From the moment you take your seats at the IBG-KAL Theater in UP Diliman, you will be intrigued by the stage design for Ang Kaliitan ng Kasalukuyan. Aaron Misayah’s scene design features an impressively large white ramp that serves as a traverse stage, with the audience seated on opposite sides. One colleague described it as a skateboard ramp and my first impression was that of a water slide. Later, I’d realise that my first impression rang true but more on that later. At the very end of the stage are seats that were meant to resemble a waiting area in an airport. Some cast members are already seated, in costume, waiting, as the audience trickles in. Hanging above is a tiled platform that opens up to bring down certain set design elements like a door. The amount of stage elements were actually quite commendable except that as the play unfolds, there’s just too much that it starts to feel comical.
Written and directed by Dulaang UP’s new artistic director, Palanca winner Arlo De Guzman, Ang Kaliitan ng Kasalukuyan explores the story about OFW experience. Lead by Sandino Martin (playing Bulan), an OFW working in Dubai and the son of two former OFWs. In the first act, Bulan returns home and is surrounded (maybe even suffocated) by the love of his family who hail him as a hero. They rely on him for his remittances to help the family build a home and a business. As Bulan interacts with family members and old friends in his hometown, he longs to be able to return for good. But in the second act, he returns to Dubai and struggles with the burden of responsibility. He does not want this life that was handed down to him by his parents, he wants to break free from the Filipino custom that the child must repay the sacrifice of the parents.
There’s a whole lot of theater going on in Ang Kaliitan ng Kasalakuyan that both the play and performances are weighed down by all the stagecraft involved. The first act has a chorus, cast members all in white, narrating the story, providing the exposition before exiting and returning as other characters. This chorus does not return until the finale when they come back to moralize against Bulan’s own interrogation about his family obligations. There’s puppetry, a story told to Bulan as a child by his grandmother and the younger Bulan is portrayed as a puppet.
Later, in act two, another puppet appears, a sort of like “Jiminy Cricket” character in Disney’s “Pinocchio,” who is about a foot and a half high and sits on Bulan’s shoulder and gives him someone to vent and rant to. As Bulan is picked up from the airport by his father, the cast members go on a ride on chairs meant to look like a car but a remote-control car precedes them. It’s a theatrical element that is used for only two minutes and does nothing really but distract us from the conversation Bulan has with his family. Later, a huge puppet made, the size of a truck maybe, with arms that grasps Bulan as a symbol of the Middle East’s hold over him. And the water slide design of the stage? At some point, water begins to flow, turning the stage into a little creek.
Also, it’s sort of a musical with three or four songs sung in the first act and then no more in the second act until the finale.
Aside from the remote-control car, all the theatrical devices are actually quite impressive if they were not mashed up together in one play that never really feels cohesive. A lot of the inner world of the characters are said out loud, giving nothing for the audience to stew on. The play, as written, feels so literal that the theatrical devices feel utilized to make the play seem more like a play than a weekend television movie. It’s because of how on-the-nose the writing is that I can’t really comment on the performances because there was no real subtext for the actors to really play out. The way the play was written, what you see and hear is exactly what you get. And these are OFW stories that are familiar to us; we have a lot of this already in film and television and in theater. The big theatrical devices made the play seem bigger but not necessarily weightier or meatier.
And all throughout the second act, we are presented with Bulan’s struggle. How his identity has been stripped away by family obligations, trapped in a foreign land that discriminates against him, away from home. Yet, the final song is a big, epic song that talks about how OFWs will continue to sacrifice their own happiness for their loved ones, for their country. These two ideological principles never feel settled by the play, and I left the IBG-KAL Theater a little perplexed rather than inspired.
My Rating: 2 Stars
While its run concluded in March, follow Dulaang UP‘s official social media channels to stay updated on future productions and the continued evolution of Philippine university theater.
