in the last two months of 2013, many theater productions had to compete with an audience that could only be preoccupied: typhoon Haiyan’s victims were in dire need, and one could only feel guilty about veering away from relief operations. “the show must go on” carried the weight of the tragedy outside of theater.
so here, a series of reviews that are happening later than expected, because real life took over. kicking it off with 9Works Theatrical‘s Grease.
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for most of the year i was writing theater reviews for GMA News Online, which in October came to an end after a good three-year run. the ending was horrid, where my writing was edited to the point of changing what i was saying about Tanghalang Pilipino’s Der Kaufmann and Red Turnip Theater’s Closer – my last two reviews with GMA. these reviews were published after i said that i was resigning as contributor, given other disagreements with the editor of the Lifestyle Section.
It was jarring to enter the individual space for Ronald Caringal’s recent exhibit, to find all but nine images that look like comic book illustrations. All in black and white, these are close-ups of faces, familiar but not exactly someone you’d know. They are all speaking, some more adamant, more frustrated, more incensed than others. Other faces have lips pursed, eyes looking out to the spectator, spoken for by the words emblazoned within the canvas.
The story unfolds. (more…)
NOTE: a version of this review was published in GMA News Online, which begins with a scary em dash that lists down the writer, director, lighting designer and set designer with no explanation as to why, and which uses the word “comparability” — that i never EVER use, because it sounds like … a word Rappler would use (haha!). (more…)
It seems simple enough, a play that is limited to a set that is one room with three beds, all of them occupied by women from different contexts with the most diverse set of needs, cutting as they do across generations. This room is sparsely furnished, has a TV that doesn’t work, stark white sheets that speak as well of the cold cold winter outside.
It is in North Dakota as it is in the middle of nowhere. It could also be anywhere really, this narrative of two lives intertwined by the limits of a room, the sadness of an ending, the undoing that’s in the lack of a future.
For teenager Courtney (Jenny Jamora) and elderly lady Elva (Joy Virata), this room is all of the world that they have. This is all they need. (more…)