Tag: Theater Review

THEATER REVIEW — At a Larger Venue, “Bar Boys: The Musical” Reaches Its Full Potential Through Scale

I’m a fan of “Bar Boys: The Musical,” written by Pat Valera (book and lyrics) and Myke Salomon (lyrics and music), based on the film by Kip Oebanda, and directed by Mikko Angeles, since its two runs at the PowerMac Spotlight Theater in Circuit Makati. It was inspiring, funny, and poignant (I remember crying both times I saw it). The music was great filled with all-new, all-original songs, and the performances were stellar. It was a great show. But now that it has moved to the Hyundai Hall at the Areté Theater, the show has transformed into a big, bold musical where the larger scale amplifies everything that was already great about the production.

In a larger theater, the creative team went all out. The production now features larger set pieces that are wheeled in, a larger video projection on screen right behind the cast as they are performing, more space for its hardworking ensemble to fill, and new heights as the set pieces are as high as two stories allowing the staging to be as tall as its scope is wide.

Bar Boys The Musical | Photo by Kyle Venturillo

Now staged on a proscenium, the direction is now fully directed toward the audience rather than contained at the center, as it was in the original traverse staging (a long platform with the audience on both sides). This shift allows the show to fully project its idealism, realism, and inspirational message straight to the crowd for full effect.

Bar Boys The Musical | Photo by Sace Natividad

“Bar Boys: the Musical” tells the story of four friends – Erik, Chris, Torran, and Josh – who enter law school together with the hopes of changing the world a better place. But each of our leads have their own battles to face. Erik comes from a humble background and money is tight. Chris hides a secret about his background, which also fuels his need to make the world a better place. Torran, raised by a single mother, feels the pressure of living out his mother’s dreams while he is discovering who really is. Josh, who hails from the province, wants to be an environmental lawyer but his idealism gets in the way of the reality of the law.

Bar Boys The Musical

The show is impressive by being intersectional, tackling various issues like the class divide, the power and the abuse of the law, corruption, acceptance, and waking up to a harsh world; all of this without being scattered or confusing. The narrative has a spot for each of the four characters, a case that becomes the catalyst for the growth of some of the protagonists, all the while portraying the exacting demands of law school and passing the bar.

Bar Boys The Musical | Photo by CJ Ochoa

By giving the ensemble moments to portray other law students, we see the various dreams and hopes that people have that widen the scope of the play. There’s something for everyone here, but it never feels like it is only touching the surface. The emotions that it evokes are not from shallow, easy plot points. The struggle is real. There are scenes and songs that emphasize it so when a loss is felt, it hits hard. When a victory is achieved, that feeling reaches out to the audience in full.

Bar Boys The Musical | Photo by CJ Ochoa

With a larger space and the audience gathered in one direction, Angeles is able to create spectacles and meant to be witnessed. The actors can now interact more freely, exchanging knowing looks when making throwing politically charged jokes or when a scene feels like it is talking to the audience.

Bar Boys The Musical | Photo by Irvin Arenas

With the bigness of the theater, the tiniest and most intimate scenes – like the ones shared by Erik and his father or Justice Hernandez, the toughest but most important teacher the lead characters meet – become these powerful turning points that emphasize the narrative beats. In the smaller venue, we feel like voyeur peeking into private moments. On a proscenium stage, we feel permitted to watch allowing us to fully react and feel what these scenes evoke in us to feel.

Bar Boys The Musical | Photo by Irvin Arenas

Most of the cast from the previous runs have returned, and they wear these roles like a second skin. Alex Diaz, who plays Chris, has a confidence that defines his character, which also makes him a little forceful, leaning into domineering. Jerom Canlas, who plays Torran, is having more fun with the character, working with physicality and gestures to show how his character’s hidden nature is a lot more visible to everyone but himself. Josh is always a fan favourite and Omar Uddin has charm by the boatload and he uses this to fill the stage. Juliene Mendoza, who plays Erik’s father Peping, and Gimbey Dela Cruz, who plays a dual role of Torran’s mother and a lady who Josh befriends, are such solid performers that they help the show hit its most poignant moments.

Bar Boys The Musical | Photo by CJ Ochoa

But the two who truly rise to the new scale of this production are Benedix Ramos as Erik and Sheila Francisco as Justice Hernandez. Ramos manages to layer his portrayal of Erik in such a way that even his moments of weakness are felt even when he’s keeping it inside. He vascillates from big emotions to small emotions and all of it are picked up on stage that he has the most dynamic of performances. He has such a gift that allows him to work small but can project it big so that its seen and heard and felt all the way to the back of the audience.

Bar Boys The Musical | Photo by Kevin Sembrano

Francisco, on the other hand, who has played Justice Hernandez as a wise, older mentor, with a calm energy, now plays her as a rockstar in field of law. She’s brazzy, she’s tough, she’s admired, and she knows it. She comes in like a force of nature and embodies the reason why every character in the play is so in awe of her.

Bar Boys The Musical | Photo by Myra Ho

So, it’s equally amazing when, in the more somber moments, she becomes a nurturing, tender soul that can inspire the lead characters in their darkest moments. It’s a powerhouse performance that shows, Francisco has been holding it back in the smaller venue in fear of tearing it down with her power.

Bar Boys The Musical | Photo by Kyle Venturillo

On opening day, there were a few technical hiccups, and the new ensemble still needed to tighten their choreography and to temper their boundless energy. But these are easily fixed that will naturally smooth out with more performances. Even with these little flaws, the show is already such a triumph of theater. This is how “Bar Boys: The Musical” should be: big and bold. It’s an inspiring play that’s fun and moving and it truly deserves a venue grand enough and a production that can amplify its message to an even larger audience.

My Rating:

Catch Bar Boys The Musical in all its bold, inspiring glory as it takes over Hyundai Hall, Areté until November 23. With powerful performances, unforgettable songs, and moments that hit right in the heart, this larger-than-life production shines brighter than ever. Don’t miss it! Grab your tickets now via Ticket2Me.

