It's not every performance you get to sit onstage as an audience member. But that's what happened in Dulaang UP's production, with the rapt spectators cleverly placed around the intimate performing area on top of the UP Main Theater stage.
I along with thousands of others rejoiced when we found out Floy Quintos had written another play, and while it features his trademark mix of making profound statements using the popular lingua franca, merging serious political commentary with tongue in cheek laughter, there is something altogether fresh in this newest literary child of the current dystopia.
Previous Quintos plays presented both sides of a social issue, trusting the audience member to be intelligent enough to make up their minds.
But now, tact is forgotten. There is no longer the gentleness of patience. This is a changed playwright, no longer content to whisper, but shouting through the characters. At one point, I was so shocked, I couldn't believe the lines I was hearing. So raw and discomfiting was the script, I could hear my fellow audience members gasp and squirm. Then seconds later, laugh and cry, then cry from laughter until the two merged and we were just a heaving mass of raw emotion, our heartstrings expertly drawn by the direction of Dexter Santos, with such an amazing cast. Reb Atadero deserves special appreciation, for acting a part he learned only 3 days ago! And of course, the two queens who reigned over the show: Frances Makil-Ignacio and Stella Cañete-Mendoza.
Perhaps discomfort is the point. And if some of us found the climax of the play surreal, weren't the elections themselves surreal?
We make our own reality, Quintos reminds us. It is up to the next generation to decide what we shall shape it to be. But we need to look past the lies, and look coldly at the truth. For how can we contribute towards nation building if we refuse to acknowledge our country's brokenness?
There is a new fierceness in the beloved playwright's words, a battle cry resounding from characters we all know, for we all have them in our real life intimate circle. The loving ninang who disappointingly voted this way, the ninong with anger management issues who predictably chose that candidate... The ones who gave up on the country when the election results came out... And most touchingly, the ones who decided to stay.
As the play reminds us, "The fight is here." In our home.
But what IS home? More than the absurd traffic and surreal news headlines, it is the people we consider family. Quintos shows us the path forward: Engagement. Dialogue. Not hiding behind the Asian facade of polite smiles and non confrontation, but choosing to engage the other political side, exchanging thoughts as honestly and as respectfully as we can. Quintos shows this will be messy, but the alternative - a false unity perpetuated by lies and fueling poisonous resentment - is worse.
Perhaps it is time to invite that ex-friend to dinner, once again. But maybe eat the Filipino way, and keep those knives away. Just in case.
The Filipino way. All of us are Filipinos, and it is only together that we can search for OUR way forward.
P.S. I regret not taking a photo of the long line of ticket buyers waiting outside the theatre, IN THE POURING RAIN. But we were happy to do so. For DUP and Floy Quintos, audiences are happy to brave stronger storms.
**** Added the following day ***
I'm sure I'm not the only audience member who dreamt of the DUP performance we watched yesterday. Such is the power of this Floy Quintos play!
Music, too, has power. For anyone who is a fan of Netflix's THE CROWN or who has seen Floy Quintos plays like FLUID, the carefully chosen tracks reveal so much without the need for speech. Wordlessly, they inform the audience of a specific time, and usually also a specific place, even if we close our eyes.
And so when BAGONG LIPUNAN blared over the speakers during The Reconciliation Dinner, it brought a bone-deep appreciation to how far back in time we seem to have regressed... only to be brought back to the present with the strains of ROSAS that a character onstage defiantly blared out via Spotify on his cellphone.
Songs with lyrics can do even more. Dramatically, they often provide an additional layer of meaning to the action.
The moment that made me tear up the most in yesterday's play was when a Leni supporter onstage coaxed his ninang (who voted for the other camp) to sing along. Embarrassed, the lady said she didn't know the Nica del Rosario song, only to be able to sing the ending ... "Pilipino." Once, as a whisper. The second time, more confidently, going a few notes higher.
And it was beautiful. A moment of unison in music, a prayer (a prophecy?) made real. A reaching for our higher, better, more loving selves.
Songs contain dreams. Thank you to everyone in the cast, in the team, for sharing your dreams with us this weekend.
Where do we sign up to petition for a rerun of this amazing production?!?
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