Freestyler

The reviews are out. Our play Good People earned very positive reviews!

1. From the Straits Times:

Playing up differences
The Straits Times Tuesday,
November 6, 2007 [pg 11]

GOOD PEOPLE
The Necessary Stage
The Necessary Stage Black Box
Last Thursday (1 Nov 07)

Adeline Chia
ARTS REPORTER

NEAR the end of this play, hospice patient Radha tells
the medical director: “I’m not a bad person, Miguel.
We are all not.”

Therein lies the crux: No one is a bad person in this
play, but they all disagree on how best to deal with
Radha, a woman dying of bone cancer and addicted to
marijuana for pain relief.

Good People tackles some heavy issues – the dilemma of
palliative care (the treatment of pain with no intent
on prolonging life) and drug use for medical purposes
as seen through different points of view.

The script does so via the intimate drama of three
individuals trying to be good in different ways and
according to their different faiths.

It is the latest in a line of nuanced works – helped
by a fine cast – in playwright Haresh Sharma’s oeuvre
of plays which delve into controversial social issues.

Moving, compact and compelling, the play typifies The
Necessary Stage’s forte in staging highly competent,
accessible and naturalistic drama.
Malaysian actress Sukania Venugopal played
Radha with verve, as a spirited woman who has accepted
her impending death and is unapologetic about wanting
to hasten it.

Siti Khalijah played Yati, an impulsive young Muslim
nurse. The actress showed great flexibility flitting
comfortably from rebellious overworked nurse to her
touching attachment to Radha to her deadpan delivery
of killer comic lines.

For example, her laconic “got mosquitoes” after Miguel
rhapsodises about a garden with a koi pond had the
audience in stitches.

Miguel was played by Filipino actor Rody Vera, in a
sympathetic rendition of a beleaguered bureaucrat
doing his best to make the people on top and below
happy.

The action was played out against a simple and
effective set made up of layers of hospital curtains,
drawn and undrawn to mark transitions between scenes
and venues.

The script is jagged and witty, willing to take
politically incorrect swipes at the politics of
ethnicity and religion in Singapore, which saves the
play from descending into mere polemic.

For instance, Yati’s mother tells her that she might
go far in her career because “your face is very
Chinese” while productivity-obsessed Miguel, in a slip
of the tongue, asks why Yati has to pray five times a
day instead of once a week (like the Catholics, like
him).

But this is a play not just about differences, but
also about the common desire to do good.

At a karaoke session, all three characters come
together to sing Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, in their
respective languages of Tagalog, English and Malay.

It highlights the cultural factors that separate as
well as bridge them. It’s a moment where they can
celebrate life and laughter, a truce before their
conflicts erupt again.

2. from an internet magazine in singapore

Good People - The Review (kind of). When the time comes, do you ask
yourself, are you a good person?

review By Lalangboi 01 Nov 18 views
tags: theatre The Necessary Stage Haresh Sharma drama

We’re starting the weekend on a bit of a morbid tone. I’ve read that
Death and Taxes are the two constants in our lives. And for most of us,
the former is feared all the more than the latter. One wonders why.
Afterall, to paraphrase Terry Pratchett, Death only happens once but
Taxes happen every year. But I suppose that’s the point. Taxes
presuppose that you’ll be around to pay them i.e. that you’re still
around except a bit lighter in the wallet department (unless you have
really good tax accountants). Whereas after death, who knows?
 
Death, drugs, euthanasia, religion, human compassion and a somewhat
horrifying karaoke MTV involving the SMRT and HDB housing (the singing
was very good though) were on tonight’s serving of Good People,
courtesy of The Necessary Stage. FIFO managed to wrangle an invite for
the premiere of Good People – The Necessary Stage’s latest theatrical
offering. And lest you be misled, it’s not all about death really, but
the process leading up to it. Which for the terminally ill, may involve
a lot of pain much the same way that a jar of peanut butter may have
peanuts. With pain, comes drugs, if not as a cure, then at least to
relive it somewhat. And next thing you know, all those questions which
hang in the air but no one ever asks come flying right at you viz.: Is
it really bad to take drugs if it’s for a good cause, e.g. to make
those last days of life for the dying all that more bearable and
dignified? Is it still murder when the murderee requests for it (isn’t
it more like a kind of assisted suicide)? Who decides how long one
stays in a hospice for the dying and what happens if one, well,
overstays one’s welcome? Why does anyone want to work in a hospice
anyway when all you see everyday are dying and dead people? Does the
death penalty matter when one is dying soon anyway? What is religion
and how does it influence our actions? Why does one pray and how often
should one do it?
 
In the fine tradition of The Necessary Stage, Good People raises more
questions than answers. It is not a story, not in the traditional sense
but a non-stop question and answer session where the questions both big
and small are raised and the answers come only from within yourself.
It’s not an easy play to digest – simply because there is nothing to
digest – only queries in your stomach rumbling about as you leave. It’s
not for the faint hearted nor is it for those who are out looking for a
couple of laughs (though the playwright has thoughtfully thrown in a
couple of Singapore jokes to make it a bit easier for some of us, the
humour is still rather black most of the time).
 
General review comments: The script was tight – gripping and yet with a
hint of a farce (the therapeutic koi pond is infested with mosquitoes).
Acting-wise, the cast was simply superb – kudos to all three of the
cast. We liked the minimalistic lighting and set. All in all, this
humble reviewer is of the opinion that it’s a great play and something
you should consider catching. Watch out for the ending though. We’d
highly recommend this for those who like a bit of meat and thought in
their theatre. But do remember, it’s not meant as entertainment – you’d
have a few laughs but it’s meant to make you think, not reach for the
popcorn.
 
Good People is showing at The Necessary Stage’s home ground at Marine
Parade CC from 1 November till 11 November. Tickets available at the
Gatecrash website at www.gatecrash.com.sg or via the Gatecrash hotline
at 6222 5595.
 
P.S. For more information on Good People, check out our earlier
articles here and here (interview with the playwright included)!
 
P.S.S. We’ll be emailing the lucky winner of our Good People Contest
shortly so watch out for that email people!

About Lalangboi
Lalang boi is the moniker of an ex-professional who has recently
converted from the Dark Side and is now professionally engaged in
bumming, taking random courses and philosphizing about life, not
necessarily in that order and much to the envy of his friends. When he
is not otherwise engaged in the abovementioned activities, he enjoys
standing at the foot of a cliff near his house, catching children ala
Holden Caulfield (except that being Singapore, it’s a lalang patch and
not rye) and writing excessively pretentious self-introductions.

3. and this one, probably the most positive so far from the Business Times

Real people, real issues - November 9, 2007

THE BUSINESS TIMES
Real people, real issues
BV SANGEETHA MADHAVAN

THE Necessary Stage is growing up and growing older. The theatre group’s latest production Good People marks its 20th anniversary with a play about Death and Marijuana.

But seriously, Good People is the best production out of the Necessary Stage in a while. Set in a hospice, it explores the relationship between cancer-stricken terminally ill Radha (Malaysian actress Sukania Venugopal)), the nurse assigned to her, Yati (Siti Khalijah), who appears only to be going through the motions of her job, and the hospice’s new productivity-obsessed medical director, Miguel (Rody Vera).

The opening scene is almost sitcom-like iin its comedic mining of the situation. Then comes the shhocker: Radha is self-medicating her pain with marijuana.

The rest of the play deals with the consequences of this, especially a spot check on the hospice is conducted and Radha tests positive. The question of whether she will get the death penalty continues to haunt till the very end.

There are plenty of arguments about pros and cons of legalising drug use as proposed by Radha and Yati, and Miguel answering for those who stand for thhe conservative majority. His stand can be besst summed up in the scene when Miguel asks Radha—are ou high, as if the other alternative is are you crazy?

Good People, penned by resident playwright Haresh Sharma and directed by Alvin Tan, shares some similarities with last year’s Fundamentally Happy, also penned by him. The latter explored the motivations and consequences of as difficult a topic as paedophilia within a two-hander. As with most of The Necessary Stage’s productions, the play becomes a tool to comment on issues that concern the larger social fabric - faith, ethics, race and class relations, social stigmas, and of course, the politics and economics of it all.

While Sharma can still learn a thing or two from playwrights such as Eleanor Wong on marrying dialogue with issues without sounding preachy, Good People goes beyond its issues and wears them on its sleeve.

That’s probably because, unlike Fundamentally Happy, where character development took a back seat to the issue, iut helps that Sharma populated Good People with Great Characters. They are actors’ characters, deliciously meaty; good people with real human motivations. This also means that they’re blessed with real human failings, and tend to disappoint you with their decissions when faced with personal conflict.

Tan has cast the right thespians for the piece. The play is populated by a trio of actors that is one of the strongest ensemble casts to be seen in local theatre in recent years. Heavy-hitters all, this tight and accomplished ensemble spar with each other and breathe life into their characters.

Whether afffecting a bored mien or a rock-chick persona, Siti played the perfect foil to Vera’s uptight pencil-pusher, while Venugopal’s expressive face and her dance training—not to mention her breathy singing—make Radha a three-dimensional senior citizen. While on singing, Siti and Vera were not to be outdone on a trilingual version of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.

Despite the talk of drugs and economics over ethics, the play’s haunting and riveting moments are about the elderly and dying, and especially, dying alone and with dignity. Of how even in death, some are more equal than others. The beautifully spare set by Vincent Lim with only gauzy curtains and light bulbs to delineate creates the soft fuzzy atmosphere of the hospice without taking away its function.