November 3, 2025
THEATER REVIEW — Grappling the Existential: A Review of Scene Change’s Production of ‘3 Upuan’

While the premise of ‘3 Upuan’ is relatively simple, three siblings reunite at their father’s deathbed in a hospital, and as they reconnect, their lives begin to unfurl. But what is incredible about the play, written and directed by Guelan Verela-Luarca is that the unfurling spans the vast expanse of time and really goes deep into the existential questions the characters must face when one is confronted by how brief life can be. It doesn’t help that the three characters are intelligent, articulate individuals, children of college professors. The eldest, Jers, is a professor himself; Jack is an artist; and Jai, the youngest, is a journalist. When faced with their mortality – and the mortality of their loved ones – they dodge and evade the hard conversations before they get deep into it, and then would sometimes go into a soliloquy, trying to grasp the abstract nature of death and grief out loud for the audience to hear.

Sc. : Scene Change 3 Upuan

This is the fourth staging of the play in just a year, first performed last September in the dressing room of Hyundai Hall of Areté, followed by another run in February also at Arete, and then in August at Archivo 1984 in Makati. For this Sc. : Scene Change production, it is held once again at the Areté, but at the museum lobby, surrounded by an exhibition of kite paintings.

There’s only about 50 chairs set on a space formed as a thrust stage, with the three actors seated on three chairs before a large projector screen. And the intimacy of the setup places the audience front and center in an immense exploration of philosophy, language, time, and grief.

With the audience seated so close, and only three chairs and a video projection as props, the three actors have nowhere to hide. The play runs for roughly 100 minutes without intermission so it’s you and them and the journey they take you through these characters’ inner world and their wealth of emotions on this very challenging time. But Paolo O’Hara as Jers, Jasmine Curtis-Smith as Jai, and Cris Pasturan as Jack are more than capable of taking on that challenge.

While each actor in their own right brings to life all the nuances and layers of their characters, what’s incredible is how believable and tangible their relationship is as siblings. There’s a shorthand in their gestures and their subtle chuckles that indicate a shared history, an ongoing dynamic that really sells the story to the audience. As they face the impending passing of their father, and later, deal with the aftermath of that loss and all that it entails, what remains is the love between the siblings that needs to process that pain.

Complicating all of this is the fact that Jai lives abroad. She returns home to find Jack unable to paint again, no longer able to afford his child support payments for his daughter, and has strained his relationship with his Kuya Jers. Jai has her own life in New York that appears to be crumbling and, interspersed are Jers’ lectures in class about language, philosophy, and anthropology.

From here, the work goes further than the story of the siblings, memory, philosophy, and language breaks the barriers of time that allows Jai and other characters to breach the metaphysical and allows us a peek into the siblings’ past, present, and future through soliloquy, a changing of the arrangements of chairs, and a gorgeous video projection.

Of the many amazing works by Guelan Varela-Luarca, 3 Upon stands out as my favourite – both in writing and direction – and the heaviness of the play’s narrative is matched by the intellectual density of its themes and scope that he manages to make comprehensible by framing it into the dynamic of these three characters. The intimacy, the song choices, the sparseness of the staging, and the way the actors have been primed to really act and feel like a family allows us to take all of what Varela-Luarca offers in the writing and allows us to chew on it. This is a triumph of theater. ‘3 Upuan’ captures the dense existential ruminations of three people in the face of their mortality and makes it an emotional journey without the need for spectacle. It’s performed wonderfully and I was tears through the last half of the show.

My Rating:

October 27, 2025
Theater Review: The Two Sides of GMG’s Staging of ‘Dear Evan Hansen’

I knew nothing about the show coming into the Solaire Theatre on press night for ‘Dear Evan Hansen.’ I knew that it was a popular musical – it won six of the nine Tony Awards it was nominated for, including Best Musical and Best Score, and was later adapted into a film – and that Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who wrote the music and lyrics, are well-loved songwriters having written the songs of ‘La La Land,’ ‘The Greatest Showman,’ and a Broadway musical that I love, ‘Dogfight.’ I was expecting a great show, due to this popularity and how it’s the “favourite musical” of my close friends. What I was not expecting was to be pulled in two very different emotional directions.

Photo by Marc Brenner

First off, as a show, ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ was quite strong. The set design by Morgan Large along with the video direction and design by Large and Ravi Deepres, really created such powerful images, quickly transforming the stage from bedroom to school hallway complete with lockers, to a kitchen or a living room. The sets just swipe in and it’s quite a feat to watch. The stage is practically empty except for when the different set ups just rush in to complete the scene while the video wall in the back can heighten a song by creating a dazzling display that highlights the context of the scene. It’s so brilliantly put-together that it was doing exactly what it should without overwhelming a scene. The cast was quite strong, especially Ellis Kirk, who played the titular role of Evan Hansen, and Rebecca McKinnis, who plays Evan’s mom, Heidi. Both Kirk and McKinnis really brought the play to the emotional level it needed to go to and they were the cast’s strongest singers to boot.

Photo by Marc Brenner

The direction by Adam Penford allowed the show to shift and slide off to its comedic moments but can throw itself into its much darker themes when it has to. The cast do quite a good job at playing high school kids, though Tom Dickerson just looked like a mature man to effectively sell the character of Jared, Evan Hansen’s neighbour and only confidant. He did as best as he could to try and portray a teen but his height, body frame, and looks just went counter the imagery that I couldn’t suspend my disbelief. I had no trouble with the others, most especially with Kirk and Zoe Athena, who plays Zoe Murphy, Evan Hansen’s crush in school.

Photo by Marc Brenner

The songs of Pasek and Paul are so good that you can understand why the musical won a Tony, and it’s an overall good production. What shocked me, though, was halfway through the first act, I started to feel very uncomfortable with where the show was going narratively. The book by Steven Levenson details the story of an anxious high school senior who is tasked by his therapist to write letters to himself every day to help with his anxiety, hence the name of the play. After an encounter with Connor, the school bully, one of Evan’s letters gets mistaken for having been written by Connor and Evan begins to lie to try and become part of a larger narrative. Connor happens to be Zoe’s brother, Zoe being Evan’s crush in high school. The suicide shocks the whole campus, and it is even more shocking to discover that Connor had a friend and it’s the socially awkward outsider, Evan Hansen.

