Why Theater?

The recent writing challenge I accepted:

My take:

I can give you a hundred and one reasons why, but I will settle for only one—because theater is live. Take one; no buts or maybes; and all edits and ‘final cuts’ happen before the real or figurative curtain opens.

In our local entertainment scene where fans are widely engrossed in the hottest love teams, newest imported foreign dramas, and most anticipated Hollywood blockbusters—there is an art form that, unlike them, is raw in presentation but finely tuned in preparation.

If one sees a play on stage, he can form an opinion about the story, its characters, and other production elements as he sees them and before he leaves the theater. One doesn’t have the luxury of saying, “I don’t know how to feel about what I saw, I’ll probably just watch it again” or “I think tomorrow’s story would be better because the characters are likely to meet.”

Theater does not bargain for well-thought-out opinions. Like how it presents itself, it asks audiences to be true to their emotions as they feel it, wherever they are seated—to sing along to the chorus of “Basang-Basa sa Ulan,” from “Rak of Aegis” (PETA); to let tears flow for the suspended romance of the lead characters in “The Bridges of Madison County” (Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group/ATEG); to choose between the former lover and the new girlfriend fighting for one man in “Cock” (Red Turnip Theater); to be inspired by the nationalism of one of our (finest) political leaders in “Mabining Mandirigma” (Tanghalang Pilipino); and even to laugh and lust over the scantily clad performers in “50 Shades! The Musical Parody: Manila” (Vivre Fort Entertainment and 9 Works Theatrical). Theater asks audiences to indulge in their feelings with the house lights dimmed, popcorns totally unnecessary.

Not to undermine the contributions of cinema, television, and visual arts to the awakening of Filipino audiences, but theater has a strong, and most of the time liberated, interpretation of “what’s hot” (pop culture) and “what we forget,” “what we refuse to believe,” and “what we deny as a generation.” Think about the no-nonsense millennials who bannered the aptly titled “No Filter” (Sandbox Collective). It was well-received by members of the Gen X and Gen Y alike that it had to have a second run—as if we didn’t learn enough about this new breed’s personality from social media.

To say that going to the theater is a form of escape is not entirely wrong. We must, however, consider that it’s a more costly purchase than a cinema or gallery ticket or a free TV drama. When one goes to the theater and willingly pay for a price of PHP400 (at the cheapest), he’s looking for something he doesn’t usually see or hear in any other art form or mass media. He waives his entitlement to know any better, evidenced by his willingness to seat for an average of two hours and absorb all the talking, dancing, singing, crying, and moving in and around the stage.

And theater does not disappoint.

In theater, the ‘activist’ that you find annoying can talk to you closely and share why he grew up to be such a fearless, uncompromising man like Bart Guingona’s ‘Ned Weeks’ in “The Normal Heart” (Actor's Actors Inc./The Necessary Theater). The ‘lavish matriarch’ who denies her wealth’s depletion can take you back to her days in the province so you would reconsider your opinion about her, like what Cherrie Gil’s ‘Enriquetta Jardeleza-Sofronio’ accomplished in “Arbol de Fuego” (PETA).

When theater presents itself as a comedy, more often than not it is inspired by a dramatic reality. When the playbill tells you it’s a drama, you’ll find yourself laughing because of its fine resemblance to the world that we know actually exists. When it is a fantasy, don’t fool yourself—it’s grounded on real emotions just the same. And when they say that what you are watching is fiction—it’s only because you don’t know the real people that inspired the characters in it. Essentially, theater is not limited by labels. It may be considered as one genre only but you can see a hint of other genres if you look closely enough.

One may argue that the characters in theater move in one stage only—often rectangular—limiting the effects of the story to its audiences. Well, our world is finite and we move around it as far as we can, doing and discovering things as often as we can, as well. The real stage that we live in has its limits and as the actors of our own characters, there will be an inevitable moment when we take a bow and step back to let the curtains—real or imaginary—close.

That is life. Theater is life.