Category Archive for: entablado

kultura

celebrating the production of Peter Pan

A text like Peter Pan banks on wonder, given an audience of children who would be overwhelmed by the idea of flight. But it also banks on an adult audience that can go back to an amount of youthful innocence, given the familiar. Of course this familiarity can also be this text’s undoing, owing to its many versions, some more iconic than others (think Robin Williams as Peter). Any staging / rendering / version then can only really be successful in light of this kind of intertextuality: an audience will bring to this text everything – big or small, major or minor – that they know about the text. And it’s entirely possible that in the end this will only mean a harsh judgment of the version that unfolds in front of them.

Or not. Repertory Philippines’ Peter Pan, A Musical Adventure is difficult to put down, even when you’re a jaded adult. Of course it could’ve just been me, ready as I was to be fascinated by the flying this production was treating the audience to. But there were other things here that were wonderful too, if not surprisingly seamlessly done by the production.

Click here for the rest of it!

kultura

Tinarantadong Asintado FTW!

In the age of doing Manila runs of foreign plays versus doing the more creative task of adapting these for local audiences, Dulaang UP’s Titus Andronicus: Tinarantadong Asintado can only be valuable. Directed by Tuxqs Rutaquio and adapted into Filipino by Layeta Bucoy, what’s remarkable about this work is that it does justice to the Shakespeare original while delivering a contemporary narrative that by all counts is a success.

The moment pop/street music filled the theater, the moment the clown (Nicco Manalo) established his role as both symbol of death and life, in those first few minutes Tinarantadong Asintado grabbed me by the throat. Yes, it’s as violent and visceral as it sounds. This might have been an absurd tragedy set in the end of the Roman Empire, in the original that had at its core a cycle of revenge, but in this adaptation the absurd is so bloody real – and that’s no bloody exaggeration. When we say truth is stranger than fiction, we must have the Philippines in mind; in Tinarantadong Asintado the fictional takes that truth and runs away with it.

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death and comedy at the Virgin Labfest 7

The comedy with which death is dealt in two plays at the Virgin Labfest 7, presented at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, was in no way extraordinary. After all, we’re in a country where laughter in the face of difficulty is cliché.

Yet what might be extraordinary in both The Valley Mission Care written by Russell Legaspi and directed by Missy Maramara, and Bawal Tumawid Nakamamatay written and directed by Joey Paras, is precisely its reconfiguration of these clichés into notions of letting go and letting things be. The two plays are given contexts that are particularly of the current times, anywhere that there’s a friendly smiling Filipino.

on Bawal Tumawid Nakamamatay:

Which isn’t to say that Bawal Tumawid Nakamamatay wasn’t funny; it was funny in the way slapstick and loudness, as well as characters – and actors! – with perfect timing necessarily are. Gimay Galvan as the coffee shop barista going through her own love crisis on Valentine’s Day was perfectly consistent as the angry lesbian, as was Rodel Bar Sumooc as the cigarette vendor who would pass through and give his unsolicited two cents’ worth to the conversation. Baento is perfectly fag hag working class, the comedy emanating from her self-assured performance, weight, flashy dress and all. Rialp, given the limits of Mang Caloy’s character, surprisingly blazes into anger and regret and sadness at the point when his story unravels, glaring at the distance even when he is reminiscing. It’s the one moment when Mang Caloy’s character makes sense, and Rialp must take the credit for acting that was luminescent.

on The Valley Mission Care:

This mission was also about freedom from The Valley, a prison of sorts for the spritely old man. Ashlyn was heaven sent for Lolo Cisco, and he lost no time in appealing to her inner-romantic, if not her hidden-Pinoy: do this for me hija, do this for yourself. Ashlyn struggles between her job and her guilt and ends up helping Lolo Cisco anyway. Here, Ashlyn’s struggle is stretched out a wee bit, with no real sense of what’s going through her head, how she reconciles it within herself.

And it’s here that Estañero shines. In the end, her connection with Lolo Cisco, while not made logical by the narrative, is revealed by Estañero to be about a sincere honest compassion. When in the end she tears up, it’s difficult not to be carried away, sunrise and all. Sepulveda meanwhile plays Lolo Cisco with a perfect balance of fieriness and weakness, with excitement and weariness in his eyes.

the complete article, i.e., not just these excerpts, are here.

kultura

two plays: Virgin Labfest 7

because with a festival pass at P1,000 pesos, these two plays were already value for money. and really it makes you wonder why P1,000 pesos would allow you to watch all 18 plays at Virgin Labfest, yet all it will get you are 4 to 6 movies give or take, at the Cinemalaya. and we wonder where the double standard lies?

on Floy Quintos’ Evening At The Opera

When a stage is filled with a king-size bed, a dresser, and an ottoman you don’t know when to begin feeling uncomfortable: the mere sight of a bed conjures up a sex scene, and sex is always reason for discomfort amongst an immature audience, including the three guys behind me who chatted each other up throughout the play before this one.

But sex as we imagine it wouldn’t be reason for discomfort in that cold little theater; it would be politics that would hush the noisiest of audiences, encapsulated as it is in this bedroom.

Floy Quintos’ Evening at the Opera (directed by Jomari Jose) is the story of rural politics, as we know it, as we hear it in the news, as it has been imagined in movies, presented by documentaries. That this is also the story of dynasties left unquestioned, of marriages of convenience, of political machismo, of class versus crass, of the wealthy and rich among us, are layers that thicken this stage of a stark white bed and a governor’s wife in a bright red dress.