Photo by Marc Brenner

What makes the show so uncomfortable is how far Evan takes this lie and how much bigger the misunderstanding grows. It gets so big that, at some point, it becomes harder and harder to imagine how the story can properly position Evan into a place where he can be forgiven for what he’s done. Lives are changed, perceptions are altered, and even a movement begins, and it’s all based on a lie from one socially awkward young man with a serious mental condition who just wanted to belong.

Photo by Marc Brenner

The play never actually manages to properly give any sort of justice to the characters of the story. The way it handles all the deception was so uncomfortable to me that, no matter how powerful McKinnis sings her song near the end of Act II (‘So Big So Small,’) as she cradles her son when he finally tells the truth to her (after he does such a horrid thing to her as well) I found myself so incapable of connecting. People around me were sobbing as Evan sings his regret (‘Words Fail’) in a powerful ballad but nobody is there to hear him. It’s a soliloquy but it does not equate to asking for forgiveness. Not in any way that is meaningful to the ones who were hurt.

And I sit in my seat, amazed at how Kirk manages to keep me invested in his performance despite my inability to connect with the character he plays; this role would kill a lesser actor. Instead, I think about the women of the show – Zoe, who was terrorized by her brother when he was alive, Connor’s mom, and Evans’ mom – who all have to suffer from Evan’s deceit, yet must somehow forgive him because he’s broken and not let him face the full consequence of his actions.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ClickTheCity (@clickthecity)

I sit there wondering how to feel. The performances were great. That stage design and the video wall made so much theater magic with something so simple. And yet, I just couldn’t bring myself to empathize with story. A lot of people did, though, but I felt like justice was denied and that it wasn’t fair. I didn’t want to applaud that, no matter how good the production was.

My Rating:

Dear Evan Hansen runs until October 5, 2025, at The Theater at Solaire. Don’t miss the chance to experience this Tony Award-winning musical live on stage. Tickets are available at Ticketworld.

September 17, 2025
Theater Review: While Some Performances Shine, ‘Into the Woods’ Gets Lost in Some of Its Creative Choices

‘Into the Woods’ is a legendary musical. It’s quite accessible as it uses familiar characters from fairy tales and have them engage and interact with each other with comedic results, in the first act, and then heavier, more dramatic effect in the second act. Stephen Sondheim’s Tony Award-winning music and James Lapine’s Tony Award-winning book creates a deceptively fun but also deeply profound musical about the human condition of wishes, hopes, and dreams, and the innocence of longing and desire.

Lea Salonga as The Witch, Mikkie Volante as the Baker’s Wife and Nyoy Volante as the Baker in Theatre Group Asia’s Into the Woods. Photo by Mark Alvarez

The story revolves around some pretty famous fairy tale characters: Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack (of Jack and the Beanstalk), and The Baker and the Baker’s Wife (adapted from a classic French tale). Each character must go to the woods but it is the Baker and his wife who enter the forest to gather ingredients needed to lift a curse put upon them so they can have a child. The witch who cursed them demands “a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn, and a slipper as pure as gold.” Their interactions force each character to learn, to grow, and to discover things about themselves and of life in general.

Arielle Jacobs as Cinderella in Theatre Group Asia’s Into the Woods. Photo by Mark Alvarez

I grew up with this musical. My dad would play the original Broadway soundtrack at home on CD, and we watched the 1991 recording of the original Broadway cast performing it in front of a live audience on PBS American Playhouse. I knew every line and could sing every song. So, to be able to catch this show in the Philippines, with an incredible line-up of Filipino talents (Lea Salonga! Nyoy and Mikkie Volante! Teetin Villanueva! And more…) and Filipinos by roots (Arielle Jacobs, Josh Dela Cruz) and a multi-award-winning creative team led by Clint Ramos as producer and Chari Arespacochaga as director, felt like a no-brainer. Adding to the mix a full, live 19-piece orchestra, and this staging became everything I could ask for.

But despite all the talent, the show I saw at the opening gala night seemed to buckle under the pressure of all that expectation. It was opening night, so I can excuse some missed cues and some technical issues with the microphones. The first thing that really stood out was the stage design of Ohm David. Making full use of the Samsung Performing Arts Theater gigantic stage, he created a cavernous set framed by Capiz-shell lattice windows that created the image of an indoor locale. There are three elevated areas creating three large steps to create levels and there are four gray poles meant to stand for trees. Each of the three levels have entrances and exits on both sides of the stage. The size of which becomes problematic as ‘Into the Woods’ is a bit of a farce and the exits and entrances must be quick but because there’s so much space to cover, it kills the momentum as we shift from one scene to the other. Without more trees to hide in for a quiet exit out, the play has to wait for characters to step in and out and it kills the pacing of the show.

Lea Salonga as The Witch and Joreen Bautista as Rapunzel in Theatre Group Asia’s Into the Woods. Phot by Mark Alvarez

This design was the seat of the most of my problems. Much of the story involves going into the woods for the characters to get their wishes – Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack (of Jack and the Beanstalk), and the Baker and the Baker’s Wife (from a classic French tale) – and some of the songs repeatedly reference the woods. Yet, visually, the stage never truly evokes that image. The production boasts of approaching the material through a Filipino lens – Capiz-shell window frames, a salakot hat worn by one character, and the magical harp taken from the giant’s lair in Jack’s story designed to resemble a Sarimanok. These are all adornments meant to create a sense of the Filipino but it never really says anything about the culture or how the culture adds a texture or layer to the material. It feels added on rather than integrating itself organically into the show.

Are the four gray poles meant to symbolize that the Philippines has gone urban and so are woods are concrete? Later on, as Jack’s story with the bean stalk play out and the giant’s wife searches for her husband’s killer, she speaks with a Southern American accent, unmistakably? Is the giant meant to be America? But as a friend pointed out, the show’s enemy isn’t the giant, it’s their greed for wanting to get their wishes.

