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.
