Evan Hansen”), it is a rare chance to see what The New York Times once hailed as a work that “shimmers with hope for the future of the American musical.”

What audiences have actually been seeing, however, is a production that looks spectacular at times, sounds terrific for the most part—but sorely misses the point of Larson’s work.

The simple key to understanding “Rent” is in its opening, titular song: “We’re hungry and frozen/ Some life that we’ve chosen,” sings its two principal characters, Roger and Mark. Both impoverished artists at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in New York City, they embody what it means to be alive despite the odds. Their apartment has no heating in winter; they always barely have enough money; unwelcome developers are gentrifying their neighborhood; and an untreatable disease is decimating their community.

Such is the world of hardship and injustice they and their self-proclaimed bohemian friends must fight against and survive.

Yet, in Guevara’s take-two on this musical, that primal hunger to keep on living even amid the direst circumstances is largely absent. Swaddled in runway-ready fast fashion, the performers of this “Rent” cosplay an idea of eking out a living; of struggling with poverty and disease; of defying the claws of gentrification in their neighborhood.

One hardly grasps the genuine despair hounding Larson’s characters on paper, almost as if this production has never met an impoverished person in real life.

Mere spectacle

The shallowness of its supposed evocations of hardship becomes all the more glaring when one considers this production’s directorial priorities. Given the continuous rise of HIV cases in the Philippines, Guevara has intended to put HIV front and center in this production—an “in your face” treatment, as he put it.

In theory, it’s an admirable, worthy, even timely cause. Onstage, however, it has resulted in the reduction of poverty and disease to mere spectacle. In one sequence where the characters sing about their existential fears (“Will I lose my dignity?/ Will someone care?/ Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?”), Guevara choreographs a literal tableau of suffering. On Mio Infante’s multistory, scaffolding set, the actors have been arranged as if on museum display cases: In one “box,” someone violently dies of AIDS; in another, someone—presumably addicted to drugs—visibly struggles with the temptation of injecting a needle.

This spectacularization of disease and poverty crescendos in the production’s interpretation of the character of Mimi. Mark and Roger’s neighbor (and Roger’s eventual love interest), Mimi is a striptease dancer living with HIV and addicted to heroin. In this production, she appears to be just that—reduced to her addiction and disease. In almost every scene, she is portrayed as drunk, high or a combination of both. In her Act II solo “Without You,” a song about the myriad difficulties of sustaining love and relationships, this production has her starting the song by—no kidding—singing to a small baggie of heroin.

Such exoticizing touches imbue this production with distracting literal-mindedness. More significantly, they only highlight how this “Rent” is antithetical to the spirit of Larson’s work. The point of the musical is to humanize the ones who struggle with disease, addiction and poverty; this production gawks at its characters with the bright-eyed curiosity of privileged kids on an “immersive” school trip to a slum.

To this production’s credit, it features what should go down as some of the year’s most thrilling voices: for example, theater newbie Garrett Bolden’s in the role of Tom Collins, Mark and Roger’s “anarchist” professor friend.

But, again, under Guevara’s ministrations, Bolden and almost every one of his cast mates are unable to embody their characters’ deepest hurts and troubles. Most troubling is the inert central relationship between Anthony Rosaldo’s Roger and Thea Astley’s Mimi (the former in only his second theater role, the latter in her stage debut).

Both struggling with HIV, Roger and Mimi strike up a relationship on borrowed time, epitomizing the musicals’ “no day but today” ethos. In Rosaldo and Astley’s hands, this relationship unfortunately never goes beyond the surface, leaving the audience bereft of the crucial emotional scaffold to hold on to throughout this musical.

Tokenistic gesture

Surprisingly, the task of instilling dramatic depth to this “Rent” has fallen on the laps of the two actors portraying Mark, the narrator, everyman and constant witness to the crumbling relationships in the story.