Lea Salonga as The Witch and Joreen Bautista as Rapunzel in Theatre Group Asia’s Into the Woods. Phot by Mark Alvarez

It’s some choices like this that created a resistance to really get into the show. The heavier, more profound parts of ‘Into the Woods’ wasn’t quite hitting its mark but all the fun and humour of it was in full display. Lea Salonga, as the Witch, gave her some of the best songs of the evening, and she can really imbue each one with the weight of emotions that’s required of it. I personally felt that she struggles on the opening night with the first-act costume, the mechanics of the witch’s garb got in the way of her clarity in her performance but the moment she shows her true form, Salonga cut through and delivered some powerful moments. Of the very talented cast, the standouts were really Mikkie Bradshaw-Volante and Arielle Jacobs. Bradshaw-Volante was able to project the difficulties of a wife being taken seriously by her husband, a shade of a typical Filipino household that I would have loved if it was amplified more. But she was able to balance the comedy and the heart of her story and really nailed her solo, which was a triumph of this production. Airelle Jacobs was just perfect as Cinderella. Her vocal range and her innocence; it really created a wonderful space for Jacobs to take Cinderella and show us the not so happy side of happily ever after. Her character’s growth – the realisation that not everything you wish for is what you really wanted – is so evident, especially in her final scene between herself and her prince (Josh Dela Cruz). The moment was so affecting that it left the entire theater in a hushed silence.

The Witch’s entrance in Theatre Group Asia’s Into the Woods. Photo by Mark Alvarez

The cast who got to play and really felt so in synch with the play’s more joyful elements were Josh Dela Cruz and Mark Bautista as Cinderella and Rapunzel’s Princes, along with Kakki Teodoro and Sarah Facuri as the wicked stepsisters. Aside from Dela Cruz, these characters play counterpoints to the main cast and thus have the unenviable task of just having fun and they do. Teodoro and Facuri are campy and loud, create a nice contrast to Jacob’s Cinderella. Dela Cruz and Bautista, on the other hand, take their melodramatic princes into another level completely. They have so much fun, one-upping each other, and trying to find a way to make their princes the most scene-stealing prince of all. It never feels too much, for some reason, because it’s campy approach somehow works with the show’s design that doesn’t quite gel together: the lack of any real woods, the Capiz-shell frames that makes the show feel contained rather than wild and free.

There’s still plenty to enjoy in this production. The songs are gorgeous and gorgeously performed – especially with a 19-piece orchestra under Gerard Salonga’s baton – and some performances really stand out. There are just some choices that I feel restrains the show from reaching its full potential and while there are aspects of Filipino imagery by design or adornments, it never really makes any full connection to the Filipino lived experience to justify these tacked on Filipino markers.

My Rating:

Don’t miss your chance to experience this beloved Sondheim classic brought to life on the big stage. Into the Woods runs until August 31, 2025, at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater. Secure your tickets now a TicketWorld.

August 25, 2025
Theater Review: Dissecting Friendship A Review of Repertory Philippines’ ‘Art’

The multi-awarded French play ‘Art’ by Yasmina Reza, translated into English by Christopher Hampton, has opened in Manila through Repertory Philippines under the direction of Victor Lirio. A comedy that unfolds in one act with no intermission and runs for nearly 90 minutes, the play centers on three friends whose friendship goes under intense scrutiny when one buys an odd, very expensive piece of artwork.

Serge (played by Martin Sarreal), Marc (Freddy Sawyer), and Yvan (Brian Sy) have been friends for 15 years. Trouble begins when Serge buys an “Antrios painting” for 200,000 francs, a white painting with some shades of off-white, which Marc considers a complete waste of money. Marc and Serge argue about the purchase, buttons are pushed, and sharp words are exchanged. Both friends turn to Yvan, hoping he will mediate, but Yvan prefers to take a softer approach, telling each one what they want to hear. After all, Yvan is about to get married and he’s got troubles of his own that’s brewing.

Yvan (played by Brian Sy) and Serge (played by Martin Sarreal) | Photo by: Joel H. Garcia

Without an intermission, the play runs through several scenes: duets, monologues, and a final extended gathering of the three characters, where they finally confront each other head-on. At first, the conflict seems to be about the painting, a debate over classicism versus post-modernism but beneath the surface, it’s way more than that. In order to truly address the issue, their relationship is placed under a microscope. What we witness is a friendship being renegotiated. Fifteen years is a long time. They’ve changed. Dynamics have shifted, but they haven’t been honest with themselves about it.

Written by French playwright Yasmina Reza and translated by British playwright Christopher Hampton, this witty and sharp one-act play features three long-time friends Marc (Sawyer), Yvan (Sy), and Serge (Sarreal)
| Photo by: Joel H. Garcia

The play in itself is funny. There’s a lot of use of repetition – characters repeating what the other is saying as a means to heighten tension and humour – and the three friends can be very catty, using their personal history to make barbed remarks at the other’s expense. I don’t know why I want to say it’s very French, even though I’ve only seen three French plays (translated into English) but it has that appeal and charm.

Yvan (played by Brian Sy) and Marc (played by Freddy Sawyer) | Photo by: Joel H. Garcia

But watching the opening night of the show, I was having a hard time connecting with the piece. Martin Sarreal, a Filipino British actor who is living in Britain, and the Brit actor Freddy Sawyer have a very English attack on the characters. Their accents are on full display while Brian Sy speaks naturally without an English inflection. The delivery of Sarreal and Sawyer are razor-sharp but dry. It’s cold while Sy has the Filipino warmth to his Yvan. Because of these tonal differences, I had such a hard-time seeing the three as friends for 15-years.

