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| A sneak peek of Bakit Wala Nang Nagtatagpo sa Philcoa Oberpas |
Being
able to watch the Virgin Labfest for the first time last year meant that I’ve
totally missed about 6 years’ worth of plays staged during previous editions of
this annual theater festival. Thankfully, Tanghalang Pilipino presented Eyeball, New
Visions in Philippine Theater as their closing production for their 25th
season. I’ve finally had my first chance to catch up with VLF plays that I’ve missed
during its opening night when Eyeball presented Set A composed of Doc Resureccion: Gagamutin ang Bayan
and Bakit Wala Nang Nagtatagpo sa
Philcoa Oberpas that was held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’
Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino (CCP Little Theater).
Doc Resureccion: Gagamutin ang Bayan
This
play (trans. Doc Resureccion: Will Heal the Land) was highly recommended by
people who had seen it during its original run and subsequent repeat a year
after during the VLF. So It’s no longer surprising that this was one of the plays chosen for
this production that had the theme of searching and meeting, hence the Eyeball in the title.
Riki Benedicto and Jonathan Tadioan return to the roles of Jess Resureccion and
Boy Pogi respectively which they originated. This resulted in a very
compelling performance from them as cousins who have grown apart throughout the
years but were forced to face each other once again during the election season.
The situations presented in the play were all too familiar: idealistic and nuisance candidates, vote buying, poverty, and violence. The ending might be a shock to some but I almost shrugged it off
thinking that these things do normally happen and that there had been worse cases than what happened in the play. And
this realization left me more disturbed as I’ve grown numbed and rather used to
incidents like this. Or maybe, it was because I knew that the actors would come out on curtain call unscathed but still, there was still a cause for alarm and the play made me aware of how seemingly hopeless the political situation is in here.
Aside
from Benedicto and Tadioan, also included in the play were Rayna Reyes, Paulo
Cabañero and Sherry Lara portraying Boy Pogi’s wife, father and mother
respectively and all of them were very generous with their expletives. This made me a bit worried about the college students who were at the audience
that night. But the foul language by the rest of the characters only
highlighted the differences between the cousins and made the distance between
them a lot wider. And it's worth pointing out that Jess grew up in this environment and his desire to change this was one of the main conflict in the play. Doc Resureccion was written by Layeta Bucoy and was directed
by Tuxqs Rutaquio.
Bakit Wala Nang Nagtatagpo sa Philcoa
Oberpas
The
second play of Set A (trans. Why No One Meets at the Philcoa Overpass) was a
total change of pace from the first one. While the previous one only had two main
characters and was very much focused on them, the second one featured an
ensemble cast, and that the busy and chaotic nature of the
Philcoa Overpass was also a character in itself. The play, written by Carlo Pacolor Garcia and directed by Riki Benedicto focused on a man (Marco Viaña) and a woman (Pam
Hundana) who decided to meet in person after some time flirting online. It’s
not totally clear if both were of the right state of mind deciding to meet atop
an overpass of all places. As expected, the chaotic nature of an overpass meant
that the meeting between the two would be lovers would not be easy as both of
them encounter a corrupt policeman (Jonathan Tadioan) who is on a constant pursuit of a
snatcher (Martha Comia), a street vendor (Reyes), a hustler (Gino Ramirez), a
gay evangelist (Jelson Bay) and a blind singer (Paulo Cabañero). Members of the
Saint Benilde Romançon Dance Company provided the overpass with its
pedestrians who occasionally joined the rest of the cast when they burst into dance in some moments.
The play did have some hilarious moments that proved to be a hit among the audience
composed mostly of students from the De La Salle-College of St.
Benilde. One such moment was the scene stealing line of Rayna Reyes that was perfectly timed and delivered after an
extended and over the top monologue by Pam Hundana. Jelson
Bay
I
asked someone who had seen the original staging of the two plays and he
mentioned that there were lots of changes made in both plays. I guess that they
had to expand the plays and stretch it to cover more time and space since
Eyeball was held at a bigger space and only comprised of two plays per set. The
Virgin Labfest had three plays per set and was staged at the Tanghalang Huseng
Batute (CCP Studio Theater) which is a smaller and more intimate venue. But he
further stressed that there are merits in both stagings that only made me
wonder how nice it would’ve been had I also seen the original staging. But at
least, seeing Eyeball is better than seeing none at all. And there is still
another set of plays which I was able to catch as well. Details on that will be
posted on another entry.
Eyeball:
New Visions in Philippine Theater runs for two more weekends at the CCP Little Theater. Here are the remaining performance dates:
Set A:
Doc Resureccion: Gagamutin ang Bayan and Bakit Wala Nang Nagtatagpo sa Philcoa Oberpas
Set A:
Doc Resureccion: Gagamutin ang Bayan and Bakit Wala Nang Nagtatagpo sa Philcoa Oberpas
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