Just like TNS’s other plays, this play is very timely given our ageing population , as some people say, it is better to die than to fall sick in Singapore.

It’s one that you’ll take away lots from watching, even if you’re not at close quarters with death. Which is perhaps why the audience last Wednesday didn’t even clap at the end, because it just didn’t feel right to do so.

4. Here’s a preview of a review from the Flying Inkpot, an internet based culture magazine

Good People
The Necessary Stage
Kenneth Kwok’s first impressions
07/11/2007

A long-time follower of TNS, I was not able to keep pace with the company’s more experimental efforts in the early 2000s. However, with TNS’ shift towards more realist theatre, TNS has definitely reconnected with this audience member. Good People is easily one of the most well-crafted pieces of theatre I’ve seen this year: it is a painfully honest exploration of a variety of important themes – what it means to be truly good or truly alive, for example – grounded in a clear narrative and rich characters but still retains TNS’ edge and flair for the dramatic and unpredictable. The three characters – a medical administrator, a hospice nurse and her patient – do occasionally engage in a little too much exposition but, for the most part, they are engaging and carefully nuanced: playwright Haresh Sharma and the cast capture the little inconsistencies and conflicts people have within themselves and in their interactions with others and this makes the characters feel more real. What is most impressive is the way everything – the actors, the sets, the soundscape – complements each other to form a fully realized piece of work that, although only 80 minutes long, is funny, sad, poignant, intelligent and deeply thought-provoking.

****

Ratings out of 5, based on Practitioner’s Vision / Reviewer’s Response: ***** = Transcendent / Rapturous;**** = Crystal / Appreciative; *** = Transmitted / Thoughtful; ** = Vague / Unsatisfied; * = Uncommunicated / Mystified.

So there!

it was my sister who recalled when I started learning to read. She was proud to tell her friends, in front of me, that at the age of 4, I was already reading the comic page of the daily newspapers– The Manila Times, if i’m not mistaken- which had strips such as Mutt and Jeff, Peanuts, Blondie? of course I’d be secretly flattered by the comment. But flattery is always partly untrue. Yes, i could read the comics, I could read the words then but I didn’t know what they meant. I would be showing everyone in the family how much I could read and yet nobody bothered to ask me whether I comprehended them. Nobody gave me an exam.

I was in 3rd grade when we were made to undergo reading comprehension tests as some sort of diagnostic that I realized my own understanding of things I read was really far off the mark. or rather that I couldn’t figure out the gist of what I’m reading. My mind would wander off in different directions while my lips were sounding off the words on the page. and even if i concentrated hard on reading, something would slip off my attention and all I would have in the end are discrete bits of information that I would mentally link together. And so sometimes I’d end up arriving at some wrong conclusion or idea about what the text was all about. I realized that this was not a natural phase in one’s development as a reader. I eventually found out that reading with comprehension had to be actively and consciously put to practice until it becomes a habit.

I guess it was my mother who inadvertently pushed me to read more. Not that she would buy books for me to read, oh no. she hardly spent on these useless things. I remember everytime I’d ask her to buy a book, she would point to the big shelf near the stairs of our home. it contained volumes of encyclopedias, geography books, references that my parents must have bought from some enterprising seller of Collier’s and Compton’s. they must have been convinced that every decent household should at least have a whole set for the family. and so eventually, at about grade 5, I began to love leafing through the pages of the encyclopedias. At first I’d be awed by the pictures that led me to read the captions. I’d assign a letter for the whole day, for instance, I would only read all the entries under the volume A (from Aachen through the end just before B). that’s how I unwittingly allowed my mother to save money. I must say I never grew up reading children’s books. I only saw them in my cousin’s house every sunday.

On to my seventh grade, I graduated from reading comics and encyclopedias to taking in Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. it was the fad among classmates. it was our version of Harry Potter. I envied some of my classmates who could boast of reading one book in three hours. that year, a speed reading class was offered as an optional course for a small fee. I enrolled in it hoping i’d beat my other classmates. this class had a method that divided the page into chucks. and the task was to frame each chunk with your hand and, like a camera, take a mental picture of the text. the principle being that the brain can process this mass of words within the frame. and so I did try it. And I must say I was really learning quite fast. But eventually I had to give it up. One day, my best friend Tony laughed this “speed reading technique” off. he said, “I don’t see why you have to read so fast. I like reading slow. I like chewing those words at my own pace. speed reading is for busy people. when I read, I am fully absorbed. I don’t think of finishing it, I think of unravelling mysteries.” I stopped and looked at him. Well, he was not valedictorian for nothing. Influenced by those words I stopped reading fast and realized how true my friend’s words were.

Once my sister challenged me to read books during summer vacation. We randomly picked up some books from my father’s shelf. i chose Leon Uris’s Exodus knowing that this had been turned into a film a few months back as I can recall. She told me that it’ll be a contest. Who finishes the book first will be the winner. And so we did try to outdo each other. Halfway through the book (no one was cheating, mind you) i began to wonder whether the contest meant that we should understand the book as well? towards the end she said, it really doesn’t matter whether we understood what were reading. she just wanted to know how fast we’d be able to read through the book. deep inside me, of course, i was asking, what good will that do? But anyways, I understood a few chapters in Exodus clearly, but the book itself never made any much impact. It was i began to conclude much later just one of those bestsellers that one would shelve along with Harold robbins, James Michener and all the other paperbacks my father used to own. Hey Michener fans, i’m not looking down on him. I did try to read them but found them a bit stale.

a whole new world of books opened up to me when I reached first year high school. Again it was with the unconscious prodding of my best friend Tony. he was reading this book called A Separate Peace. It was miles beyond Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. and besides, by the time we reached high school, anyone reading them would be looked down upon. the books that were “in” then were John le Carre. I tried reading one just to keep abreast but I found spy novels quite… boring. sorry! I never continued on the logical path that led one to go from teen detective books to CIA-KGB novels.

Instead I tried putting one over my best friend. I pulled a book from the shelf of my brother-in-law. it was a Penguin Modern Classic, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. for the first time I had been totally engrossed in reading this book. and i talked about it excitedly with Tony. he borrowed it and we were discussing a few things about it. Since then, Penguin Modern Classics was my benchmark on which book to read. I was on the lookout for whatever volume that had its stamp on it, much like Criterion collection today for classic films. it was here that I encountered Jean Genet (TheThief’s Journal), and Peter Carey (The Horse’s Mouth)– obscure little books that I chanced upon in second hand bookstalls that lined Claro M. Recto then.

From then on I was on the lookout for “classics” thinking that these books will somehow be good enough to start a library with. Penguin Modern Classics led me to Modern Readers volumes, and there I encountered Dostoevsky. My friend Tony was just the same looking out for such volumes and we chanced upon william Faulkner, and soon Franz Kafka was not far behind. thomas Mann came fast with his Death in Venice. And these authors formed the foundation of my reading habit.

tony and I were discussing these books and we’d stay up late at night in his house wondering how these minds were working or whether the outcome of the stories would have been better if they ended differently, etc. they were all naive remarks on what we’ve read and yet we felt special since i don’t think any normal highschooler was interested in Faulkner or Kafka.

In 2nd year, my teacher in Pilipino introduced me to watching theater. As a requirement (yes as early as ‘76!), I had to watch reijoo dela Cruz absurdist play “Programang Putol Putol” at the U.P. it was my first time to watch a play like this and had to write a paper about it. and I wrote that paper, totally enthused about the style. this then led me to read much about ionesco and beckett and the so called “absurdists” and thus i fashioned my very first play on the “absurdist” style.

and so my reading became even more extended. It covered theories about theater, some of which I couldn’t understand fully well. (thanks to my sister, it didn’t matter if you understood what you were reading the first time. just plod through it as though you did and then read it again, next time more actively.) I also started reading Erich Fromm– and I guess he was my stepping stone to the wider category of Philosophy and psychology.

By my third year, i knew that reading is second nature to me. I couldn’t imagine a world without books. I would go to popular bookstore (a tip from my elder sister who was then in college) and would browse through many books. though at that time I couldn’t afford many of them, i would touch them, read what’s on the back cover, dream about having them.

it was also in this year that I was introduced to Renato Constantino. the filipinos in the Philippines, a book of essays on nationalism was my first book that opened my eyes to Philippine poltics. though I know my sisters were moderate activists during pre-Martial Law years, this was the first time I had read something about what some people were fighting for.

but by my 2nd year in college, I was already involved in the mass movement and so another whole shelf of books opened up to me. Marx and Engels were two of them, of course. Not the definitive volumes– though I managed to buy copies, until now I haven’t read them yet fully. But one– Engel’s “the Origins of the Family, the State”– sparked my interest. it helped me in forming certain solid views about anthropology which was one of my fields of study when I shifted to Philippine studies (from Biology) and, before I forget, I was also quite interested in biology books (and am still, not very often do I have the chance toread them though)
Marx and Engels, linked with Erich Fromm, opened more doors eventually to other social philosophers and radical writers. In theater I switched to Bertolt Brecht and in novels, Maxim Gorky was added to my reading list. short stories of Lu Hsun were added too. Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China, and even the selected works of Mao Tsetung was shoved in this shelf.