Yvan (played by Brian Sy) and Serge (played by Martin Sarreal) | Photo by: Joel H. Garcia

Because of the brutality of each one’s verbal attack, and the coldness to which the two more active characters take their offensive, it felt like they hadn’t been friends for a long while now and this approach feels like it loses some of the play’s charm. It’s so vicious that I wonder how they even made it to this point. When I imagine it as French – I’ve never been to France and have only spoken to very few French people, but I am basing it on a lot of French cinema I’ve seen and the caricatures that are presented on comedy shows – and I imagine that the snobbish and aloof stereotype of the French could get away with such stinging remarks of a friend. But Sy has so much warmth that it amplifies the cold British dry humour of Sarrel and Sawyer that I felt the play’s exploration of friendship wasn’t hitting the right cues.

Freddy Sawyer plays Marc | Photo by: Joel H. Garcia

There are other aspects of the show that confused me, like how the play begins with a movement piece between the three friends that interpret as an imagery of their friendship over time. It’s such a strange place to start when the play in itself is so verbose and articulate. Most of the time, the characters stay on set, and listen to each other’s monologues, which removes the privacy and intimacy of some of what is being said.

I really love Sarreal’s laser-sharp focus and Sawyer’s ability to portray Marc’s posturing. I’ve also always been a fan of everything Sy has done, both on stage and in film. However, I didn’t really see the connection on the opening night. The play in itself is funny and surprising, and I’m hoping that later shows will flesh out their relationship more.

My Rating:

See this acclaimed production brought to life by a powerhouse cast and a globally seasoned creative team. Art runs exclusively at REP’s Eastwood Theater until June 29. Catch it before the final curtain call. Buy tickets at Ticketworld or Ticketmelon.

June 23, 2025
Theater Review: Virgin Labfest XX: ‘Set E: Panghimagas’ Is Truly a Standout Set of Plays

I got to watch the revisited plays of the Virgin Labfest XX: Hinog this year, specifically Set E, which is entitled ‘Panghimagas.’ As someone who has always wanted to go but never seemed to catch the annual festival of brand-new one-act plays, it was a nice way to finally catch a set as this set features standout works from previous years. Held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines‘ Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez, each play runs about 30 minutes, with a 15-minute intermission between plays to allow for stage designs and props adjustments for the for the next play.

Not having seen a Virgin Labfest in over five years, I had forgotten how magical it is to witness new work being presented, even if Set E features plays that are a year or two old. These pieces still speak powerfully to the contemporary mindset. As these are standout productions, there was no question that each one hit hard, whether it was comic or tragic in theme.

Identite

Written by Jhudiel Clare D. Sosa
Directed by Meann Espinosa
Cast: Ash Nicanor and Kitsi Pagaspas

This surprising comedic play about a mother discovering her daughter’s dildo is a definite crowd-pleaser. The play tackles the generation gap surrounding the attitudes on sex positivity. When the mother finds her daughter’s stash of sex toys, the two go head-to-head about values and morals and social norms. It’s all played for laughs and even the mother becomes almost a caricature of the conservative, traditional Filipina who doesn’t even realise that sex can be pleasurable. Through the play, a discussion is presented; a bridge between the youth’s more liberal attitudes about sex and self-pleasure and the more repressed ideologies about women and their own desires.

The dramatic situation is funny enough, but Meann Espinosa directs Nicanor and Pagaspas to really go for the laughs. It’s played for comedy, and you can hear the whole audience erupting in laughter at every punchline. Pagaspas fully embodies the caricature, even punctuating her provincial accent (I think it’s a Batangueno accent) to really emphasize her rural mindset. It even gets physical as the women chase each other around. I’m wondering, though, how this would play it with a more restrained approach. The play is funny as it is, would it be stronger to not punch the punchlines?

As a progressive person who grew up with liberal, sex-positive parents, I wished the daughter (played by the magnetic Ash Nicanor) stood her ground more and the play didn’t try to find a compromise that coddled the elder woman’s feelings but, tonally and culturally, it is pitch-perfect to the Filipino experience. We always acquiesce to our parents and them taking a tiny step forward to understanding us while the younger generation takes huge steps to accommodate their feelings is part of why the Filipino family bond is so strong.

Pagkapit sa Hangin

Written by Joshua Lim So
Directed by Jose Estralla
Cast: Elora Espano, Wenah Nagales, Tim Mabalot, Gold Villar-Lim

Set at a provincial hospital in the middle of the COVID epidemic, a doctor and two nurses must make a choice on which lives to save when the supply of oxygen tanks run out. Exhausted, drained physically and emotionally, the trio must make an impossible decision as the means for sustaining the lives of their patients have become limited. While they devise a plan, one of the patient’s guardian has taken notice and a debate about who gets to live, and die erupts.

Pagkapit sa Hangin | Photo: Chari Villegas

Dressed in PPE, Espano, Nagales and Mabalot imbibe the tiredness of their characters. They are too tired to hope, to think clearly. You can see it in their gait, their posture, their line delivery. They are running on adrenaline. It’s wonderful if it weren’t so real and even if the pandemic is just two and a half years behind us, it’s still too soon. It immediately grants this production weight. As things start to unravel, the play unfolds the human drama of having to make a decision on who gets to survive. It’s riveting. Estrella’s direction keeps the energy flowing as the tension rises when Villar-Lim’s guardian begins to undermine the medical team’s decisions as it directly affects her father, who is least likely to survive his current condition.

At 30 minutes, the play feels like a lifetime. Joshua Lim So’s script makes no judgment on his characters but manages to show each one at their breaking point. The play doesn’t provide an answer but shows us what we are made of when were forced to make impossible decisions. It felt like I was holding my breath the entire run of the show.

Sa Babaeng Lahat

Written by Elise Santos
Directed by Caisa Borromeo
Cast: Jam Binay, Francesca Dela Cruz, Yanni Lopez

Sa Babaeng Lahat | Photo: Dulcinea Zulueta

A hilarious coming-of-age story set in an all-girl’s Catholic high school, ‘Sa Babaeng Lahat’ is a brilliant exploration of young girl’s navigating their faith and sexuality as they are hit by puberty. The religious, sheltered Marie believes she is pregnant with God’s child, the next Immaculate Conception, while her best friend Regina struggles with her feelings with the school’s resident tomboy, Gab, who actively flirts with her.