Mark himself undergoes an existential crisis of his own throughout the musical—one so convincingly fleshed out, in their respective ways, by Reb Atadero and Ian Pangilinan. In their hands, Mark becomes the most compelling character in the story, a real person who’s only trying to help sort out his friends’ sadnesses while fighting his own.

It’s also worth mentioning that on the night I saw him, Atadero singlehandedly delivered a crash course on clarity in stage performance.

And appearing in only a few scenes, Lance Reblando is sensational as the drag performer Angel, stealing the show especially in her gravity-defying take of “Today 4 U.”

Alas, the presences of Atadero, Pangilinan and Reblando are never enough to conceal this production’s shortcomings. Too often, this “Rent” sacrifices literal clarity in favor of literal spectacle. The big Act I group number “Christmas Bells” makes clever use of none of the show’s technical assets to, for starters, better identify who’s singing what line and where on the brightly lit stage, instead pouring its energies into a snow machine.

At three levels, Infante’s set is so structurally convoluted, performers literally disappear in it navigating its stairs and corners for longer than necessary, even when they are singing. Shakira Villa-Symes’ occasionally ostentatious lighting has a penchant for evoking an actual rock concert more than the world of the musical.

Meanwhile, an arrangement of chairs in the colors of the rainbow—an obvious nod to the LGBTQIA+ community, who are an integral part of this musical—appears in exactly two parts of the show, becoming a tokenistic gesture designed to end up in social media posts.

Those chairs also speak to the larger ethos of this “Rent”: a nice treat to the senses that never goes below the surface. It’s no day but today for a filtered Instagram post.

Wrote about three shows. It's really the summer of our theater-loving hearts' content.

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3 new original Filipino musicals pack in the crowds

Curtain call at 'One More Chance' with Sam Concepcion.

Only two years ago, Manila theater was still groping its way to a sustainable reopening from the COVID lockdowns. Now, it may well be having its biggest year yet.

In the last three months, six professional productions have been playing near-simultaneously to oftentimes packed houses. Four of them—Peta’s “One More Chance, The Musical,” Barefoot Theatre Collaborative’s “Bar Boys,” Tanghalang Pilipino’s “Pingkian” and the touring production of “Miss Saigon”—sold out their respective runs. It’s a feat unheard of in recent memory.

‘One More Chance, The Musical’

“One More Chance” holds the even rarer distinction of selling out its entire three-month run before opening—a first in the Philippine Educational Theater Association (Peta) history. No doubt, pedigree aided this mammoth success: The musical’s eponymous source material is only one of the biggest romcoms of the 2000s, starring John Lloyd Cruz as Popoy and Bea Alonzo as Basha.

Thankfully, the musical has rectified the movie’s faults and kept things real. Eluding blind fandom worship, Michelle Ngu-Nario’s adaptation stresses the toxicity of its protagonists’ relationship and makes no excuses for Popoy’s red flags, instead exposing him for the possessive, insecure man that he is. With Popoy and Basha now (almost) on equal footing, the story becomes a clear warning against putting up with an awful partner.

Already a retooled version, the performance I caught still hit three hours. Yet, the production actually felt tight—if anything, proof that this show works.

Its excesses can be obvious—for instance, portions of Michael Barry Que’s choreography that only dull the show’s momentum. But at its best, the show’s overindulgent quality also becomes its asset. When Neomi Gonzales rolls in a riot as a faux-assimilated balikbayan from Korea, or when Via Antonio launches into one of her hilarious diatribes, you wish the scene would keep going.

Directed by Maribel Legarda, this production scours the agonies and ecstasies of imperfect love in the hands of a very capable cast. Stars are literally born in CJ Navato (as Popoy) and Nicole Omillo (as Basha), each making a theater debut of compelling technical and emotional precision. It’s the utmost praise to say their pairing makes you forget the movie even exists.

(Update: I've seen the show a second time. Sam Concepcion's Popoy is my current pick for stage performance of the year so far: It's simply a consummate leading-man turn, his triple-threat skills on full, marvelous display. And so rare, as well, to see a performance whose main currency is physicality. Bravo!)