By around 1983, Fritz Bennewitz, my most adored theater director from Weimar, introduced me to Shakespeare. No kidding. i have never touched shakespeare until I was 23 years old. Much of it has got to do with the atmosphere of nationalism which somehow gave me the impression that reading the Bard was submitting yself to colonial mentality. It took a German communist to show me that shakespeare’s significance was far from being an icon of American imperialism. He was decidedly beyond that. and the first play I read (because I had to translate it to Pinoy) was Macbeth. with careful reading (and assistance by my dear friend Fritz) I began to see and love shakepeare. i went to Popular bookstore and bought this huge illustrated volume containing all his plays.

By around 1986-87, when i was part of PETA’s whirlwind tour of the world, my thirst for reading was quenched by the fabulous bookstores I had visited from San Francisco through amsterdam. i picked up one book after another. My luggage was filled with paperbacks that ranged from books on gay studies, political philosophy, poetry and yes, theater and the novel. Here my list has grown much much too big to mention all authors which I must say included writers such as: Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino, Howard Zinn, Rimbaud, Baudelaire. and then Les Mis was the biggest hit that time and so I read the thick Victor Hugo novel.

the next phase was in the 90s when the buzz was post-modernism. Chris mIllado was in New York then and when i happened to be there too, he dumped all these authors in my luggage: Michel Foucault, Edward Said– I too discovered a few other writers myself while there. to somehow balance the fare, I took in Joseph Campbell, rediscovered James Joyce, started reading a little bit of Nietzsche (with one of those for Beginners series)–

the year 2000 i was introduced to Ken Wilber by way of Mikaeliks, this loose group i’ve been hanging around with since I met gilda crodero-fernando. In the group is Jeannie javelosa, mariel francisco, fr. joey de leon, georgina solina, beni santos, and occasionally nic tiongson and a few others. I was totally floored by the penetrating and all-encompassing ideas of Ken wilber that I started reading many of his volumes. he synthesized Philosophy, spiritual studies, psychology, science, etc in one comprehensive structure that sounds so compelling. I have a rather huge collection of his works now.

lately i’ve slowed down on buying books, many of which i haven’t even read yet. and, to follow my mother’s advice, I look at my bookshelf and start poring over these books, rediscovering some of them. It seems I’ve gone a bit full circle. I now look at my collection and I am happy. Let me give you a rapid rundown:

I’ve been quite interested in the Harry Potter series that I’ve read them twice (the whole 7 books), I began to keep up too by reading Lord of the Rings– but then not forgetting my increasing interest in Japanese writers such as Murakami, Tanizaki, Oe and one of my favorites: Soseki Natsume. (Mishima is also in the list but,hmmm, i find him a bit, well too conventional). and then of course there are those histories! I love history and so I’ve picked up volumes of World History and even specific histories such as Thailand, India, China, Japan, Middle East, Southeast Asia. and then there are those folktales, starting form Grimm’s collection, folktales from different countries, and of course dear old Hans Christian. and then my swimming books! all those workouts and swimming techniques of different strokes, and yes the cookbooks! My whole range of cookbooks. I sometimes just love reading recipes, imagining how they could be done. I’ve tried to put many of them to practice but still, just reading them is so fascinating enough. what else have I not covered? adding a few more writers: Jose saramago, Willam Gaddis, Kurt Vonnegut Jr, Naguib Mahfouz, and yes, only lately Gabriel Garcia Marquez,

so confusing yet so exhilarating.

Now I’m back to Dostoevsky. I can’t put down the fantastic new translations of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. I’ve read Crime and Punishment and now am halfway through Brothers Karamazov. can’t put it down.

so far I’ve been reading randomly, but not too randomly, i guess. Almost unconsciously, I alternate fiction and non-fiction. so probably after dostoevsky, I’ll go back to reading some book by alain Badiou or probably open the plastic wrapping off Negri’s Empire.

I was browsing in “a different bookstore” and saw this huge volume by Stephen Jay Gould called Theories of Evolutionary Structure. sometimes I’m so taken by the title. it sounds so daunting. and I know I’ve been remiss in reading on biology lately (not in quite a while, actually– not mentioning Bill Bryson who’s not excatly in biology). Ah yes, sometimes I am so taken by the title alone. Once I bought a book called The anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton. i haven’t even touched it yet. It’s like about 1000 pages. I leafed through it, though and it looked quite interesting. and then there’s this rather cheesy title Prisoner of Love– but since this is Genet’s memoirs of his travels in Palestine I quickly picked it up. and true to form, one of my favortie authors is just so unpredictable and sharp-witted.

so there goes a rather sprawling, if chaotic account of my reading. Believe me, I tried following Mortimer Adler’s advice on How To Read A Book. I even bought the whole 60 volumes of Great Books of the Western World and started out a five year reading plan (which of course fell through). syntactical reading sounds too academic for me. I go back to my friend Tony’s remark, that I just read for its sake really– of course not all the time, but rather every time I don’t have anything else to do, or when i read not for any other purpose than just to enjoy the very act of reading. and sometimes I do miss my sister’s comment about not having to push oneself to understand what one is reading. the mere enjoyment of reading the words… going through the motions of turning the page, smelling the scent of newly published tomes, or even caressing an old tattered hardbound book– that’s just as enjoyable. when I pass through my narrow and small corridor lined with about four shelves of books, my eye would catch a book that’s been there for quite a while. and immediately a memory of how I read this book. or a thought telling me, that I should read that one comes and passes.

I don’t know if all this rambling about books and what i’ve read could mean anything to anyone else. but oh well. reading has been such a private pleasure for me. it’s what i do when I want to be really alone.

but is it a malady at all? could it be a genetic propensity or an intrinsic characteristic of the bold who are never satisfied with the ordinary, the predictable, the average. foolish romantics are deemed foolish by their envious neighbors when they meet their doom and yet one would think whether they hadn’t expected that impending tragic outcome. Hadn’t these foolish romantics dared to see that ultimate outcome straight in the eye. Even death could blink at their determination. When all have retreated in fear, or, at the last minute, recanted their claim of passion– the foolish romantics ready to have their heads bashed in, unfazed by humiliation and ridicule, assuming a quixotic air, relentless and resolute, view this “foolishness” as a heroic plunge into the depths thus fulfilling the most noble task of dying for a cause. whatever cause. Love, Revolution, Scientific discovery– everything that Alain Badiou would point out as the trigger that would push anyone to the edge, oblivious of death.

romantics have the highest heroic sense. it is they who dare ask why things are so and it is they who push the limits set by the status quo. it is they who conjure the vision of a world outside the box. who could not be satisfied with what is given, unable to bear the monotony of cycles or the security of the herd. Thus romantics are, by nature alone and shall forever be lonely despite people who love them.
And in literature they abound. Great writers have paid tribute to them. Ophelia might be the most tragic of Shakepeare’s hopeless romantics. confused and bewildered she goes mad and flings herself into the lake. Young Werther has roused the emotions of much of Europe when Goethe published his story. Young men have emulated Werther’s despair, and in his death, many perceived as victory over unrequited desire. And what about Thomas Mann’s Aschenbach wasting away in Venice over his obsession with beauty in the form of a young man?

the French have mastered re-telling the stories of these foolish romantics. From Victor Hugo’s hunchback to the more recent filimng of Jean de florette/manon of the springs. There’s a bittersweet scene there where a peasant who has gone insanely in love with Manon that he sewed Manon’s ribbon onto his chest, near his heart– and it stuck to his chest till he died.

surely it can’t be a sickness? It is embedded in our hearts as humans. whether we choose to indulge in this passion or not may be triggered by several factors. The object may not necessarily be someone. it cold be an ideology, a scientific discovery, an art, an inexpressible religious experience. and yes, when the romantic is assailed by all these, time will stand still.

But i am, of course, exaggerating so as to ingratiate myself among these larger than life luminaries. for I am not one of them entirely. I do allow myself to indulge in this passion and yet up to a certain degree. i fall short of the heroic and so all I could do is admire and adore those who are really hopeless and severe. and yet i do feel the same pain, the same intensity. But my will is much weaker than these who have dared to walk past the forbidden line.

hopeless romantic. it’s a label tagged over and over again for people who are so much into falling in love– no matter who the object of desire is. pathetic little creatures we are. we dwell in our fantasies. we spin splendid scenarios of intimacies clutching our pillows when we’re in bed, talking to ourselves while we take long walks, collecting daydreams, relishing that tingle of pain that scratches our hearts when we recall a sweet memory. it’s a sickness that I catch less and less now. But when I do catch it (yes, it’s like flu), the intensity is much the same.
I’ve known some people who can easily brush this malady aside. Is there a vitamin that somehow strengthens one’s resistance to it? In fact I think we, hopeless romantics are very few in proportion. We are the stuff films and plays and a host of mediocre tv crap are made of. We are the lifeblood of this otherwise drab existence. and yet others who have managed to keep this passion at bay would, I imagine, laugh at us for being idiots.
i have always believed that love– this feeling, this passion is at its most magnificent when it is without dignity. which paradoxically, by virtue of that lack, in fact, gives it a higher form of dignity instead. My example would be victor hugo’s hapless lonely daughter gone insane over a soldier who didn’t love her. adele, immortalized in truffaut’s the story of adele h. plunged into doing undignifying things for the object of a love that she knows will never be hers. and this very fantasy fascinates me. and continues to fascinate me. how much can I really do for love (that song in chorus line comes to mind– i told you– it could get divinely profound or awfully cheesy– it doesn’t matter, this is my blog!) ?
and so here i am again, licking the wounds I inflicted upon myself. I have decided to set him free: the most recent object of my desire. at any rate, we don’t have any obligatory scenes together. we do not need to see each other, we are after all unlikely to even cross paths unless we really push ourselves.
my friends have only one thing to say: “ano pa ba ang gusto mo?” I don’t have their sympathies. they know I love the feeling of being smitten and getting hurt and going through the rigmarole of unrequited affections. it’s an idiotic state I will avidly get into whenever i get the chance. the risks can get very high indeed. i am beginning to believe it’s giving me the lower back pain. and yet I willingly dive into the murky pool, unmindful of consequences to me, especially.
I watched another french movie about two years ago. I forgot the title. (can anyone supply?) I remember the very first scene: a female cat was in terrific heat and she was quivering in awful passionate cringing desire. it was the story of a married woman who falls madly in love with a rather dispassionate NGO volunteer. when the guy leaves her she suffers a breakdown, unable to function, and goes into a terrible depression (not unlike the cat in the credits of the film). she chances upon reading about a certain legend in Greece. there was this cliff where the god Apollo throws hopelessly languid mortals into the sea to cure them of their lovesickness. On one occasion, she goes to Greece with a friend and finds this cliff. she plunges into the water. Her friend thinking that she has committed suicide shouts for help. After a long while, we see her resurface, and immediately we know she has just been cured.
that’s almost what it will take for me to relieve me of this awfully painful yet sweet malady. now i realize why i take to swimming much too much. back to the pool.

