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.

click here for the rest of it!

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….

click here for the rest of it!

komentaryo

have cemetery, will thee wed

1. possible precursor: this pre-nuptial photo shoot of rockstar Jay Contreras and Sarah Abad, in a provincial cemetery. it isn’t the cemetery of heroes and had no crosses, but it sure seems like the peg for the irreverence in the current more controversial pre-nup shoot of Ruskin and Priscilla at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. so no, Priscilla and Ruskin weren’t quite “breaking conventions in pre-nup shoots here.” they were in fact doing a copy of a photoshoot that happened in 2009.

Jay & Sarah, 2009, via mangored.com

2. the fact is the Libingan ng mga Bayani is different. it is where our heroes are, soldiers and past presidents and vice presidents, national artists. i get that.

but too, this wasn’t the first time a photo shoot, and a pre-nuptial photo shoot, happened in the Libingan ng mga Bayani. someone must be earning something somewhere, and that person is the first one to disrespect the heroism that this space stands for.

3. a question: do the couples who have their prenup shoots here necessarily disrespect this space? it’s entirely possible that they don’t even think about it, that a cemetery is a cemetery is a cemetery to a couple in search of the perfect setting for their chosen pre-nup theme. and no Ruskin and Priscilla are not the first to do this.

Al & Meg, Jan 2011, via http://anapleaday.blogspot.com

4. so the question becomes: what did Ruskin and Priscilla do differently from these other couples? is it that they were laughing versus brooding? that they were enjoying versus looking into each other’s eyes, or looking into the camera? it seems that it was that they were doing a version of the Sara-Jay prenup photoshoot, complete with cigarettes and alcohol, and some crossdressing, too.

5. this is the apparent extreme that the online public cannot take. it’s the way in which Ruskin and Priscilla’s shoot used the crosses, as something to hug, something to sit on (versus lean on, see Al & Meg above), something to drink to, smoke with. all considered disrespectful and crass and everything in between.

6. of course the drinking and smoking says more about what we think of both as vices, which is also really a matter of taste, as are the cross-dressing photos. that this has been done before in a provincial sementeryo forces us to ask about what we think of our dead in general, what we think of our heroes, and how this recent industry of the pre-nuptial photoshoot now necessarily means a struggle between creativity and decency, at least in our shores.

7. but too maybe we should consider the fact of Angelo Reyes, dishonorable suicide and all, being buried here as “hero.” it might be said that that was the first stone cast at disrespecting all the real heroes at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

8. PS: i think Nick Joaquin, National Artist, San Miguel Pale Pilsen drinker, would’ve loved that there was finally some alcohol in the house. *clink*

via Wikipedia Commons

kultura

too much Torre 3: on 100 days to heaven

in fact it was a surprise that a television critic would ask for, of all things, a kontrabida. but this is what Nestor Torre asks of ABS-CBN‘s 100 Days to Heaven. he says:

Another unfolding element of the show that needs to be remedied is the general weakness of its kontrabida quotient. Thus far, all we have is a cupidacious relative who wants to take over Anna’s thriving business empire.

yet this lack of a kontrabida actually works for this soap, seeing as it’s the story of business executive Anna Manalastas being sent back to earth by St. Peter so that she may undo all the mean she did while she was alive. Anna was the kontrabida in this story; she returned to earth as a skewed version of herself.

that is to say she returns to earth in the body of little girl Anna, her skills and intelligence and craftiness intact but not easy to utilize on her own. it’s easy to fall for this dynamic of childlike innocence and adult shrewdness all in one kid. this is why it’s also expected that the young Anna played by Xyriel Manabat gets more camera time: Coney Reyes as the adult Anna’s characterization was fixed from the start and would in fact fall into the trap of being kontrabida, period.

via abs-cbn.com
via abs-cbn.com

meanwhile, Xriel’s greatness here is her ability to be both the adult Anna, and a little girl who doesn’t mind playing with other kids. but Torre is unhappy:

On point of stellar coverage, however, Coney ended up with the short end of the stick (so far) in terms of active projection, so the imbalance clearly has to be addressed and remedied.

Fact is, there are dramatic devices and conceits that can be employed to mitigate the situation, and give Coney her due. We trust that the show can utilize those alternate options soon, so the production isn’t deprived of the mature actress’ proven acumen and energy.

in fact Coney does quite well, thank you very much, even proving that there is no short end of the stick, not when that stick is all about brilliance. the little girl Anna is the only person alive for those within the soap; the adult Anna appears for the viewers’ benefit, and is where Coney proves that the reckoning of a woman at the end of her life is one that’s quiet and restrained, one that’s about realizations that do not concede to the standard and stereotypical, that isn’t about regret as it is about an acceptance of faults if not a rationalization of it.

Coney’s appearances while fleeting, are well-thought out, enough to propel the story without weighing it down with long monologues and explanations. once Xyriel appears, the more difficult emotions have been dealt with, and the smarts and taray of little Anna becomes relief, light and comic in the hands of this little girl.

in this sense, it’s perfect that there’s no kontrabida here: for this little girl is not one who’s easy to oppress, and even the latter is already an archetype isn’t it. instead little girl Anna is given a counterpoint in the character of Sophia, con artist and survivor, smart but without viable opportunities at a better life.* other than of course becoming a team with little girl Anna towards changing both their fates, blurry as that still looks.

the uncertainty works here because it’s what’s truthful and real for lives such as Sophia’s, and even more so for someone like Anna. and it’s here that the storytelling of 100 Days to Heaven just works at keeping you hooked to the kindnesses and possibilities at change that it can deliver given the multiple stories it will deal with. this is also why it doesn’t make sense when Torre says:

Finally, the show’s storytelling has yet to dynamically detail how she <Anna> can turn her former victims’ lives around. A general “reformed” feeling of better intentions simply won’t cut it in terms of convincing and thematically affecting storytelling, so more work is needed here, as well.

in the same way that kontrabidas need not exist for life to be difficult or miserable, in the more real complex stories of our lives, it is never clear how things will develop or pan out. and for a soap to finally be this truthful, we should all want to thank the heavens.