(Correction: This isn't Navato's theater debut. He already performed in Peta's "Charot!" in 2019.)

Most crucial is the musical’s intelligent use of the band Ben&Ben’s songs to tell its story, further attesting to musical director Myke Salomon’s mastery of the jukebox musical genre. Here, Salomon pulls few surprises, but his work is seamless, resulting in a musical that’s flush with all the right emotions in all the right places.

‘Bar Boys’

In the recently concluded “Bar Boys,” Salomon composed his first original score for Pat Valera’s adaptation of the eponymous 2017 film. Together, Valera (also colyricist) and Salomon have made a work that could be unnecessarily busy and repetitive, evincing spots in glaring need of editing.

However, this musical was also almost miraculous in the way it improved upon the source material without losing its essence. The movie, about four men aspiring to be lawyers, hardly made anything cohesively meaningful out of the tropes and issues crammed into it. Building on that structure, Valera has written a thoughtful rumination about justice, manhood and personhood in Marcos Jr.’s Philippines.

At three hours, the production seemingly imbibed the frenetic energy of law students cramming for an exam. Most bothersome were the venue’s acoustics: Where I sat, it felt like being pummeled by sound.

Nonetheless, one left this show convinced by the earnestness of the sheer talent on display, and the musical’s unrelenting belief in the little guy’s potential to fight for change despite the daunting odds.

As the financially strapped Erik, Benedix Ramos was a revelation. Ramos not only aced a delicate balancing act of standing out while being part of a quartet; his performance of the story’s underdog also became a forceful, unifying persona of the musical’s themes—the bar boy, as it were. And in supporting parts, Sheila Francisco (as a stern professor) and Juliene Mendoza (as Ramos’ stage father) were peerless in their command of the grammar of musical theater.

‘Buruguduystunstugudunstuy’

Meanwhile, at Newport World Resorts, Full House Theater Company has premiered “Buruguduystunstugudunstuy,” the jukebox musical built on the songs of Parokya ni Edgar. Fancying itself a feminist paean, the musical concerns four women who are magically transported to a distinctly Filipino fantasyland, where they undergo journeys of self-discovery.

Evidently, budget’s not a problem: Dexter Santos’ production is a sensorial feast, maximizing its venue’s massive stage and LED capabilities to evoke its disparate storylands. GA Fallarme and Joyce Garcia’s video design is the best this theater has seen. Stephen Viñas’ choreography fulfills Santos’ ambitions of physical spectacle. And Raven Ong’s costumes alone are worth the price of admission: In one scene, out of plastic bags and garbage, Ong conjures gowns fit for the biggest stages of drag.

All for what, though? Thrillingly inane in Act I, the musical stumbles in its thematic labyrinth and disintegrates in Act II. It’s “feminism” by way of insultingly hokey lessons, with playwright Rody Vera not only sneaking in an outdated male-rape joke into the script, but also somehow bungling the gender politics: For all the purported feminism, it’s never made clear if one of the protagonists is lesbian or trans, as if this musical thought those two identities were the same.

Musical director Ejay Yatco’s adaptation of the Parokya discography isn’t entirely successful, either. The most successful jukebox musicals make preloved songs sound like they’ve been made for the musical, not shoehorned into it. Here, Yatco’s haphazard work only convinces you of Parokya’s incompatibility with coherent musical storytelling.

Moments of comedic brilliance are few and far between, chiefly through the performances of Pepe Herrera, Noel Comia Jr., Tex Ordoñez-de Leon and Jillian Ita-as delivering my favorite blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment of the year so far, as a schoolteacher early in Act I. In the end—in keeping with its mouthful of a title—this musical only feels endless and exhausting.