when I set out to write about what i’ve learned from all the international collaborations I’ve participated in — as gibbs urged me to do– I was stumped. I couldn’t exactly pinpoint things I’ve learned (the way one could properly list down the things one learns from, say, a playwriting workshop or even a course in music.) I was recalling my experiences from those several collaborations or multicultural encounters I’ve experienced in theaterwork elsewhere and each encounter, each process seems to be unique and had its own set of problems to solve, its own dynamics– that if i were to synthesize the experiences in one, I would simply enumerate too general concepts such as, friendship and cooperation.
Theater is, in the first place, the most collaborative of all the arts. visual artists, performing artists, literary artists come together to come up with a production that is hardly owned wholly by any one individual. Each artist in the process relies on the contributions of the other members of the production.
and yet each collaborative process will take on a singular path of development. It becomes a journey prodded by the money funneled into it and/or by the deep commitment of its participants– mostly the latter.
but if I enumerate all the unique processes, i’d end up writing a whole book (now there’s an idea). so let’s just trim it down to three, maybe four? I’d have to give a backgrounder on each of these since they have had their own premises and objectives. Let me list them down.
1. the Setagaya collaboration. Organized and produced by Kentaro Matsui of the Setagaya Public theater in Tokyo, this collaboration took three years (2004-2006) before a full 2 1/2 hour production entitled Hotel Grand Asia was performed at the Tram Theater in Setagaya. It involved 16 (formerly 18) theater artists from Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Japan, and, one guy from New York.
2. my one on one collaboration with Rustom Bharucha, theater critic and director from Calcutta, India. We met several years ago and our collaboration was triggered by the production of Jean Genet’s The Maids (which I translated/adapted and he directed for PETA at the Republic of Malate– before it was gutted by a fire few years back)
3. My continued partnership with the Necessary Stage (TNS), a theater company in Singapore. This is an offshoot of the Setagaya collaboration. I met Haresh Sharma, TNS resident playwright as he is one of the singapore delegates. He asked me to act in a production called Mardi Gras (which also featured Jay Espano) in 2004. From then on, i’ve been invited a few times to be part of TNS productions, the latest one coming up in November.
random thoughts on the Setagaya collaboration:
Herbie Go, Jose Estrella and I were the three delegates from the Philippines. I trace the start of our friendship here. it was here that I first met Jose despite the fact that I’ve seen her works at the U.P. Herbie and I have worked a few times before this but when this particular collaboration started, our partnership deepened. The beginnings of the Virign Labfest could also be traced as an offshoot of this collaboration.
Imagine 18 artists from different countries, most of them directors/writers/performers with huge language differences, coming together aided by translators/guides, etc to link and forge our ideas, which sometimes clash and collide sending the process through a pattern of breakdowns (communication/emotional/ etc). we met about 5 times. the first time was in wintry tokyo. we were all polite then, trying to size up each other. accepting the differences because we haven’t tested each other’s mettle. the second time we met was in Bali, Indonesia. we spent two weeks sharing each other’s theater experiences through workshops and improvisations. we would come up with astounding improvs set in different peculiar locations within the compound where we are staying (a fantastic center for culture and arts complete with swimming pool, a huge space for dance and theater, an open arena theater, and lots of cultural happenings going around, right in the middle of bali– what more could you hope for– these are some of the perks of collaborations, i tell you.
the third time we met was a conference/convention center located in the middle of an orchard farm in Kawaba, Japan, about two hours away (as i can remember) from tokyo, in autumn. Here all the directors were given a chance to direct the rest of the participants (particiapnts choose who they want to work with, with special ecouragement to work with people you haven’t worked with before in the previous meetings.) each director was given one day (three directors a day) to develop a piece. Original or based on asome written texts submitted by the participants themselves posted by email on yahoogroups before the actual meeting. This particular stage in the process was the turning point of the whole collaboration for me. it was in this particular two week workshop where the best products of the participating artists shone through. We were performing in different locations: on a hill, inside the comfort rooms, in rooms that were covered with white curtains, on a bus that is going around the compound while the play was happening (this one was directed by jose– a fantastic rendition of the Rape of Nanking in world war 2.). some improvs had the audience traveling from room to room to view the unraveling of a musical! This workshop has turned into a festival of the most exhilarating, dynamic, mind blowing short theater pieces I have ever seen. it was here that we began to feel united in spirit and purpose.
the next phases of the collaboration focused on the task of transporting all these theater ideas, stories, devices, concepts and assertions to the conventional stage, which was the tram theater. It was here that the collaboration ran into disastrous snags. We realized later (that is, after the whole process) that this just can’t happen. We wanted to break the rules of conventional theater (the use of space, the relational dynamics with the audience, the system of rehearsal– but the theater infrastructure where we are slated to perform demands a conventional performance where audience pays and expects to witness a spectacle. the marketing demands a conventional schedule where a synopsis of the play is ready for promotion months ahead of the show’s opening– and our improvisations and scene work and in-fighting never even got to full steam until about a week before opening night.
We ended up not being satisfied with the final output. We were all harping back to the wonderful experiments we made a year back. Where have all those gems gone? they were all in the memories of the participating artists and were not quite fully shared to the audience. and yet, as I look back at all that we’ve done in those three years, I begin to realize that we had collaborated and are still continuing to collaborate. Many of us picked up on those gems that need to be developed. This process became the source and the inspiration for several less ambitious yet equally significant collaborations. for one, Herbie and I were raring to somehow duplicate in a sense, the experiments done in Kawaba, Japan. I’d like to think that we have been inspired by that same spirit that led to the launching of the Virgin Labfest. One Singaproe artist was inspired enough to lay down the plan for a collaboration particularly dealing with the issues of migration and diaspora in Southeast Asia. this eventually led to Mobile, a 2 and 1/2 hour production that was performed in Singapore and Tokyo featuring actors from Tokyo, Bangkok, Chiangmai, Manila, and Singapore (more later). The Malaysian artists (each one representing one race) began collaborating in their home country and now, have embarked on interacting with the Indonesian contingent. the process gave birth to other interactions and each one enriched by previous experiences.
I guess there is a valuable significance to collaborations like these. Especially because different artists from different cultures think and view things differently. The challenges of reconciling these differences without creating a homogenous whole and at the same time successfully depicting the very clashes or even dissonances of artistic opinion and rendition are what makes the whole exercise thrilling and exhiilarating.
brief thoughts on my collaboration with Rustom Bharucha
I first met Rustom when he visited PETA right after one ASSITEJ (Association International du Theatre pour l’Enfance et la Jeunesse) conference in Melbourne if I’m not mistaken. Our friendship was almost instantaneous. Rustom Bharucha is a freelance drama critic and director based in Calcutta. He has published a number of books on theater cricticism outlining his own ideas on Western intrusion on Asian Theater. One of his scathing criticisms was that of the political implications of Peter Brooks’ own rendtion of the Mahabharata. during his brief stays in Manila we would go on several lengthy discussion on theater while citing several examples from our own respective experiences and observations. We would have some heated arguments about politics and the decline of radicalism in theater practice and philosophy since the onset of Broadway’s import-export of talent and products, and the rise of lame post-modernism and the new conservatism.
it was in one of our discussions that Rustom brought up the name of Jean Genet. How “transgressive” his dramatic ideas are and how exciting it would be to explore them in the context of Philippine realities. Thus came about the PETA production of The Maids performed at the now defunct Republic of Malate. I did a translation/adaptation of it and Rustom did a grueling series of improvisations with his actors (Phil Noble, Melvin Lee and Bart Guingona).
After this production, Rustom invited me to co-write a proposal for a residency at the magnificent Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, near Lake Como, Italy. for four weeks we continued our discussions and preparations for a new play that had Genet’s undertones and dwelling on terrorism, sex, art and politics. we realized that many of Genet’s novels plunged into these themes in and out. One of his last works, Prisoner of Love focused mainly on the Palestinian Revolution which we found really resonant with the present world’s preoccupation with war on terror.
we had no deadlines, we had no expectations. I came up eventually with a play outline that never got developed into a full production script. And yet all that we have discussed somehow got filtered into my own ideas on politics and theater today. My encounter with Rustom actually underlined my own solid views about where Philippine theater should be headed. it has consolidated a vision for a more dynamic purpose.
random thoughts on my partnership with the Necessary Stage, Singapore
My first encounter with the Necessary Stage was through Haresh Sharma, its resident playwright, who was also the Singaporean representative in the Setagaya collaboration. he invited me to Singapore to appear in two plays called Mardi Gras and its sequel Top or Bottom. Yes, they’re all gay-themed plays. something quite daring i guess by singapore’s standards considering that the country still considers homosexuality as a punishable crime. In Mardi Gras I get to work with some of Singapore’s more popular actors such as Hossan Leong and the inimitable Kumar. also Jay Espano, one of our own actors, gets to act with me (with a kissing scene! waaah!). The play only got its official license a few days before opening night, with one of the issues raised by the singapore censors to be that damn kissing scene. they wanted it to be “fleeting” instead of torrid. Sharma who is used to dealing with the censors brought the discussion to its absurd outcome by asking “Well, how many second would “fleeting” constitute?” In the negotiations, it boiled down to jay Espano and rody Vera’s kissing scene should not go over 7 seconds.(can you believe that?) I figured that besides, we were both Filipinos and should less represent singaporean gays, right?
Ok i digress. after Mardi Gras’s critical success came the more somber sequel Top or Bottom that talks about Sharma’s favorite subject: death and the various relationships that are formed and destroyed by it. I guess they loved me so much they asked me to do another play with them called godeatgod. this was Sharma’s tribute to the 9-11 disaster in New York. this play eventually went on to perform in several places: Hong Kong, Sibiu in Rumania, and Budapest in Hungary.
the next project I had with TNS was more collaborative, under the leadership of Alvin Tan. He gathered artists from Japan, thailand, Philippines and Singapore for a two year project called Mobile. It was patterned very much after the Setagaya project except that it had a more focused objective in mind: to explore possibilities of developing a production tackling migration that involved these four countries. We had a brief meeting right after the last show of the Setagaya project and targeted to meet in Bangkok and Chiangmai as the beginning of our journey. In Bangkok and Chiangmai we interviewed several organizations that dealt with migrant workers– be they thai people who go to Japan and other countries or non-thai people who find themselves inside Thailand (mainly Burmese refugees). We asl interviewed an NGO that hopes to empower male and female prostitutes as they face the hazards of the trade in seedy Bangkok. After this two-week exposure trip, we met again in Tokyo where i helped organize a meeting and a workshop for Filipinos staying in Japan. they helped us in forming several story ideas for the performance. One particularly moving experience for both me and Haresh, our head writer, was when we witnessed an actual trial of a illegally staying Filipina pleading to let her children stay in Japan since they were born there and grew up there and have never set foot in the Philippines. this became the basis for one of the story threads that was soon developed into the production of Mobile. the next step was to invite actors from the four countries. i pulled in Mailes and we, as our contribution to the initial meeting of actors, developed the play “the Return of Flor”, which we performed in Singapore for the first (and last) time in 2005. the final phase was the grueling rehearsals and revising of the play Mobile, which we presented at the Drama Centre in singapore and several months later, in Tokyo.
Now, I’ll be back in singapore for another production written by Sharma, entitled Good People. It’s slated to run all through the first two weeks of november.
How does one go about explaining what I’ve learned from all these experiences? How are they different from the lessons i would be learning from theater productions here? Decidedly, the cultural background of each collaborating partner brings a totally new perspective into the process. the manner of thinking, the manner of expressing, even the fundamental gesture and reaction reflects a whole cultural history all its own. and yet it is not so alien as to estrange the other members of collaborative effort. For each contribution adds more layers to what we would eventually define as human, or, to be more specific, as theater. collaborative efforts are like creating endless frames of references , of ways of seeing the same world, the same issue, if you will. We also realize the class basis and the political implications of , for instance pitting a “third World” artist with someone from the more developed country like Japan. It brings a host of other issues with regards to empowering expression, raising several questions like: Is the funder/host country more decisive in bringing about the standpoint of the production at hand? at certain points these small debates come up and even our own political views are put to the test.
Collaboration then becomes a clearing pathway for my work: both here and abroad. although each project is unique in itself (and I must admit that many of the experiences may never be replicated in another context and so, therefore, the learning value of the experience may even be useless). and yet these encounters have given me a higher level of awareness and understanding not only of a world I may not have known before but also of the world I thought I already knew. But most of all, I have gained friends who understand my sense of humor, who respect my beliefs though they may not necessarily agree with them, and who I have loved to work with.

