Tag Archives: Repertory Philippines

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slow and disjointed: on August Osage County

I have come to the conclusion that accents are good. It is what I expect of most every Repertory Philippines play, given the texts that they choose to stage, and the truth that it is crucial to the insistence on staging plays set in places far away, if not within a historical period that is alien to a local audience.

It is Rep that has taught me that. And with August: Osage County I felt like I was being taught to un-learn it. I was forced to contend with the distance between audience and stage. No one took my hand and brought me into this world strange and different, but also absolutely familiar.

(more…)

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some waiting required: on “Wait Until Dark”

the thing with expectation is that it can be your undoing. for watching theater, i refuse to listen to the soundtrack of a musicale, or to read the script (when available) of a play, lest i start singing (or saying those lines) out loud while sitting as audience. sometimes though, the poster, the press release, is all one needs to build excitement.

that is true for Repertory Philippines’ Wait After Dark. sold as a suspense thriller, one could also only be excited by a cast that was thrilling in itself: Joel Trinidad, Jamie Wilson, Liesl Batucan … how could anyone go wrong? but as the curtains closed on Act 1, i wondered: where does the fear lie? (more…)

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beyond 13: last hurrahs for Pinoy theater in 2013

seeing the plays that will kick-off 2014 have reminded me of actors and actresses, performances really, that i actually thought were super galeng, no matter that these might have only happened once for that actor, or three times in 2013. there is also the fact that i’ve promised to be more conscientious about migrating articles and pieces written for elsewhere, to this blog — if only to keep them alive online (local site archival work ain’t that good after all). so here are a few more beyond the 13 that i first posted for Pinoy theater (here and here), if only so we are reminded of what we might look forward to in the new year and on National Arts Months, too, beyond Wicked. (more…)

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Cheers to “The Graduate”!*

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…)

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Frolic and fun in “No Way To Treat A Lady”*

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…)