Category Archive for: review

kultura

No Junk In This Trunk*

Because there is plenty here that works: from the funky music to the fantastic lyrics, dramatic situations and imagery so vivid, emotions so raw it can only be yours.

I knew it when I heard “Kapit Mahal” via Billy B.’s now-defunct UR radio show, but I know it even more now: that was no fluke. Top Junk released its indie debut last year, but I count it as one of my early 2011 finds, literally: I bought it at Route 196 as I bobbed my head to The Purplechickens’ Here’s Plan B gig of reminiscence. Yes, it was like being fresh out of college that night, but that’s stuff for another story. (more…)

kultura

CinemalayaX: the year of self-indulgent film and creative conceit

I had started watching CinemalayaX with Carlitos Siguion Reyna’s Hari Ng Tondo, Joseph Alterejos’s Kasal, and Roderick Cabrido’s Children’s Show. It was two good movies out of three, and I thought it was portents of things to come for the rest of the week’s movie viewing frenzy.

After watching all 15 full length films, I realize I had it good that first day. It was downhill from there.

Click here to read the rest of it over at Vera Files.

 

kultura

The Fluid re-write

It seems the only way to start this review is to acknowledge – and praise – the Technical Theater Program Batch 111 students of Benilde for having dared and successfully staged and produced 2014’s Fluid. Were the technical aspects of the production the only point, then this was quite a successful theatrical debut for this batch of students.

It would also, for the most part, be a successful re-write for contemporary times, something that playwright Floy Quintos talks about in his notes for the production. One is reminded by this re-write that many things about art making and production in this country continue to be true 10 years hence. Many things might need re-writing, but the system itself just evolves into viciousness, or devolves into the superficiality that capital demands.  (more…)

kultura

notes on Gawad Buhay, democratization, and the anxiety of smallness

this year was the first time i even cared enough to go to Gawad Buhay, and that is really because of a good three things: my love for Tuxqs Rutaquio, my love of Layeta Bucoy, and my new-found discovery of and respect for the kind of hard work that Tanghalang Pilipino’s Actors Company stands for.

which is of course to wear my heart on my sleeve (obvious ba), and really to point at some of my good ol’ biases, the kind that i’ve always had and have never denied having. anyone who was reading my theater reviews from the beginning (i.e., 2009) would know that i had much respect for the work of Rutaquio and Bucoy (as director-playwright tandem), long before i came to know them as people (which was mostly this year). i had also done reviews of the work of AC’s Tadioan long before he even became the monolith of an actor that he has become.

i’d like to think these biases do not diminish my own thoughts about Gawad Buhay’s limitations, which i feel should / can be fixed at this point — democratization is the word i like to use — as a matter of actually and truly being about all of the theater community, and not just the few who are willing to become part of Philstage. yes, Gawad Buhay is not / cannot be a measure of the year that was in Philippine theater. because it is not looking at all of Philippine theater.  (more…)

kultura

rising to the occasion: on “Cock” and the text as king

My refusal to compare foreign texts with local ones is based on the notion of independence. That is, I’d rather grant a local work with as much individuality as possible, and save it from what — to me — would be a false because unfair comparison with foreign work that I (on most counts) would not have seen anyway.

I imagine I can be criticized for having such tunnel vision, or allowing local theater such leeway when critiquing its adaptations. And yet this is really more about my limitation as a writer: I will not pretend to know what the foreign stagings look like when all I’ve seen are clips of these on YouTube. I’d also like to think that much might be gained from acknowledging these limitations and working with nothing but the play in front of me and my intertextuality.

Cock poster via Red Turnip Theater.

The years  (limited as it is) have provided me with a sense of these limitations. With nary the budget for the grandness of musicales, and sometimes the lack of imagination for sets that actually work, what we do always have and consistently is the talent.

And then of course, there is Cock.

(more…)