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on Rae Red’s Kawala

What happens when the tiny space that is the Tanghalang Huseng Batute at the country’s cultural center is deemed too large? What happens when it is made into the two walls and two doors of a condominium elevator with the one constant presence within it?

Some really creative funny theater, that’s what.

Written by Rae Red and directed by Paolo O’Hara, Kawala shows us aspects of our urban contemporary life in Manila within an elevator that has no truth other than that of the young man who tends to it, the elevator boy.

Alwin (Cris Pasturan) is a fresh graduate, ready to move on and away from the oppressive walls of the elevator. In the course of a day, he articulates this unfreedom, as he shows how this world revolves around him, trusted as he is by the condominium’s tenants, central as he is to their existence.

Familiarity is easy, friendliness is default. It is here that you realize this boy’s life is beyond that elevator’s walls, because there is much to be said about opening those doors. And so it becomes understandable why the big shot sleazy dirty old man, the ex-bold star turned serious actor, the gold digger stalking her prey all hop into this elevator and demand a friendship of sorts with Alwin. He must hear no evil, see no evil, speak no….

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kultura

on class, the indie film divide, and what unity must mean

the breakdown and aftermath of the Rafael Santos debacle is interesting to me mostly for what’s still unsaid.

1. the fact of Santos’ class, and i use that word not just to point to his lack of social skills (for goodness why would he think a joke like that funny?) and bad manners (he was asked about actors he himself worked with for his film, yes?), but also his social class. that humor, if we’d like to call it that, is one that we know exists, that we might have heard before from rowdy boys in some sosy Starbucks, or kids we’ve taught in our time as teachers, and it’s a humor that isn’t surprising in its existence. what is surprising is that Santos did not turn it off for television, that he actually thought this was an interview that would be so comfortable, his humor would be fine. which bring us back to the fact that he might be a rich kid — a konyo kid in our context who feeds his cat catfood and thinks lowly of skyflakes (equals 1 cup of rice kaya and isang pack no’n!) — but apparently rich doesn’t mean classy.

2. which is what that show Cityscape is, more pang-mayaman than anything. Sir Anton Juan is so correct about pointing out how that host is at fault as well, though there’s the mere existence of lifestyle shows for the elite like this one that’s just wrong in third world Philippines. that show, as is David Celdran’s ANC show, is a bubble that allows the ones who are in it to believe that everyone speaks the same language, thinks the same, live the same, i.e., we’re all rich, you’ll get my humor. is this to defend Santos? of course not. it’s to point out that other than this articulation, there’s a fundamental problem in a media system that creates a venue for him to speak this way, and think that it’s ok. it’s telling of a crisis in media, isn’t it, when the rich can be shameless about their lives and lifestyles, as if they were not in impoverished philippines?

3. some critics of Santos are angry because he draws a divide between film and theater. i say it’s a reminder: despite Eugene Domingo, John Lapus moving from theater to film, and despite numerous mainstream actors moving from mainstream and finding more credibility in theater, that divide still exists. and it’s one that’s painfully and obviously about money, i.e., who will make money for TV and movie executives and therefore will get better pay, and not at all about who does the better job at acting or entertaining.

now that divide gets a little more complex when we talk about the indie film industry of which Santos is part. the indie in fact is theater in light of commercial film; it’s where the more artistic, more creative filmmaking happens, where the better actors are found. i always thought the indie employing theater actors meant a team effort of sorts, one that spoke of both industries’ struggle to prove creativity on the most flimsy of budgets, on a dire lack of support. Santos’ articulation pointed to the fact that the indie film industry has it’s own divide to deal with, and it’s one that’s becoming more and more stark as they go about this business of being “independent.” while it’s true that there are countless writers and directors who financially struggle to get a hold of a camera and finish a film, it’s also difficult to ignore this fact: there are also these kids who go to some sosyal film school, are given cameras on a silver platter and think the struggle is just like wow pare, it’s so hard to make the film i want, coz i want to do a tarantino film or like a kubrick? and the philippines is so not prepared for me.

wow pare, ang tindi ng struggle mo.

4. and lastly, Tanghalang Pilipino’s artistic director Nanding Josef wonders:

And it also makes me wonder what the outsiders, the ‘uzis’ (mga usisera), the non-artists and the critics of the artists make out of this free-for-all, uncensored and free-flowing downpour of expletives, name-calling by the artists against another artist, albeit a beginning artist.

here’s what i think, Sir: while i’ve got a brother and sister-in-law who were part of theater in the Philippines before they left for Holland, and while i’d like to think myself a theater critic at times (though i cringe at that label half the time, especially with gibbs cadiz and exie abola around), as outsider to philippine theater, i think this emotional outpouring of anger and disgust at the issues that underlie Santos’ articulations is the perfect reason to start talking about a theater actors’ union.*

of course in this country insisting on a union is a red flag up for the powers-that-be. but seeing the theater industry’s united stand against this articulation (even those who have forgiven Santos admit to his fault here), i think the theater world’s 100 steps ahead of the fight for what every creative industry worker deserves: a spanking-new union.

the writers among us can only be envious.

 

*and i mean a real one, not like the UMPIL for writers, which doesn’t really function to protect writers or standardize how much we might get paid, but seems more like a fraternity of writers. i mean a real artists’ union, much like the Philippine Models Association of the Philippines (yes, they are smarter than us all), that standardizes pay based on seniority and skill of their members, and is responsible for any of its members not performing their jobs well.