* played by Jodi Sta. Maria the complexity with which she deals with Sophia is no surprise; she must surely be the peg for a comeback that’s about acting borne of maturity and skill, you almost forget she was George in Tabing Ilog.

komentaryo

Jose Rizal: simple pero rock

Over Rizal, Monuments to a Hero had all the makings of superficiality. After all, in light of Jose Rizal’s sesquicentennial his monuments seem like the most flimsy of subjects; in light of the more important question of his continued relevance, this exhibit risked the possibility of being absolutely irrelevant.

But there was more here than just photos of Rizal statues, and while the curatorial note speaks of memory and remembering, the sheer number of these monuments across the country surprisingly reminds of a predisposition to forget, where archetypes end up meaning nothing, and portrayals of heroes are but one-dimensional representations.

What Over Rizal reveals is that at some point archetypes can turn out to be real and one-dimensionality can become a foregone conclusion. These photos taken together might in fact give the more discerning spectator a sense of the kind of narrative we collectively build as a nation about Rizal, even and precisely on the level of the seemingly harmless monument.

click here for the rest of it!

kultura

too much Torre 2: on Sam’s twang

in 2006, and just the past week, Nestor Torre had the same complaint about Sam Milby, and the same conclusion. complaint: his lack of Filipino language skills. conclusion: his roles and acting are limited by it. in 2006 he said:

<…> Fil-Ams’ generally limited ability to speak Filipino drastically limits their roles to Balikbayan or rich-kid characters, of whom we’ve had much too many on our local screens. <…> That’s the sort of role Sam played in his recent film, and on his new TV series, he speaks in an awkward mix of English and Filipino yet again. — So much for thespic growth. <…>

in 2011 he says:

To make things worse, Sam adds his continuing difficulty with Tagalog to the movie’s insufficiencies. Yes, he’s “improved” in this regard, but improvement won’t do when competence is required. <…> So what is the actor to do—stop performing while he works really hard at finally surmounting his problem? Yes, that’s what the situation calls for, and as a professional actor, that’s what Sam needs to do, unless he wants to consign and resign himself to more years of playing shallow balikbayan types.

now i know Torre’s generally unhappy with the romantic-comedy, thinking it limits actors such as John Lloyd Cruz’s acting (yes, i will respond to that soon), but it might do him well to go through Sam’s filmography. for even when it is a rom-com, he began doing it better than most from the moment he did the fat guy in Jade Castro’s My Big Love. there also wasn’t much comedy in his character in I Love You Babe where he played an irritable architecture professor, and no comedy at all in And I Love You So where Sam in fact proved he could do a character with not a whole lot of cuteness.

Sam as fat guy Macky Angeles in My Big Love by Jade Castro
Sam as fat guy Macky Angeles in My Big Love by Jade Castro

now it isn’t clear to me which “shallow balikbayan types” Torre’s saying Sam has played, but there was complexity even in his characters as the policeman-wannabe in You Got Me and the US embassy consul in You Are The One. it might not have been as complex as Torre wanted them to be, but that might be a limitation of the genre more than anything else. a genre, we repeat, that he apparently doesn’t like much.

now of course Sam’s smile shouldn’t be a problem. except that for Torre, it is:

And in some of the drama’s challenging scenes, he is emotionally “present” and “committed,” unlike his previous starrers, where he just sort of winged it with his dark, good looks, a smile and a prayer. <…> Oh, yes, that smile—it’s one of the inappropriate visual “crutches” that weakens Sam’s latest portrayal. In dramas, cute smiles even if meant to demote bravery and supportive love are distractions—and even contradictions.

this begs the question: there are no cute smiles in a drama about cancer and dying?* or is it just Sam’s smile that we question? granted he praises Sam as “committed” and “present” here, in the same breath Torre says Sam winged it in his previous films. i’d like to know which ones, and how. because his Chris Panlilio resonates not at all with its darkness but with its free spiritedness, even when yes, he was the dark rocker dude there. his Chef Macky Cordova where he was put in a fat suit has yet to be attempted by any other actor in these shores and is still absolutely enjoyable.

Sam broods as Chris Panlilio in andiloveyouso directed by Laurenti Dyogi
Sam broods as Chris Panlilio in andiloveyouso directed by Laurenti Dyogi

in the end Torre fails at considering the kind of development that’s in Sam’s filmography, which would be fine were he NOT making conclusions and generalizations about Sam’s acting, were he just seeing him in light of this recent film and nothing else. Forever And A Day as he says was a storytelling failure. why drag Sam’s whole film career with it? and why suggest that he stop making movies altogether? that’s to simply look down on all the movies and all the work he’s done so far, yes? i’m the last person who will say Sam’s the best actor in these shores, but i will give him credit for roles, in rom-com and otherwise, that are undoubtedly his. without giving him that credit, all Torre does is criticism un-constructive, and where would we all be with that. 

 
*and while we’re on Forever And A Day, it’s unclear to me why Torre would think this a romantic-comedy when it so obviously wasn’t from the beginning, not when the main female protagonist was revealing so little about herself. had he seen much of the rom-coms we churn out, it would be clear to him that this was farthest from it from the start. too, he obviously didn’t see Chris Martinez’s beautiful glossy portrayal of a cancer patient’s last 100 days which would debunk his idea that medical conditions and gloss don’t go together. goodness.