THIRD SERVING OF THE VIRGIN LABFEST

Now on its 3rd year, the Virgin Labfest opens this June 28 and will run until July 8, 2007 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The Virgin Labfest (VLF), a festival of new plays (untried, untested, unpublished and unstaged) by both emerging and well-known playwrights, directors and actors, is now enthusiastically looked forward to by artists and audiences alike. This year’s festival boasts a repertoire of 15 short plays in five trilogies as the main exhibition list. One of the trilogies features contributions of playwrights from Thailand, Singapore and Japan. Another independently produced trilogy of plays has been added to the festival—totalling the entire festival to a treat of 18 short plays. Full-length plays will also be featured in a series of dramatic readings at the Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino.

The first set, INTERNATIONAL NIGHT, is a compilation of plays submitted by foreign playwrights. He-Me-She-It by Narumol Thammapruksa and directed by Jaime del Mundo is a poetic improvisation where a newcomer, an alien/stranger both influences and terrifies the members of an undisclosed remote town. Lizard by Haresh Sharma, directed by Nicolas Pichay, is a surreal and inertly violent depiction of a Singaporean household whose scheming, double-dealing, and at times cruel transactions negotiated with each other makes for a rather intense sala-set drama. Yoji Sakate’s Noh Play, Three Sisters, directed by Jose Estrella is a moving ghost story and a touching memorial to the ravages of war and the significant resonance of War in Theater. Tanghalang Huseng Batute, June 28 (3:00 PM / 8:00 PM), July 7 (8:00 PM) and July 8 (3:00 PM)

MADADRAMANG PAMILYA is household drama but definitely not telenovela fare. Skeletons in the closet, in-house rebellions, and family decisions that just have to be made—do not do this at home. Debbie Ann Tan’s Teroristang Labandera, directed by Yoshi Toshihisa, is a funny and yet disturbing destruction of class and racial stereotypes, this comedy may seem to say more than just being wacky. Bagahe by Dennis Teodosio and directed by Rito Asilo is a short, intense conversation between a son and his dying father torn by the need to migrate and the need to define home. Looking for Darna by Lani Montreal and directed by Khryss Adalia is about three generations of women painfully coming to terms with a reality that renders many women helpless and silent. Tanghalang Huseng Batute, June 29 (3:00 PM / 8:00 PM), July 5 (3:00 PM) andJuly 8 (8:00 PM)

The third set, XX AND X, is the most unsettling and disturbing compilation of the season. We enjoin you to widen your understanding, come in with an open mind and expect the unexpected. Warning: Hindi pang-isip bata. Séance by Auggie Arcenas and directed by EricK Castro is a quiet yet intense confrontation between a fortune teller and her customer that becomes a battle of wit and a revelation of small cruelties and hypocrisies. Allan Lopez’ Kasaysayan, directed by Victor Villareal, is a rather macabre rendition of capitalist barbarism and a gruesome exploration of the weird, horrible ways of the bourgeoisie set in the fictional future. My Padir is an OCW by George Vail Kabristante is about an aging transvestite’s bizarre association with a young dancer who harbors a family secret. Tanghalang Huseng Batute, June 30 (3:00 PM / 8:00 PM), July 5 (8:00 PM) and July 6 (3:00 PM)

ANG PAGDADALAGA AT IBA PANG REBELASYON still provides another take on forbidden loves, sexual desire and the fruits it reaps, both good and evil. It is also 3 variations on a theme: Spring’s awakening! Kuyom by Argel Tuason and directed by John Abul is about a young boy’s exposure to exploitation and cruelty, rendered more complicated by the environment he finds himself in, a world of gay impersonators. Three Unsent Letters, written by Arlo De Guzman and directed by Rody Vera, is an epistolary drama about a man’s awakening to love and betrayal. Letters that have not been sent become monologues of despair and a sense of renewal at the same time. Ellas Inosentes by Layeta Bucoy and directed by Tuxqs Rutaquio is about two sisters whose innocent conversation and unmalicious observations of a household not quite their own reveals the violence and inhumanity of the adults around them. Tanghalang Huseng Batute, July 1 (3:00 PM / 8:00 PM), July 6 (8:00 PM) and July 7 (3:00 PM)

CHILDREN’S PLAYS are at the Bulwagang Amado Hernandez on June 29 (3:00 PM), June 30 (10:00 AM / 3:00 PM) and July 1 (3:00 PM). Rene Villanueva’s Bertdey ni Guido, performed by the Dulaang Sipat Lawin Ensemble and directed by George de Jesus III offers a wonderful juvenile perspective of the relationship between the personal and the political, made more marvelous with music and dance. Mga Obra ni Maestra written and directed by Niel De Mesa is a hilarious and biting play about three young children with superpowers and are heavily conflicted between saving the world or fulfilling the grueling, tedious domestic duties that their parents have ordered them to do. James Cansanay’s Kung Pwede Sanang Ipagpalit ang Tatay, directed by Catherine Racsag is a strange but fascinating fable about a young boy who mistakenly traded his father for a toy.