Sa Babaeng Lahat | Photo: Dulcinea Zulueta

Wonderfully directed by Borromeo, she allows Binay, Dela Cruz, and Lopez to really explore their characters and embody the highs and lows of young girls turning into young women. Jam Binay’s Marie could easily fall into a trap of the conservative idiot, but she infuses Marie with so much sincerity and charm that we see that she’s a victim of being misinformed or not properly educated at all. She’s not naive for comic’s sake but it’s coming from a deep-seated issue that is still prevalent until now. Yanni Lopez’s Gab is so fully realized that she comes off as authentic and true.

Sa Babaeng Lahat | Photo: Dulcinea Zulueta

And while all three are amazing and show off great chemistry with each other, this play is Francesca Dela Cruz’s through and through. Her Regina is a force of nature. She’s acerbic, mean, prickly but Dela Cruz has so much charisma that we can see that it’s all a facade, hiding something deeper within. While all three show impeccable comedic timing, Dela Cruz takes Regina and runs away with it turning her into a whirlwind that has the whole audience in stitches. It’s a powerful display of a great stage presence without making it look like a performance. Borromeo did a wonderful job at directing them that the comedy flows, the chemistry works, and the issues about shame, faith, youthful desires, and queer acceptance doesn’t get lost amongst the laughs.

My Rating:

VIRGIN LABFEST XX: HINOG is ongoing until June 29, 2025, at the Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez (CCP Black Box Theater). Festival passes are available at the CCP Box Office, or you can get your tickets through TicketWorld and Ticket2Me.

June 21, 2025
Theater Review: What the World Could Be Like: A Review of ‘Come From Away’

Despite its massive success on both Broadway and the West End, I never really took notice of ‘Come From Away’ before. As an old-school musical fan, I’m always cautious and wary of new musicals because I fear I won’t like them. But every new musical I’ve seen has proved me wrong, from ‘Waitress’ to ‘Hamilton’ to ‘Six’. There’s a special kind of joy in stepping into a theater to watch a musical you know nothing about. The whole experience feels amplified, and the emotions hit even harder.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by GMG Productions (@gmg.productions)

Coming into the Samsung Performing Arts Theater on the show’s opening night, I saw the floors leading up to the theater filled with background information about the play and realized that ‘Come From Away’ is a play about September 11. I felt a little fear. My anti-West mindset started to get the better of me and I thought this was going to be another story about American resiliency or something equally overplayed. I stopped reading the boards, got to my seat, and psyched myself up for the show, which I knew had a great cast at the very least.

I was immediately taken in from the opening number. ‘Come From Away’ is a 9/11 story, but it tells the story of a Newfoundland town called Gander. It had the largest international airport back when planes didn’t have enough fuel to cross the Atlantic. Airplanes would land there to refuel before continuing their journey, but by the 2000s, it was practically empty. Planes just flew over it. But not on that day. Thirty-eight planes were redirected to land in Gander, bringing over 7,000 passengers to a town with a population of just 9,000. The musical is a retelling of these events, based on interviews with both the passengers and the townsfolk, and it captures the six days when 7,000 people were treated with kindness and generosity in a world that had just been shaken to its core by the horrific events of that day.

The cast of 14 all play dual roles. By putting on a jacket, a hat, or an apron, they shift characters from one of the townsfolk to a passenger, changing accents and internalizing either the stress of being hospitable while the town and its neighbors struggle with limited resources due to the sudden arrival of 7,000 people, or the mindset of someone who suddenly cannot return home, finding themselves in a strange place, surrounded by strangers, with no idea what is going on.

Some characters really stand out on stage, like Carla Guevarra Laforteza’s Hannah, one of the passengers whose son is a first responder in New York, and Garrett Bolden’s Bob, a Black passenger who finds himself suspicious of Newfoundland’s lack of racism. For the first time, he is being treated like everybody else, and this confounds him. Topper Fabregas does an exemplary job playing Kevin, a gay man who is struggling to adjust to his new surroundings, as well as Ali, a Middle Eastern man who everyone is afraid of. As Kevin, Fabregas gets the most laughs, but as Ali, he earns the most sympathy.

Directed by Michael Williams, the cast keeps the stage alive and busy, shifting between characters as they change costumes and weave in and out of the story. We see couples fall apart, others fall in love, a pilot reflect on how the catastrophe has changed everything about the airline industry, two women bond over their shared love for their sons who happen to have the same job, a woman go above and beyond by even thinking of the animals, and so much more.

There is so much happening, but what resonates throughout the show is the depth of humanity in this moment. The way the people of Gander and the neighboring towns come together, setting aside their differences to ensure that their guests feel welcome and cared for, is powerful. It is one of the most human experiences I have ever witnessed while watching a play. The songs, written by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, can be bold, fun, and energetic, but they also know when to turn quiet and introspective. In one song, several characters ask to pray. Since the guests come from different faiths, they sing all their prayers in a musical blend that reveals a beautiful truth: all prayers share the same essence, and we are as alike as we are different.

The choreography by Delphine Buencamino is vibrant and dynamic, and Kayla Teodoro’s stage design is intriguing, keeping the focus on center stage where the actors make everything come to life. It is such a powerful piece that, for its approximately 90+ minute runtime (with no intermission), you are completely immersed in that world. By the end of the show, I was holding back my tears.

It is incredible how a theatrical performance can make me wish the world were more like this. As the crowds exited after the curtain call, people were talking about how closely this resembles Filipino hospitality. The world is currently a mess, and a show like this, based on actual events and interviews with the people who lived through it, reminds us that it really does not take much to be kind, generous, and grateful for one another. I am so glad I caught this show.

My Rating:

Experience this unforgettable story live on stage. Catch Come From Away before it takes its final bow! The show is now playing at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater until June 29. Book your tickets now on TicketWorld!

