Thursday, February 02, 2012

Eyeball: New Visions in Philippine Theater Set A

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 whom I’ve seen before in previous plays once again proved his impeccable comic timing. Also a hit among the young viewers was the billboard that projected slogans or mock ads that further stressed a point in the play or duplicated a scene that was actually happening on stage. For me, the billboard was funny at the start but I grew tired of it once the novelty wore off. I got a bit confused in the end when the twist was ultimately revealed and it made me wonder if there were plot holes in the play itself or if I just didn't play attention close enough that I wasn't able to figure things out. And the addition of a political “color” when things got serious as the play wrapped up caught me off guard as well. I guess that it boils down to preference since I found things a bit too cluttered for my taste. But it seemed that the young kids in the audience thought otherwise.

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
February 4, 2012, 8:00 PM
February 5, 2012, 3:00 PM
February 10, 2012, 8:00 PM
February 11, 2012 3:00 PM

Set B:
Isang Araw sa Karnabal and Maliw
February 3, 2012, 8:00 PM
February 4, 2012, 3:00 PM
February 11, 2012 8:00 PM
February 12, 2012 3:00 PM

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