Familiar material

Still, attention must be paid to the fact that all three shows—all original Filipino works, it bears emphasis—have been running at the same time and filling up their houses. Chalking this all up to “revenge theater”—to audiences’ presumed hunger for live performance post-COVID—seems a too-easy recourse.

A better framing might be: People flock to material they are familiar with. Not only does it help explain why “Miss Saigon” was a hit; it also accounts for the unprecedented success of “One More Chance” and “Buruguduy’s” popularity.

It also underscores the constant need to liberate our theater. Accessibility is a negotiated process. To build a genuinely interested audience—beyond Metro Manila’s loyal minority—one may need to start from what people already know, before aiming for what one wants them to watch.

When Newport’s “Ang Huling El Bimbo” was streamed online for 48 hours in 2020 as a pandemic fundraiser, it hit seven million views. A pirated recording circulated online. Fan accounts (of people involved in the show) were born. One can only wonder how many people ended up watching “Bar Boys,” “Buruguduy,” 9 Works Theatrical’s “Rent,” or Barefoot’s “Mula sa Buwan” and “The Last Five Years” simply because “El Bimbo” alumni were involved in those shows.

Twelve years is also a lot of time for change. A new generation has come of age, so to speak, with money to spare for trips to the theater. Here, writer Exie Abola was right on the money in saying that theater must also be thought of as “a commercial enterprise,” and not just an artistic one. How do we get people with money to not just choose the theater, but be excited about it?

In this aspect, Peta made an ingenious move partnering with many corporations to market “One More Chance” and help turn it into a summer blockbuster.

And I’ll never tire of saying this: Barefoot has perfected the art of selling a show. Their whole thing begins from the show’s announcement. And while some companies still struggle with social media, Barefoot has embraced it.

These are all just partial answers, of course. But the confluence of 2024’s sold-out productions demands further introspection. This is what we want the state of local theater to be all the time. The question now is how to replicate and maintain it.

Was also supposed to review "Request sa Radyo" (the one-woman, one-hour show with 10k tickets), but guess who got uninvited? Here's the PressReader link.

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'Othello': Theater we need more of, no matter how imperfect

Maronne Cruz (Emilia) and Gab Pangilinan (Desdemona) during curtain call at "Othello."

In Company of Actors in Streamlined Theatre’s (CAST) production of “Othello,” the Shakespearean play has become a literal in-your-face confrontation of gender-based violence.

The play’s basic premise is almost straight out of Filipino primetime melodrama: Iago, a junior military officer, manipulates his commander Othello into thinking his wife Desdemona is cheating on him.

Directed by Nelsito Gomez in the 100-seater Mirror Studio, this production unfolds mere feet from the audience. Watching it not only feels like being a co-conspirator to the signature Shakespearean silliness dotting the proceedings, but also like a voyeur witnessing the unflinching violence inflicted by the story’s men on their wives.

The physical proximity renders the production’s best quality more immediate: Above all, this “Othello” is a triumphant dissection of gender power relations.

In Maronne Cruz’s portrayal of Desdemona’s maidservant Emilia, the play finds its most consummate vessel, the actress intelligently communicating, through superb command of affect and language, a trapped existence between the old world of patriarchal submission and the possible new world of feminist defiance.

Further, Gomez’s choice to stage the play in modern dress, with modern props (e.g., beer bongs in a party scene), while having the actors spout Shakespeare’s original lines, helps convey the notion that gender-based violence has always transcended eras, generations, and continents.

Racial politics

However, an imbalance afflicts this production as it sidesteps the text’s other crucial element. For while on the surface, Iago’s manipulation of Othello appears rooted in the former’s discontent with how the commander runs the military, the unmistakable subtext is that Iago’s—and, for that matter, most of the other characters’—disdain for Othello is racially motivated.

Othello is a Moor—the term for the predominantly darkskinned Muslims in a predominantly White, Christian Mediterranean Europe. When Iago (Reb Atadero, deliciously devious) exclaims repeatedly that he “hates the Moor,” one very well knows it isn’t merely because he despises Othello’s governance.

