MANILA, Philippines – Chuck the black dress or that dinner jacket. To watch this play, you’re going to look for an Uncle John’s along Kalayaan Avenue, just before the corner of P. Burgos.
No velvet-clad staircase leads to this theater – a slow, rather cramped elevator will take you right to the stage door. And there isn’t a stage to speak of, save for the floor you will share with the stars of the show.
A theater group called C.A.S.T. PH is staging Pulitzer Prize winner Rajiv Joseph’s “Gruesome Playground Injuries” at the Mirror Studio Theater in Poblacion, Makati, from November 22 to December 1. Nelsito Gomez directs and Farley Asuncion plays live music on the piano.
C.A.S.T. stands for “Company of Actors in Streamlined Theatre” and, certainly on this production, they live up to that name.
The set is an arena of benches – demarcating a metaphorical playground – and a wall of mirrors. Yes, you’re in a dance studio moonlighting as an amphitheater, several floors above that Uncle John’s. There isn’t even a backstage, so all the costumes and props are laid out on the benches.
You’re watching two actors play two characters over a span of 30 years. You meet them when they’re 8, and then after every 5 years until they’re 38, not in chronological order.
Doug, played by Topper Fabregas, is morbidly accident prone. Kayleen, played by Missy Maramara, has a history of self-harm. (You are given trigger warnings at the door.) You never know whether they’re about to kiss or kill each other.
It’s yet another portrayal of the battle of the sexes, but its value-add is that you’ll watch this rather hesitant love story through the lens of pain.
“How much pain can you endure for love?,” asks the pubmat for Fabregas’ character.
“How much pain will it take until you feel loved?,” asks the one for Maramara’s.
The story explores those questions and, as does every compelling piece of drama, involves the audience in deciding the answers.
Clik here to view.
Its proposition – that love and pain are conjoined twins – makes you think about your own standards. Your boundaries and limits. You wonder: What does it take to confirm love? And why does love, no matter how earnest or valiant, not necessarily beget love?
Without revealing too much: Doug is free-spirited – reckless – and ergo charming to shy, guarded Kayleen. Kayleen has the effect of anchoring Doug – he believes she is the healer of his incessant injuries – but she wouldn’t hold on to him. Doug fascinates Kayleen, and she seems always on the verge of falling in love with him.
You watch all this and you think: “Will they ever get there?”
Beyond the plot, the wonder in watching this deconstructed play in this unassuming building in party town Poblacion is it arouses the imagination. Its improvisational treatment gives the mind a lot to chew on, and makes for satisfying evening entertainment.
You find that, perhaps surprisingly, the mind is eager to deliver what the staging only suggests, such as the gloom of a hospital room or the chill of a park in winter, because the characters are real and compelling.
You’re just watching two actors talk and rumble in a small arena of benches, and yet by the end, you feel the searing pain of 30 years’ worth of gruesome playground injuries.
It’s the kind of experience that warrants long conversations over beer or coffee. And then you’re grateful you’re in Poblacion and not the CCP Complex. – Rappler.com
Get tickets to C.A.S.T. PH’s Gruesome Playground Injuries here.