IDENTITY AND POLITICS is at the Bulwagang Amado Hernandez on July 6 (8:00 PM), July 7 (3:00 PM / 8:00 PM) and July 8 (3:00 PM). May Bumubulong by Job Pagsibigan and directed by Christian Bautista is about two brothers battling for the right to claim property and lineage and revealing the fragile and uncertain state of any one’s identity. Pobreng Alindahaw by Dennis Teodosio and directed by Delfin Ilao is a short but hilarious allegory that starts off like a folktale for children, but the issues laid down by two dragonflies and a butterfly turn this otherwise comic fantasy into a serious look into one’s personality. Rogelio Braga’s Sa Pagdating ng Barbaro, directed by Nick Olanka, is about a small town that witnesses a suicide, an open secret military operation in a Muslim community nearby, the coming of a stranger with a suitcase that contains a secret, which no one will ever know, and the hatred this same town heaps on a woman believed toi be spreading lies.

PUBLIC READINGS of full-length plays will be at the Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino at 7:00 PM: Glen Mas’ Games People Play (June 29), Rene Villanueva’s Baby B. (June 30), Tim Dacanay’s Teatro Porvenir (July 6) Huling Salubong by Malou Jacob (July 7).

There will also be PLATFORM EVENTS at the Bulwagang Carlos Francisco at 5:45 PM from June 28 to July 1 and from July 5-8)

The Virgin Labfest is a joint venture of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Tanghalang Pilipino and the Writer’s Bloc, Inc. with the generous support of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and the Japan Foundation Manila.

The festival has witnessed the works of stage directors Tuxqs Rutaquio, Denisa Reyes, Herbert Go, Phil Noble, Victor Villareal and Roobak Valle, among others. Professional actors like Neil Ryan Sese, Irma Adlawan-Marasigan, Nonie Buencamino, Mailes Kanapi, Tess Jamias and Marj Lorico have supported the festival with their theatrical talent and dedication. Even new actors have been discovered with the performances of the Dulaang Sipat Lawin Ensemble, the Tanghalang Pilipino Actor’s Company, actors from PETA, Gantimpala Foundation, as well as freelance professionals and even student theater artists.

The past two years has seen these stage actors and directors from various theater companies coming together to explore new expressions in the field of drama. Rehearsing in small venues, sometimes even in open air spaces, revising the pieces along the way, the festival has turned out to become an exciting celebration of Philippine theater. Dynamic, creative, experimental, at times edgy, always provocative, the Virgin Labfest, on its 3rd year has proven that Philippine theater remains to be one of the most vibrant of the arts despite the sorry lack of funding support. It has remained to be a wellspring of new ideas, expressions, and discourses.

Tickets to the Virgin Labfest are at P200 (for plays to be shown at the Tanghalang Huseng Batute & Bulwagang Amado Hernandez) and “Pay What You Can” (for play readings at the Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino). For more details, please contact Tanghalang Pilipino at 832-3661, or the CCP Box Office at 832-3704.

today bumoto ako. at hindi ko alam kung proud ako sa ginawa ko. dahil kahapon lang nabalitaan ko ang malawakang dayaang nangyayari sa batangas mula sa isang kaibigan. mga taong tahasang binibigyan ng pera para iboto ang kandidatong naglabas ng limpak limpak na kuwarta para lang maseguro niya ang posisyong pinagnanasahan niya. tinanong ko ang kaibigan ko, magkano ang binibigay sa mga tao? ang sagot niya minsan malaki– at pag sinabing malaki 500 piso. minsan naman isang boteng gin lang ok na. Paano naman nasisiguro ng namumuhunang kandidato kung talaga nga iboboto siya ng mga taong binayaran niya? ang sagot ng kaibigan ko, may paraan sila sa probinsya, laluna sa mga lokal na area kung saan wala namang magkakaroon ng lakas ng loob na magsumbong.

maraming dahilan kung bakit walang nagsusumbong sa isang lokal na area. di tulad sa Maynila o sa anumang syudad sa Pinas, ang mga tao sa isang municipality o isang bayan sa probinsya ay halos magkakakilala. Isa pa, ang mga maliliit na tao, isang magsasaka halimbawa, ay hindi magkakaroon ng ilusyong kaya niyang maging isang bayani at itataya ang buhay niya para lang sa isang araw ng bolahan, este botohan. alam ng isang maliit na tao na kapag ang kabayanihang iyan ay pumasok sa kukote at puso niya’t umalma siya– kahit na sabihing marami-rami pa sila– pati lintik na dati noo’y walang ganti ay kakasihan siya.

ikalawa, marami sa mga mamamayan sa buong bansa ay wala naman talagang ilusyong mababago ng isang araw na eleksyon ang bayang ito. Dahil kakaunti o malamang ay walang sinumang kandidato ang magtitiyak ng pagbabagong iyan. Sa madalit’ salita ang boses ng isa ay katulad na ng boses ng kaaway niya. Pareho at walang ibang tunay na pagpipilian. Kaya kesa sa mag-astang seryoso, bakit nga ba hindi na lang ilasing ang darating na halalan. Anuman ang sabihin ng media na karapatan at tungkuling bumoto ng mamamayang pilipino, na nakasalalay sa botante ang kinabukasan ng bayang ito– alam ng mahigit 50 porsyento ng bayang ito na hindi tutoo iyan (conservative estimate pa iyan dahil ayon sa Philippine Agenda ng GMA 7, 30 porsyento lang ng botanteng pilipino ang lubusang naniniwala sa halalan.)

today bumoto ako. at hindi ko alam kung may saysay pa ang ginawa ko. pinakinggan ko ang payo ng editorial sa inquirer. dahil ayon sa pahayagang ito, kahit na mukhang wala na ngang pag-asang huhupa ang malawakang pandaraya o titigil ang election violence o talagang magiging genuine ang halalang ito para tuluyang maipagmalaki nating lahat ang kalusugan ng demokrasya sa bansang ito– kahit na ang lahat ng iyan ay malamang sa hindi mangyayari– ituloy pa rin ang pagboto dahil sa paunti-unting pagpupunyagi, makakaabot din tayo doon. Kahit alam kong hindi rin iyan tutoo, kahit alam kong imbis na nalalapit tayo sa gusto nating scenario ay lalo pa nga tayong nalalayo simula nuong binalik natin ang halalan nuong panahon ng snap election 1985–kahit alam kong ang naging pagbabago lamang ng dayaan noon sa dayaan ngayon ay ang magnitude nito (ayon kay dating Comelec chairman Christian Monsod, sistematiko na ang dayaan ngayon di tulad ng dati)– ay sige, bumoto pa rin ako.

pero di tulad ng mga nakaraang eleksyon kung saan may isang maliit na alab ng pag-asa akong nararamdaman na baka-sakaling magmilagro sa bayang ito, ngayon wala akong naramdaman kundi panghihinayang. ang naramdaman ko ay isang kalungkutang nagsasabi sa aking itigil ko na ang ilusyon ng demokrasya sa bansang ito. na mukhang hindi yata talaga nababagay sa atin ang demokrasyang kinikilala natin ngayon. isang demokrasyang hiram din naman sa demokrasya ng Estados Unidos– kung saan talamak din ang dayaan.

may mga pre-conditions na kinakailangan para maging malusog ang isang demokrasya. Una, sa palagay ko lang naman, ang demokrasya ay nagiging mabisa lamang kung kakaunti ang mga tao sa isang lipunan. Kung kilala ng mga mamamayan ang lahat ng mga kumakandidato. (pag sinabi kong kilala, ito’y hindi lamang nila nabasa sa kung saan kundi nakakasama nila ito sa araw-araw nilang pamumuhay.) alam nila ang ugali, asta, kakayanan sa pamumuno etc.ng kandidato. tulad halimbawa siguro ng pagkilala ng mga sinauna nating mga ninuno nang pumili sila ng isang datu.

ikalawa, ang demokrasya ay nagiging malusog kung madali nating naihihiwalay ang katotohanan sa kasinungalingan. Isang kondisyong hindi na natin natitiyak ngayon. How ironic hindi ba? Kung kailan pa naging napakahalaga at napakabilis ng information dissemination sa ating mundo tsaka naman namatay ang notion natin ng Truth. Sapagkat sa panahon natin ngayon, ang tutoo ay maaring hindi na tutoo. at ang tutoo para sa isang tao ay maaring hindi tutoo sa ibang konteksto. At ang paratang ng isa ay maaaring bumaligtad pa sa kanya. na kahit na obvious na ang krimeng nagawa sa mata ng napakaraming tao, maaari pa rin itong baligtarin. ito ang panahon kung saan nabuhay at nanaig si Macbeth. “Fair is foul and foul is fair.”– wika nga ng witches ni shakespeare. (Para lalong maintindihan ang katagang iyan, palitan lamang ang salitang “foul” ng TU at ang salitang “fair” ng GO.)