Barely touching the play’s inherent racial politics, this “Othello” becomes a missed opportunity to comment on the present, with the Caucasian superpowers actively abetting the genocide in predominantly Arab-Muslim Gaza. Perhaps this is ultimately a wise decision, what with race being a considerably less topical issue than sexual violence in the Philippines.

The more alarming consequence of this reluctance to grapple with racial politics is this production’s inadvertent perpetration of dangerous racial stereotypes. Tarek El Tayech’s Othello, hounding this play like a colossus, speaks his lines with an ostensibly Middle Eastern accent; beyond such physical flourishes, the production hardly complicates the race-based otherness of its titular character.

Retooling the classics

At the end of Act I, vowing to punish Desdemona for her purported infidelity, El Tayech’s Othello momentarily unshackles himself from archaic Shakespearean English and breaks into Arabic prayer, with Atadero’s Iago looking on. Nothing else is made of that supposedly crucial scene, imbuing it with an exoticizing effect that makes one question the necessity of this one-time-only linguistic shift.

As Othello slowly descends into jealous madness throughout Act II, eventually battering and strangling his wife, El Tayech’s portrayal only makes Othello look like a crazed abuser: the stereotype of the uncivilized, hostile, predatory Arab Muslim come to life.

Still, its flaws notwithstanding, this “Othello” is further proof that its director should keep pursuing his modern-day retoolings of the classics. Notably, Gomez was responsible for last year’s “Uncle Jane,” his present-day adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” that was, in my view, 2023’s best play—so precise and expansive as a rumination on hope and hopelessness in the time of COVID-19.

In the larger scheme of things, this is the theater we need more of—one that incessantly tickles and provokes the mind, no matter how imperfect.

Dazzling technicals

Meanwhile, in the 1,700-seater theatre of Solaire Resort and Casino, Parañaque City, the Broadway and West End sensation “Six” has made its Philippine premiere. This is musical theater as a pop concert—and the production, supercharged with some of the most dazzling and precise uses of technicals Manila theater has witnessed of late, delivers without question.

Essentially an 80-minute revue, the musical is about the six wives of Henry VIII (hence the title), but the wives have morphed into pop star archetypes (one pays homage to Beyoncé, another to Ariana Grande), the stories of their individual rise and fall in Henry’s court (and heart) comprising individual songs.

It’s a concept that should come across as basic, but what “Six” really is is satisfying fun, serving one bop after another, to use the urban slang, and dishing out Tudor history like addictive pieces of gossip—all while approximating a theater nerd’s idea of a rollickingly good time at the club.

Never mind that, in a bid to ensure the audience really gets its message, it ends up over-explaining its themes of feminist empowerment, as if doubting the intellect of its Gen Z and Alpha audiences.

But maybe being easy isn't always a bad thing. Exiting the theater, I overheard a mother ask her son, "Do you know what the patriarchy is?" Truly, the real magic of the theater lies in the cross-generational conversations it sparks after the curtains have fallen.

On November 30, I watched Dulaang UP's "Nanay Bangis" (a Filipino adaptation of Brecht's "Mother Courage and Her Children") at UP Diliman--an absolutely insufferable show--and then, had to rush to Makati for the 7:30 evening show of The Sandbox Collective's "Tiny Beautiful Things"--another insufferable show. "Nanay Bangis" finished at almost 5 already, so I had to take a motorcycle taxi to get the South on time on a payday weekend! Thank you, JoyRide. Anyway, thus was born the idea for the final paragraph of this piece.

Inquirer Plus now has a wonderfully functional website--the online version of this article here. See you at the theater in 2025!

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Theater 2024: Discerning patterns and possibilities

Miren Alvarez-Fabregas (Medea) and Yan Yuzon (Yason/ Jason) in Tanghalang Ateneo's 'Medea'.

