While we wait around for the next movie related event, lets do something different (there are still a couple of Eiga Sai reviews and one other movie review on the way).
Virgin Labfest, now on its fourteenth year, has been a place where untried, untested and unstaged one act plays get their time to shine. So far, I have seen two out of five sets, and so far each play has been a delight to watch. Here are short reviews of all six plays I've seen so far.
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SET A
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Set A's plays are mostly topical concerning the current culture of violence we have right now in the Philippines. As such, it's very heavy material.
Mga Bata sa Selda 43 begins with two brothers, Philip (Tomas Santos) and Ino (JM Canlas) waking up in a mysterious cell. The door won't open, and occasionally a siren blares in the distance. It soon becomes evident what's going on, and it gives the occasional siren blare a sadder, more tragic meaning. Soon the two brothers' situation changes, and the play smartly connects a lineage of violence from then until now. The acting in this one is decent, and the production design is solid, felt the most during the film's final, haunting images.
Mga Eksena Sa Buhay ng Kontrabida takes us through a number of conversations, the center of which is invariably Jake (Jay Gonzaga), a former macho dancer turned layabout. Jake is brash and violent, and his family (an equally dysfunctional father and two brothers who want nothing to do with him) try to understand him, and fail. Soon they decide to take matters into their own hands, but Jake is a far more complex person than they make him out to be. This play is one of my favorites of the set; notably, esteemed writer F. Sionil Jose stood up during the curtain call to greet the main actor and the playwright. It shows us how villains are molded by gossip and lies, and how people's hatred can snowball and lead into the 'heroes' becoming no different from the villains. It shows how we demonize and 'other' people we do not understand. It's also a play devoid of women, the play's hypermasculine facade proving to highlight how a culture founded on machismo can eat its own children.
Speaking of a society that eats its own children, the final play Ang Inyong Mga Anak, Si Harold at Napoleon begins after the death of one such child, killed as collateral damage from a political assassination. Another child, his classmate Harold (Joshua Tayco), is fed up with the culture of violence, determined to do something to help. But his mother (May Bayot) stands in his way. While the previous play focuses on the men who do violence against other men, this one focuses on the women; mothers and wives waiting in vain for husbands and sons who will never return. But the play is about how our sons are the sons of the nation, about how giving one's life in the service of a larger cause is a cause as great as a mother's love.
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Set D
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Set D deals with people finding a way out, whether it be through song, chance, or sex.
Marawi Musicale, about a group of volunteers helping out refugees during the Marawi Siege, is the kind of concept that would turn out corny had it not been handled properly. Thankfully, it deals with its subject with sensitivity and grace, and it packs a couple of very powerful moments, especially one particular song featuring Salanka (Bayang Barrios) and Khalid (Poppert Bernadas).
Amoy Pulbos ang Mga Alabok sa Ilalim ng Riles ng Tren is about people trying to find hope in a hopeless place and failing horribly. It's one of the most tragic plays in this set so far, because there's something oppressive about making the poorest and most vulnerable of us jump through hoops to reach their dreams. It perfectly encapsulates why I don't like noontime variety shows, and the overwhelming chorus of laughter, wacky sound effects and cheers makes the final scenes all the more disturbing.
In Greek mythology, Lethe is the river of unmindfulness, one of the five rivers of Hades where people drink its waters to forget. River Lethe has a lot of sex in it, but the sex is hollow and empty; it merely serves as a means of escape for two cancer patients, Abe (Paolo O'Hara) and Mara (Dolly De Leon) who have lost the ability to feel alive. And this sleazy love hotel becomes their only respite, finding life in hollow pleasures even as their own lives drain away, the cancer killing them one cell at a time. This play has the best production design of all the plays I've seen so far; especially in one scene where the bed's arch becomes a makeshift MRI or CT scan, then a passageway to the netherworld.
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