An eye being fish-hooked out of its socket before a live audience may not be your usual theater fare to begin the year.
But true to its mission of developing young playwrights by including original Filipino plays in each theater season, Tanghalang Pilipino brings back possibly the most engaging original Filipino masterpiece for the stage in the past decade: “Doc Resureccion: Gagamutin ang Bayan,” a one-act play by Layeta Bucoy, directed by Tuxqs Rutaquio.
The story of a successful young doctor who aspires to run for mayor in his hometown that has been lorded over for decades by traditional politicians, “Doc Resureccion” is among the four original one-act plays, collectively titled “Eyeball: New Visions in Philippine Theater,” to be staged starting Jan. 13-Feb. 12 at the Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino (Little Theater) of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
Exploring the theme “Searching,” the program also has Carlo Pacolor Garcia’s “Bakit Wala Nang Nagtatagpo sa Philcoa Oberpass,” Reuel Molina Aguila’s “Maliw” and Nick Pichay’s “Isang Araw sa Karnabal.”
Urgent and timely
The four plays were chosen from more than a hundred works in the 8-year-old Virgin Labfest, the annual staging of original plays that happens every June-July at the CCP’s Tanghalang Huseng Batute.
Garcia’s “Bakit Wala Nang Nagtatagpo sa Philcoa Oberpass” is directed by Riki Benedicto, the same fine actor who plays the ill-fated Doc Resureccion.
Though Philcoa overpass is a real place, at Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City, Garcia’s play tackles the intertwining lives of ordinary Pinoys who happen to converge at one point on that one spot—vendors, corrupt policemen, a gay Bible preacher, the street “con artist,” a man and a woman who arranges to meet after having flirted online for months and now deciding to have an “eyeball.”
The current spate of news reports about former general and now fugitive Jovito Palparan, meanwhile, renders Aguila’s “Maliw” even more urgent and timely, which is a story about forced disappearances and how a couple tries to deal with the loss of their daughter. Originally directed by Edna Vida during its Virgin Labfest fun, it is now directed by Chris Millado, with top-notch veteran actors Sherry Lara, Spanky Manikan and TP Actors Company member Regina de Vera in the cast.
In the same vein, Pichay’s “Isang Araw Sa Karnabal,” also directed by Millado, is about two former lovers who share the common misfortune of having loved ones as victims of extra-judicial killings. This may sound like a serious play on doomed lovers, but Pichay’s mastery of witty but insightful dialogue makes the experience quite therapeutic for the audience. It is just but right to have this play as the final salvo among the four.
“Eyeball” will be shown as two sets of twin bills: Set A has “Oberpass” and “Doc Resureccion,” while Set B has “Maliw” and “Karnabal.”
Call 832-3661, 0920-9535381, 0928-5518645; CCP Box Office at 8323704; or Ticketworld at 8919999.