ikatlo, ang demokrasya ngayon sa ating bansa ay nakasandig sa isang myth na ang indibidwal na boto, tulad ng opinyon, ay nasasala ng sarili. Na kung paiiralin ng isang indibidwal ang kanyang pag-iisip at ang kanyang puso/konsyensya/kutob/sinserong pandama– ay makakaboto siya ng tama. At ang tamang boto niya ang siyang magtatakda ng pagbabago para sa kaunlaran. Eeeengk! Hindi ko makuha ang logic nire. ibig bang sabihin, kapag binuksan ko ang aking puso, pinairal ang aking konsyensya, pinaandar ang aking utak– ang iboboto kong kandidato ang tamang kandidato? na kapag binoto ko siya, tama ako? na tutuparin niya ang lahat ng inasahan ko sa kanya? na siya pala ang hulog ng langit na tutupad sa aking mga pangarap? ano ba’ng kapangyarihan meron ang aking konsyensya para siguruhing ganun nga ang gagawin niya? na hindi niya ako bibiguin? Hindi ba ang tunay na nangyayari ay ito: na ang boto ko ay isang taya? Na maaaring ihalintulad sa pagsusugal? Pinag-aaralan ng isang sugarol ang odds, ang mga kondisyon, at kakayanan ng kanyang tinatayaan (manok? kabayo? boksingero?). tumataya siya dahil natitiyak siyang ang kanyang “binoboto” ang magbibigay sa kanya ng panalo. Pero ang aktwal niyang pagboto ay walang kinalaman sa tunay na kalalabasan ng laro. ang masaklap niyan, kumpara sa halalan, ang epekto ng sugal sa mga larong iyan ay natatapos pagkatapos ng laro (talo ka o panalo ka. tapos ang kuwento). samantala, ang epekto ng sugal sa halalan ay nagsisimula pa lamang pagkatapos ng aktwal na botohan. Dahil maaring ang tinayaan mong kandidato ay kaaway mo pala.

Maaaring sabihin ng marami ay ito: “e kung hindi demokrasya, ay ano? diktadura na lang, tulad ng singapore? o balik na lang tayo sa panahon ni Marcos. Ano pa’ng pinuputok ng butsi mo, e hindi ba yan na nga ang daang tinatahak ng kasalukuyang rehimeng Arroyo? e di mabuti na nga. balik na lang tayo sa diktadurya.”

wala bang alternatibong sistema na huhubdan ang maskarang suot nitong liberal democracy bukod sa dictatorship? (Incidentally, marami akong kilalang kaibigan sa States na hindi na rin naniniwalang epektibo ang demokrasya kahit sa U.S. na tinaguriang bastion of democracy). Wala bang sistemang maaaring duminig sa tunay na boses ng nakararaming pilipino imbis na sa boses ng Mass Media na siyang tumanggap ng napakalaking tubo nitong nakaraang eleksyon? Isang sitemang tunay na kumikilos para sa kapakanan ng mas maraming mamamayang pilipino at hindi lamang sa kung mapapababa nito ang dolyar o makakapag-imbita ng maraming investors para diumano umunlad ang “ekonomiya”– hindi ba ito at ito lamang naman ang naipangakong talagang gawin ng demokrasyang kilala natin: ang payamanin ang mga mayaman na at pahirapin pa ang mga naghihirap na nga? May kinalaman ang sistemang demokrasyang kinikilala natin sa sistema ng ekonomiyang kapitalista. at iyan ang kamalian ng analisis ng mga nagdaang protesta kahit nuong panahon ni Marcos.

Inisip ng marami na kaya naghihirap ang bayan ay dahil ang naghaharing diktador na si Marcos ay kasabwat ng imperyalismong U.S. kung kaya ang minimithi nating demokrasya ay nakakulong (kantahin ang “Ibon mang may layang lumipad”). Pagkatapos ng dictatorship ni Marcos nagkaroon tayo ng democratic space at nagdiwang hindi lamang ang mga mamamayang pilipino kundi, pati na rin ang mga businessman. Ngayon as long as hindi nayayanig ang ekonomiyang nakapanig sa mayayaman, pwede kang magsabi ng iyong opinyon. puwede mong iboto ang sinumang gusto mo– ang mahalaga huwag mong yayanigin ang status quo. Iyan ang demokrasya natin. ang demokrasyang kinakatakutan nating mawala dahil ang akala natin kapag ito’y nawala ang tanging kapalit niya’y isang dictatorship.

wala bang uri ng demokrasya kung saan ang tunay na nagpapasya ay ang nakararaming naghihirap sa bansa? Na ang tunay na nakapangyayari ay ang mga inagawan ng lupa, nalugmok sa pamamalimos, napilitang mag-abroad? Sa ngayon hindi iyan ang demokrasyang umiiral sa bansang ito. At higit sa lahat, hindi iyan masasagot ng eleksyong ito, o ng kahit anupamang eleksyon– presidential man o parliamentary.

Kaya lumabas ako sa presinto kanina at tiningnan ang indelible ink na nagmarka sa aking hintuturo. ito ang tanda ng aking partisipasyon sa every 3 years kong pakikilahok sa pambansang circus. wala siyang pinag-iba sa stamp na tinatatak sa mga taong pumapasok sa karnabal bilang tanda ng kanilang pakikilahok sa bolahan.

this new commercial of pepsi says it all. We see bamboo performing their latest hit “Probinsyana”. one of the guys in the audience has a hard time choosing which among three cans of pepsi he would get. each can apparently represents one version of bamboo performing the same song. one version shows the bamboo lead singer wearing some kind of leather, rough outfit. another version shows the band playing on a white stage. the lead singer looks quite chic with a hat and a vest. the third version shows the same bamboo lead singer looling like eminem with a hooded sweater. at the climax of this 30 seconder, the lead singer prods this fickle guy, “Pili na!” the guy finally chooses one can out of the three identical products. the commercial touts pepsi as the product capable of giving you the right to choose.

this, in many ways, for me, signifies the nature and state of the election process in our much touted democracy. ang nag-iisa nating boto is projected to make one significant change in our lives. that if we only use this right wisely, our lives will really change for the better. that our voice will truly be heard and democracy will prevail. do i still believe in this and the many other myths that this world wrapped in global capitalism has claimed democracy has done for us humans? I’m not quite sure. for instance, while we in this poor developing country are clamoring for computerized elections in order to eradicate the possibility of cheating, a movement in the U.S. is clamoring for the eradication of paperless voting, meaning that computerized elections should NOT do away with the paper trail since this is how Bush allegedly cheated in the last elections.

Using this example, it seems to me that democracy will only work if people did not cheat and lie. isn’t that the biggest oversight? we all know that cheating and lying (no matter how white) is almost intrinsic in human nature– or in nature for that matter. Deception is a survival tactic that humans have probably mastered the most and practically turned into an art. truth and falsehood, like many other dichotomies present in this world are inextricable from each other. truth and falsehood form the dialectic that is so solid– it would be such a gross catastrophe to deny it. and yet that is what we and the rest of the democratic world has done. U.S. or third world.

so if we all know that democracy won’t truly work, that it would be nothing but a sham if cheating and lying were not eradicated– and at the same time we also know that cheating and lying will never ever be eradicated because there will always be cheaters and liars and for some reason it is these very cheaters and liars who have the most powerful political machineries, the greatest wealth, etc– how do we, in heaven or hell’s name reconcile this glaring contradiction?

and when i say cheating and lying i don’t just mean hello garci. I mean the lying that comes with every promise that pours out of the running politician’s mouth that never gets fulfilled during his/her term. I also mean the underhanded strategies that go along with campaigning, the millions of pesos spent by candidates to get the best media exposure so that people will not forget.

you may find it really funny (and yet it rings so true) that in GMA 7’s program “Isang Tanong”– the most insightful comment made was by the candidate that teeters between senatoriable and nuisance: Victor Wood. In his rather vague and meandering reply to a question that was probably meant to reveal his stupidity and ignorance of current issues, he comes up with the most brilliant observation about the electons: “Lets face it. Huwag lang magagalit sa akin ano– sino ba ang kumita nang todo sa eleksyong ito– di ba ang channel 7 at channel 2?” It is such a powerful indictment of the complicity of deceptive, overspending electoral candidates and Media– the very same industry that “at night” cries out for justice over extrajudicial killings over some of its messengers (dead journalists). It is an observation that everyone has simply accepted: That with media’s help, deception of candidates are broadcast on air, BIG TIME. we see senatoriables weaving some ifugao blanket or laying down a brick for a house– on national TV. We see another one of them hugging old women who promise to pray for them or candidates being endorsed by their hacienda-owning moms. then we learn that many of these candidates who are in the top 12– people who are sure to win– have spent about a billion pesos combined– and that the one who stood to benefit from all these are the television networks. in just about six weeks or so– these networks have raked in about a billion pesos over and above the billions more than they normally earn from shampoo, soap, beer, fast food and beverage commercials, like yes.. Pepsi.

this is what our right to choose has all amounted to. this democratic right to choose among a list of candidates very similar to choosing three identical cans of pepsi. One is chic, maybe harvard university bred; another touting to be at one with the people– getting his hands dirty; probably another one extolling family as his/her metaphor for bayan. three identical cans of pepsi– this is the breadth and range of our right to choose. the similarity ends there. Pepsi, woe to us all inhabitants of a tropical country in dire need of constantly quenching our thirst– we have to choose from thousands of identical cans everyday. as for choosing candidates– we only get to choose once every three years. and the choice you make is really not exactly the choice you wanted.

