If there’s one play that had everything going against it, it just might be this one. After all, much ado about Cherie Gil playing Mrs. Robinson happened at the launch of Repertory Philippines’ current theater season. And that is to say: Cherie Gil. (more…)
I am the last person to defend SM, and I do think we’ve got enough malls and condos in this country. But one of the first things I asked when the petition to save the Philam Life Theater began to gain ground was: why?
And no, not why did SMDC buy the Philam Life property, but why was this property sold at all?
Yet that doesn’t seem to be a question that many people are asking. Instead we are asking questions about why SMDC needs to build more condos, why it needs to build more malls. Instead we throw expletives at Henry Sy and his empire, and say he is greedy and nothing else, forgetting that while the latter might be true, what drives this greed is the fact that they can afford it. And that the government allows it.
This is not to say it’s right, as it is to ask: who allows oligarchs to buy this country’s lands and services? Why is it even acceptable that basic services are owned by one, two, three families? Whose fault is it that our oldest structures, the ones that are monuments to our past, are being sold, one after the other? Why is the only other option for these structures, neglect and forgetting?
And who is blameless in this oft repeated enterprise of a piece of heritage being lost to time or capitalists, and us all raising our fists too late?
Did I mention talent?
Because it’s true that the datedness of a text such as this, set in the 1970s, is wont to mean an amount of disengagement with its unfolding on a current stage. And yet, as with many things that are fiction(al) to us, there is the task of falling head first into an unfamiliar story’s telling, and finding that it can be absolutely enjoyable.The cast of ‘No Way To Treat A Lady’ reminds us that sometimes five is enough. (more…)
thank yous are in order, and while Angela and i always difficult to go all me! me! me! or I! I! I! on our blogs, almost two months into 2013, it would seem wrong to not fall back on that i, if only so i can talk to a you and articulate gratefulness.
the year kicked off with being offered a regular Opinion column over at The Manila Times. i had hoped i could get away with putting a logo instead of my face on it, but no dice. so every Thursday, my literal paper trail continues. let’s see how long i can keep it up — or how long The Times can handle me. hehe. (more…)
Making Lemonade
There is a romance that we like to imagine about writing, and especially the writing of a book. And while my rebellious self would like to tell you that this was not the case for Of Love and Other Lemons, that would be a lie. Certainly it came from a personal history of love and loss and sadness, complete with the high – if not OA – drama of buckets of tears. But the writing of this book didn’t happen while I was going through all those things.
Instead the writing happened when I was at the point of reckoning with the cards life had dealt me (naks high drama), and particularly when I was away from Manila. Distance allowed me to think of freedom, where Manila – the Philippines – felt oppressive, too small that I couldn’t even stretch. (more…)