No longer based in Manila, yet still striving to see as much of its theater as possible, I definitely missed a number of shows this year--for instance, "3 Upuan,""Mga Multo," and "Nagkatuwaan sa Tahanang Ito," which all lived brief, acclaimed lives at the Ateneo.

What follows, then, is an appraisal of Manila's theater scene that's more preoccupied with the patterns of its strengths, its limitations, its possibilities for growth.

Tanghalang Pilipino's banner year

The Cultural Center of the Philippines' (CCP) resident theater company staged two of 2024's most intellectually satisfying productions. "Pingkian," an original musical about Emilio Jacinto and the Katipunan, was that rare play propelled narratively by ideas, rather than conventional plot points. (A key number--the year's most thrilling, in fact--essentially rewrote the Kartilya, the Katipunan's bible, into a rousing, rap-sung manifesto of freedom and personhood.) Meanwhile, "Balete," partly hewn from two of F Sionil José's works, was a marvel of inventive theatricality, its lucid dramatization of the specter of feudalism evidence of what genuine artistic collaboration could achieve.

Together, these shows became ardent interrogations into what makes--or breaks--a nation. They were also exemplary additions to the company's distinctive body of work inn the past decade: along with "Batang Mujahideen,""Nekropolis,""Ang Pag-uusig,""Mabining Mandirigma," and "Mga Buhay na Apoy," theater that unflinchingly confronts what it truly means to be Filipino.

'Medea' and seeking the classics

Post-curtain at Tanghalang Ateneo's "Medea" in November, director Ron Capinding spoke of the company's near-future direction to pursue the classics in honor of the late Ricky Abad. "Medea" was a perfect herald of that future: an ancient text deftly revived, its primal histrionics made intelligible for modern viewers--despite Rolando Tinio's baroque Tagalog translation.

The larger questions it raised were also worth pondering for other companies: How do we make great art accessible to audiences besieged by brain rot and TikTok? What and where is the place of these stereotypically dusty tomes in a landscape saturated with jukebox musicals?

Months earlier, The Sandbox Collective had hinted at a tangential answer, via its rip-roaring production of the modern cult classic "Little Shop of Horrors"--the success of, among other reasons, intelligent casting. In both cases, it was clear audiences will flock to shows that meet them halfway. The Atenean kids I watched "Medea" with ate up every single crumb of it!

Above: Reb Atadero (Seymour) and Sue Ramirez (Audrey) in The Sandbox Collective's 'Little Shop of Horrors'. Below: Sam Concepcion (Popoy) and the company of PETA's 'One More Chance, The Musical'.

Two musicals and popular success

Without question, two of the year's biggest popular hits met viewers halfway--and knew their audiences. The Philippine Educational Theater Association's adaptation of the John Lloyd Cruz-Bea Alonzo romcom "Once More Chance" sold out its three-month run (from April to June) even before opening--a first in company history. Barefoot Theatre Collaborative's (BTC) "Bar Boys," based on the titular film about four aspiring lawyers, enjoyed similar success, its initial three-weekend run in May spawning a six-weekend rerun later in the year.

Far from flawless, both were nonetheless hugely enjoyable nights at the theater. And how they drew the crowds--lawyers and law students at "Bar Boys," just about every demographic imaginable (that had presumably seen a Star Cinema romcom) at "One More Chance." Even people I knew who weren't regular theatergoers were asking about these shows--a reliable metric of success, I've found. Most important, their respective companies clearly put in the work into marketing these musicals, from publicity to partnerships to, simply put, transforming them into "theatrical events."

Right performers, right roles

Some performances were Herculean inevitabilities: Nonie Buencamino in "Balete," Miren Alvarez-Fabregas in "Medea." Some felt like kismet: actors seemingly born for their roles, like Reb Atadero's Seymour, equal parts comic and loser, in "Little Shop of Horrors"; Sheila Francisco and Juliene Mendoza in "Bar Boys," twin experts in the emotional grammar of the stage; Leo Rialp as an unholy cardinal in Encore Theater's "Grace"; and--my bias--Sam Concepcion's Popoy in "One More Chance," a sublime marriage of performer and skill set birthing local musical theater's newest leading man (or to borrow from The Knee-Jerk Critic, a true "quadruple threat").