June 14, 2025
Theater Review: More a Mood and a Vibe Than a Story, Barefoot’s We Aren’t Kids Anymore Is a Showcase of Our Talented Actors of the Stage

Completely sung-through, ‘We Aren’t Kids Anymore’ by Drew Gasparini is more of a patchwork quilt of a play, exploring the feelings of doubt and uncertainty that comes with growing up. There’s a very loose narrative hare, implied upon by the quiet moments between songs as the five players interact with each other without dialogue, as directed by Rem Zamora. These interactions between the actors suggests relationships and histories that are never quite explored and so it leaves a lot to the imagination. What we get, instead, is a musical that puts to song the hopes and dreams and fears and anxieties of people who are no longer children, who are facing the realities of adulting, and wondering if they are who they wanted to be.

Barefoot Theatre Collaborative puts together five incredible performers – Myke Salomon, Maronne Cruz, Gio Gahol, Luigi Quesada, and the incredible Gab Pangilinan – to play these characters that can be us or people we know. They sing songs of heartbreak, of living on the edge, of reaching rock bottom, or of reconciling one’s youth to try and make sense with where they are going. Written by Drew Gasparini and featuring a poem by Keith White, ‘We Aren’t Kids Anymore’ is less a story than it is a mood, a moment of interrogation, and sometimes, it’s a declaration.

Photo by CJ Ochoa

The stage is set in the round, with the audience on all four corners of the PowerMac Center Spotlight Blackbox theater. At the center is an elevated stage with a pit in the middle for the band. The stage is cordoned off by a bench that surrounds all sides. Each player comes up, does their quiet interactions hinting at connections, before jumping into songs. The lack of a clear narrative can be jarring, especially if you are unaware of the play’s structure like I was, and you are looking for hints of a story and it wasn’t until the third song that I realized there wasn’t one.

Photo by CJ Ochoa

This is actually a tricky play to perform because each player has got to sing each song and create a character for that song and imbue it with history and a future in the span of the opening verse to the end note. It was extremely difficult for Luigi Quesada who sang the hell out of his solo, but the song is a torch song about love and it felt like a song that would be sung after a lot of stories has already happened. We don’t have access to that story so Quesada is singing his heart out, but the story was missing. But Quesada gets to recite the poem by Keith White that helps frame the whole play and sings the stirring showstopper.

Photo by CJ Ochoa

Myke Salomon had the role where his character was singing songs about other people – mostly family – and so it was in the storytelling form. He was creating the story for us to follow. Cruz had the character with the most radio friendly songs, in my opinion. She has so much personality and verve as an actress that these were easily some of my favorite parts. But that ones who really managed to instill a story in their moments were Gio Gahol, who has a stirring song about hitting rock bottom, and Gab Pangilinan, who filled up the whole PowerMac Center Spotlight that evening but made each song feel like the stand-alone story that it is.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Barefoot Theatre Collaborative (@barefootcollab)

We have such incredible and talented actors in the theater world and these five are wonderful examples of that. With barely a narrative to hold things together, their interactions are authentic and honest, though opaque, and the way that they harmonize through the songs creates a complete picture.

Photo by Kyle Venturillo

As a person who comes into a play looking for a story to chew on, I feel like I’m wanting more, but I was very much full of the incredible performances of these hard-hitting songs. As someone who is going through something right now, on a personal level, this show is a bit of a big group hug that tells us we aren’t alone. If you’re feeling lost, unsure of your path, unsure of the choices you’ve made leading up to the today, Barefoot’s ‘We Aren’t Kids Anymore’ will help you feel like you’re not alone.

My Rating:

Experience the emotional journey of We Aren’t Kids Anymore at the PMCS Blackbox Theater until May 25, 2025. Buy tickets now at Barefoot Theatre Collaborative.

May 4, 2025
Theatre Review — Ibsen Made Familiar with ‘In The Eyes of the People’

I’m not that familiar with the Norwegian playwright and “the father of modern drama” other than having read ‘A Doll’s House’ back in college. So coming into CAST’s staging of an adaptation of his ‘An Enemy of the People’ was refreshing as I had nothing to compare it with. The adaptation, written and directed for the stage by Nelsito Gomez takes on the title ‘In the Eyes of the People’ and Gomez brings a heart serving of Filipino-ness in his reworking of the play. Set in modern times in the fictional Visayan town of Sta Christina, the play is a battleground for truth, politics, science, and the good of the people.

The play opens with a press conference about the grand opening of a hot spring resort in the town of Sta Christina. It is the project of Mayor Peter Lopez (Ron Capinding), who hopes the resort will make the town a tourist destination that would “rival Boracay” and brings thousands of jobs and tourism money to his small town. He invites his sister, Dr. Tricia Lopez-Ramos (Jenny Jamora), to talk about the benefits of the hot springs as she is the head scientist in charge of the project. From the get-go, we can see that the mayor is charming and has a way with words while Tricia isn’t comfortable in the spotlight but the brother-sister tandem is resolute that this project would be good for the town until Tricia discovers there’s an unknown bacteria growing in the waters and as she calls on her brother to delay the opening to ensure the safety of the people, Peter weights in on the loss of income and jobs that a delay would cause. Complicating the issue is Triccia’s daughter, Pauline (Jam Binay), who works in a local paper with her boyfriend Enzo (Zoe De Ocampo), who are deadset in revealing the truth. Rounding up the cast are Nor Domingo as Triccia’s husband Alvin and Katskie Flores as Ruby Ganpon, Peter’s competition for mayor in the upcoming election.

Photos Courtesy of Nicole Chua

The play is practically a face-off between brother and sister as they weight in on what is truly good for the people. The jobs and economic security versus their health over a bacteria that may or may not be the cause of the sickness a young girl has caught after swimming in the hot springs. The younger members of the play, Pauline and Enzo, represent a tug-of-war between the ethics of responsible journalism while Alvin is the bystander who wants none of the trouble.

Photos Courtesy of Nicole Chua

Photos Courtesy of Nicole Chua

What’s amazing about this staging and the writing of the adaptation is how real this whole play feels. The relationship of brother and sister complicates the arguments and the filial ties being torn up by this debate is what makes this show so remarkable. There’s an added layer of the Visayan-ness of the characters. At some point, the dialogue shifts for a brief moment to Bisaya when Ruby and Triccia share some words about the issue and it strikes home. The way the play figures in politics, greed, and ignorance plays so close to the hilt in some real-world issues that are troubling us today.