We all know the cliches that go with it. We all know the wise thoughts coming from spiritual philosophers and saints and other holy men. they have all said the same thing– surface beauty is nothing compared to inner beauty. and yet tayong lahat, living in this winner-take-all, dog-eat-dog, cutthroat competitiion-killing world of ours consciously or unconsciously submit to this bloody altar of Beauty begging to be recognized. reality TV has intensified this irrational desire. Tyra Banks, despite all her admonitions against anorexia and other eating disorders affecting the thinnest of models in her talk shows, appears to favor the very same dangerous quality of “slimness” in her other show– that is if you really wanna be on Top (echoing through your brain time and time again.)

and it’s a race, as amazing as it is horrifying. How the Dr. Bellos and Dr. Calayans in our midst have managed to affirm and entrench their own standard of beauty. Claiming to be the guardians of this standard, the benchmark from which all our idea of what beauty should be will be firmly founded. Kris Aquino herself says “yun ang magic” when confronted by a happy and vivacious Ai Ai de las alas who looks back at her in consternation– in one tacky commercial that purports to value friendship!

We all know, in our minds that it’s not true. Not true at all. that beauty is relative, in the eye of the beholder, etc etc, and yet when we turn on our tv sets, go out and see those huge billboards, listen to the radio ads, watch movies… they’re all there. all the beautiful people, shrieking and dancing, representing our miserable lives as poor, helpless orphans, trying to be ordinary fulfilling all our fantasies for us and worse, getting paid hefty sums for it. they’re all there, flaunting and taking control of the standard that we know we can never reach. Because not all men are created equal in this field. there is the line, and it’s a very clear line. we can only hope and pray to get there by paying big time. the beauty product alone is a huge multi-billion dollar industry, x times bigger than this poor country’s economy. and yet, no honest medical expert can ever say for certain the real, sure-fire cure for, say a common skin condition like.. acne.

this has become the great divide. the beautiful on top and the rest are out. this is exactly what happend to my dear dear companion alex. He’s an aerobics instructor in this huge fitness center that boasts of modern bio-technological facilities for fitness and health. recently this huge center has established a skin department, joining in the cutthroat competition to underline the terrible demand to be more and more beautiful. Diana Ross, the quintessential example of beauty beyond human may well become its very icon.

Alex is an efficient, competent aerobics instructor, diligent in his work and loved by many of his clients. He’s quite friendly to everyone, even the faceless regular employee/ staff of the fitness center situated along Pasay Road, Makati. He, too, notwithstanding, wants to be part of this inner circle of “beautiful people.” Nothing wrong with that, is there? We do all want to be beautiful– both inside and outside. Alex is just as disciplined with working out. He’d be going to the gym everyday to build his muscles, reduce his fat content, and define every muscle fiber outlined in his body. He’d be concerned with taking protein enhancers, trying out new diets to hasten his development. He’s very much IN the thick of this beauty business, knowing fully well that he’s not one of the lucky ones who’d be endowed with “beauty” without even trying. Unlike these demigods, he’d have to work hard and try hard. and only through slow and patient hard work would it begin to pay off.

But one day, he had an acne breakout. at first he couldn’t figure out what caused it. and in the beauty business this could be very distressing. Even teeth-braced, adolescent high -schoolers would find this distressing enough; enough to feel insecure about one’s personhood. it affects the way they’d relate to friends. But for alex this is not just personally distressing. He found out it could cost him his job!

One day, alex’s manager, a wicked old woman with a nasal disfigurement herself , confronts poor alex and tells him he’s being booted out of three aero classes because of his acne. Alex was stunned. He couldn’t possibly understand what the connection is between his facial condition with his remarkable teaching skills. (do you?) The manager said, someone else will be taking his place in two weeks time. she added that it would be better not to tell this to anyone, especially the clients.

But alex’s inner beauty shone brightly. brighter than his acne. this “internal memo” affected the staff and some of them, probably in sympathy to alex, spilled it out to the clientele– who as it turns out loved alex more than anyone else in the gym.

Meanwhile alex was devastated. His insecurity about his skin condition was finally confirmed by a ruthless administrator who could never care less about feelings and would only focus on the company image. never mind Alex’s insecurities, never mind his humiliation, nor the downgrading of his self-esteem, this gym has a reputation to uphold. It can only accept people with flawless skin and wonderful sexy bodies. to the point that some staff members had to cover their blemishes with thick layers of concealers. and not only that, this flawless gym hates dark skin. Once alex was reprimanded for being too dark for comfort when he once enrolled in a swimming class. One would imagine that there’s this whitening skin test that one undergoes, similar to the weighing scale that each and every fitness trainer has to go through every month.

this gym with its manager from hell wants to make posters out of people. and if only genetic science were more advanced, this manager would probably be hitlerian in her decisions all for the triumph of Beauty.

so one day, my dear dear love alex underwent a depression. Everywhere he went he would look at people’s faces and would compare them to his. How could one lose a job just because of acne? could it really be possible, that compassion is now a dear, precious and endangered value because Beauty and its cruellah deville guardians (translate to Liga ng Kagandahan?) advocate flawlessness without heart?

this beauty business is the most obvious example of the horrible demands of global capitalism. it is ruthless even among its own advocates. simple people like Alex who are a hundred times more human than their bosses get marginalized by this hypocrisy and hubris.

I have a lot of fitness trainer friends in my gym and I see that most of them are really there just to earn a decent living. They practice their trade the best way they know how. some of them have families to raise, mothers and fathers to support, brothers and sisters to send to school. they’d do anything despite several shortcomings and they too will be depressed if for one reason or another some stupid manager comes up to them and say, “you have acne, you don’t deserve to train our customers.” it’s the most bizarre job condition I have ever encountered. these people lead more human lives, feel and act more humanely than these awful mindless administrators who think nothing but to uphold the Image.

Luckily for alex, his clients love him so much– not because he’d have to have smooth, white skin, not for his muscles, nor too much for his aerobics skills. They love him because he’s a good and friendly teacher. They love him because he sometimes lends an ear to their other problems. He’s loved by his clients because he is most importantly a friend. and the manager is so narrowminded she couldn’t understand why a fitness intstructor is getting too close with his “clients”. at any rate, these same clients are signing a petition to overturn the stupid manager’s decision.

I don’t know if alex will reclaim these classes. But this story is vindicating alex and congratulations!!!– there is still hope for humankind. Inner beauty is indeed much more important than anything, much more so than physical beauty.

so dear friends, don’t stop going to the gym. I don’t– at least not yet. and I do put a lot of importance to my swimming and gymming. But let not that be the same cause for losing out on your humanity. when that happens, then it’s not really worth it at all.

When i started this blog i told myself I’m going to make this a lively place. Invite people to come and comment and all that… well after a few posts bigla na lang akong tumahimik. Ewan ba… parang hindi naging exciting sa akin ang tumalak nang tumalak. di ko nga alam, writer naman akong maituturing. in short pag blog, parang tinatamad ako. Kasi bukod sa blog, meron din akong journal na sinusulatan. pero personal yun. lahat ng kulot ko duon ko naibubuhos. so I guess, what has been keepinig me from writing in this blog is my mistaken(?) notion that a blogger also has to lay out his/her “performance”. that consciously or subconsciously s/he has an image to project and, well, that image sticks. Pag nagsusulat ako sa journal ko, minsan ang tanga-tanga ko. minsan ang galing galing ko. hindi ko kailangang maging consistent. hindi ko kailangang isipin na contradictory ang mga points of view ko. But when you post your views on your blog, para bang dapat kailangan mong panindigan ang bawat sinasabi mo– and that’s probably the reason for my timidity. Iilan lang naman ang handa kong panindigan sa buhay.

In my journal, I don’t have to be consistent. I can contradict myself without being judged. I can be different personalities. i can be cruel, politically incorrect, barbaric, obscene. I can be totally honest and the next day reprimand myself for being so. for how can one be totally honest, really– despite editing a detail here and there? i realize that one’s honesty has several layers. One can never be totally honest to oneself. Because even the self has an impression of itself. and so whatever image it takes upon itself will be a mold from which this very self will have to fit– at any given moment in time. I realize that honesty is just as complicated and self-contradictory as I imagine myself to be in my journal. and then again, while I imagine this honesty to be total, another layer of deeper honesty reveals itself— honesty, I have come to realize has boundaries and once you have laid out its limits, you can see the deeper layer beyond it! how very frustrating.

e di lalo na pagdating sa blog, when I know that other people are going to read it, a part of me (usually the snotty part of me) will always push for clarity, point out grammatical shortcomings i may have overlooked, ensure structural unity in my compositions, etc. all these because I tend to second guess the impression of the visitor. and so I intentionally (yet unconsciously) fashion my image to be consistent with how I think people view me, or expect me to be. Even in my daring-est disposition– I need to reveal that part of me that will somehow link it to how people assume me to be. it’s, well… a performance.

kung kaya I realize that I don’t think i will be as prolific as the others. because, sa tutoo lang, nakakapagod.

Unless of course i change my notion of handling the blog. do i become “spontaneous” and let my thoughts and feelings run faster than my sense of propriety, sense of fairness, my political convictions, my cherished values, etc? and yet I adore genet who did exactly just that and for that, produced an image of himself so iconoclastic, it has become iconic.

but then again it’s like coming out once again. which makes me ask myself, do i really need this? can I possibly face myself and say that this is the most honest feeling i have of the moment? can anyone be utterly honest at any given moment? i have come to point when I know that i can’t.

which is probably why i relegate my blog to discussions of topics that catch my interest, my passion/obsession at any given moment. that, for me, has become my compromise. and so therefore, this compromise makes me less prolific. In short, I am more committed to my journal.

nevertheless, now that i’m posting this, I guess, I am in some way telling myself, I have a lot of ideas to share, too. enough of navel gazing.