Some other performances felt revelatory, an actor finally given a sizable spotlight and owning it completely: Benedix Ramos in "Bar Boys"; Julia Serad in "Little Shop of Horrors"; at the Virgin Labfest, Jam Binay as a demented Catholic schoolgirl in "Sa Babaeng Lahat" and Joshua Cabiladas as a millennial "dirty old man" in "Ang Munting Liwanag sa Madilim na Sulok ng Isang Sebeserya sa Maynila." With Maronne Cruz (Emilia in Company of Actors in Streamlined Theatre's "Othello") and Krystal Kane (juggling a dozen or so parts in Repertory Philippines'"I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change"), it was two former Ateneo Blue Repertory leading ladies slaying--yet again.

The trend of film and TV stars "crossing over" to theater also continued, and amid numerous misses was an undeniable hit: Sue Ramirez, utterly luminous from her first entrance as Audrey in "Little Shop of Horrors."

The companies of 'Ang Munting Liwanag sa Madilim na Sulok ng Isang Serbeserya sa Maynila' (above) and 'Sa Babaeng Lahat' (below) at Virgin Labfest 19.

Design that earned its place

I mean design that effectively evoked a play's essence. In "Balete," two relatively new names--Wika Nadera (set) and Carlos Siongco (costumes)--jointly conjured the characters' old-world, agrarian aesthetic. GA Fallarme's projections in "I Love You..." and Miguel Urbino's sound design for Repertory Philippines'"Betrayal" were epitomes of restraint and sophistication.

In "Buruguduystunstugudunstuy," the Parokya ni Edgar musical at Newport World Resorts, Raven Ong's outlandish trash-bag gowns best captured the musical's inane spirit. Bituin Escalante's hair in "Pingkian" was its own entity; so, too, was Alvarez-Fabregas' cape in "Medea."

The eternal question of access

Lastly, the Samsung Performing Arts Theater this year became an inadvertent site for continuing conversations on access. On the one hand was "Request sa Radyo," the play about a Filipino migrant worker in America headlined by Lea Salonga and Dolly de Leon, and which boasted a fully functioning apartment set by Tony-winning designer (and co-producer) Clint Ramos. With top tickets costing almost P10,000, "Request" begged the question: Who exactly was meant to see this "coming together" of beacons of "Philippine pride," to quote its website? Certainly not most ordinary theatergoers, whom it shut out with ticket prices unparalleled in their exorbitance in recent local history. If anything, it all betrayed an anomalous marketing direction so detached from present realities.

On the other hand was "Mula sa Buwan" Pat Valera and William Elvin Manzano's take on "Cyrano de Bergerac." Returning under BTC, it offered a far more egalitarian theatrical event--one closely attuned to the pulse of local theater. At the full-house performance I attended, the crowd was diverse, with many young-looking members--some of them students on sponsored tickets, I was told--all laughing, crying, and reacting to the whole thing. Through mastery of social media, a dedication to cultivating its fan base, and the sheer will to make itself affordable to as many people as possible, "Mula sa Buwan" illustrated what inclusive, accessible Filipino theater could look like.

Further, accessibility can also mean using subtitles, as in "One More Chance." Or announcing performance dates and schedules reasonably early enough so people can plot their viewings. Or considering the practicality of watching two shows in one day (why endure Manila traffic on separate days?) and leaving ample time for people to travel between matinees and evening performances (why even start at 7:30 p.m. on Saturdays?).

Regardless of the means, the end remains the same: We need a theater landscape that strives to open its doors to more people, even from places beyond Manila--especially from places where regular theater is rare and therefore could be a precious, life-changing experience.

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