Photos Courtesy of Nicole Chua

As someone whose family is from the Visayas, there’s aspects of the characterizations that feels so real to me. The stars of the show, Jamora and Capinding, are what sells this fiction and presents it as a relevant allegory for our time. Jamora’s Triccia is such a great example of an educated Visayan woman (in the play, she’s finished her PhD in Harvard), learned and unaware of her own power. This is amplified by the way she deals with her brother. Capinding’s Peter is a pitch perfect portrayal of the grounded, jolly Visayan man who grew up with money but downplays it as he tries to portray himself as an everyman. There’s a posture and a sway about him that reminds me a lot of people that I know from Bacolod. Jamora and Capinding’s performances are so visceral and authentic that they completely take full command of that stage. It’s electrifying to see them at work and because the Mirror Studios is such small, intimate performance space, you see everything up close. The two never miss a beat.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @togethermanila (@togethermanila)

The play teeters into the milieu of upper class problems, with all the characters so highly educated and sophisticated, but it is completely tempered by the arrival of Ruby Ganpon. Katskie Flores is a force of nature as she delivers a powerful take down that grounds the play and reminds us about the people who are not so privileged and who are the ones whose lives are really at stake. This exchange can sometimes feel pedantic and a little on-the-nose but the message is so necessary, especially in these times when everyone is out just for themselves and not thinking about society as a whole.

Photos Courtesy of Nicole Chua

The stage design is simple, with the characters coming in to change the set and furniture to move into a new scene but the narrative is supported by the backdrop turning into a full on projector screen. The projection designs by GA Fallarme helps situate us in each moment – the press conference, a public debate, and the outside world in the form of social media content – the simplicity of the set allows for the projections to fill in the gaps to amplify the spectacle of this battle of wits.

It’s fast-paced and funny but ‘In the Eyes of the People’ is also through-provoking and leads us into a call to action. I’m mostly amazed at how Fiipino this production is originating from an Ibsen play.

‘In the Eyes of the People’ is down to its last weekend at the Mirror Studios.

My Rating:

In The Eyes of the People will run until May 4, 2025 at The Mirror Theatre Studio. Get your tickets here.

May 3, 2025
Theater Review – ‘Niyebe: Isang Experimental Na Musikal’ Finds Its Footing with the Strength of Its Two Leads

Dudz Terana’s and Vince Lim’s musical adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s short story, ‘The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow’ called ‘Niyebe: Isang Experimental Na Musikal’ is running until March 27 at the FEU Center for the Arts Studio. Dubbed as an “experimental musical,” the play is a wonderful showcase for the blossoming talent of the Far Eastern University Theater Guild (FTG) and their incredible range of singers who masterfully bring to life the beautiful songs of the play.

Taking much from the source material, ‘Niyebe: Isang Musikal’ tells the story of the Colombian couple, Billy and Nena, who fall in love, get married, and in their honeymoon, travel to Spain and then to Paris where a tragedy befalls them.

Nena suffers a cut from a thorn of a rose and, very much like the magical realism of Latin American literature, the wound never heals, and Nena is taken to a hospital in Paris where Billy is left outside to wait for news as the visitation hours in the hospital are only once a week. Alone, in Paris, Billy suffers alone while waiting for news of his ailing wife.

As a short story, it’s an easy read, but in a play, Terana (who wrote the book and the lyrics and directed this staging) expands the world to fully detail the couple’s childhood, which include the Colombian conflict in 1964. The play is experimental as the story is told in a non-linear manner. Even with a narrator, the narrative jumps from their childhood to Billy waiting for news in the streets of Paris, jumping again to when Billy and Nena are falling in love while in school and so on and so forth. It goes beyond just a storytelling effect when, in one scene, the younger versions of Nena and Billy have conversations with the older versions of themselves: a four-way conversation between what is essentially just two people. It’s moment like this, in the play, when the brilliance of the material’s theatricality really captures the audience’s interest.

The music, in of itself, is wonderful and melodic. The play is almost completely sung through, with a few parts for dialogue. Luckily, the whole cast are excellent singers – not just the three leads – but an exciting ensemble who enter and exit as various individuals within the story all building a fully-fleshed out world while providing set changes, bringing in and out of props, and creating the clamor needed for certain scenes. There’s a lot of good happening here.

On the other hand, while everyone are such good singers, there’s a need to sharpen their movement quality. A number of them need to learn to finish their extensions, while some need to pin down their timing. Some need to put intention and story behind every movement. There’s quite a number of dancing here, excellent choreography by Carlon Matobato, but some understand the intention while others are just doing steps. And while a lot of them are fully committed to their roles, the fact that the characters and the milieu is Colombian and the themes are in the realm of the existential, there are times when the performers sometimes does not quite capture the nuance of the moment. But this is an issue of maturity. What they can process from their own experience is enough to capture the moment. It’s going to be very interesting to see them grow more as artists when they gain more experience and a larger worldview.

But what really grounds the work and makes it incredibly enjoyable is the power and charisma of its two leads – Dave Bambang and Kesiah Aritao as Billy and Nena, respectively – who are not just magnetic performers but incredibly talented singers. As they navigate the demands of their songs, they infuse with a lot of passion and emotions that the play feels connected by the bond they create for their characters. You might get lost with the non-linear narrative storytelling, but Bambang and Aritao anchors it in their love story. These two have such a strong presence that it keeps you rooted and can stop the play from falling out of orbit.

There’s a roughness to the FTG’s production of ‘Niyebe: Isang Experimental Na Musikal’ that also gives it its charm but what the show really showcases are the gorgeous songs of this musical and the powerful voices of the FEU Theater Guild.

My Rating:

Niyebe: Isang Experimental Na Musikal will run until March 27, 2025 at FEU Center for the Arts(FCA) Studio, Ground Floor, Engineering Bldg., FEU Manila. Get your tickets at here.

March 10, 2025