VIRGIN LABFEST 19: Set B - Bingit

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SENTENARYO - Lolo Dencio (Ekis Gimenez) has reached a milestone in life as he celebrates his 100th birthday. His mistress-turned-wife Tonette (Gold Soon) welcomes his eldest grandson Joel (Chunchi Cabasaan) and eldest daughter Carmen (Madeleine Nicolas) for a mini celebration. All of them have a hidden agenda, though, being fully aware of a new law providing a 100,000-peso cash incentive to new centenarians. As they quarrel over who should be getting a bigger share of the money, they almost fail to notice that the old man has seemingly passed away in his sleep, putting the cash they are wildly anticipating in jeopardy.

Slapstick is the best term to describe SENTENARYO, from the sound effects to the physical comedy involved, all that was missing was a laugh track. The interesting thing is how it actually came across as funny watching it live. Perhaps it has something to do with the communal reaction in the theater, although those actors deserve a big kudos for pulling this off which, I believe, was a big gamble considering how this style of comedy has been more or less passé for quite some time now. I enjoyed it, and based on the audience reaction I’m sure they did, too. Let’s see if it makes it to the Revisited set next year.

VIRGIN LABFEST 19: Set A - Dilema

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VENGEANCE OF THE GODS - Ifan (Jel Tarun) is a lawyer on a mission to convince a superstitious old man to testify against the owner of the company he is working for that is guilty for polluting the town’s sources of water. Despite his child being one of the victims and almost succumbing to death, Manong Odie (Jonathan Tadioan) won’t hear any of it because aside from the belief that what happened to his kid was a case of paranormal possession, he also doesn’t want to bite the hands that feed him. What follows is a long discussion of what really happened, seen from both the perspective of science and religion.

The philosophical entry. One of these always ends up at the Virgin Labfest and this is where your ears have to work overtime because the essence of the narrative is all in the dialogue. While overtly religious and superstitious people annoy the heck out of me, somehow I am getting closer to a conclusion that despite the advances in knowledge made available to society as it progresses, there will always be those who will choose to rely on faith as a way of coping with life. Perhaps nothing is wrong with that, until it overlaps with a non-believer’s beliefs that are grounded on law and science. This play had me thinking profoundly. Amen.

Dubliners

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A recently deceased priest’s indiscretion is discussed by people at his wake. Two boys skipping classes meet a middle-aged man who teaches them a thing or two about life. A staunch supporter of the Irish Revival gets her daughter involved as an accompanist at a badly-planned concert. An alcoholic falls down the stairs at a bar in drunken stupor; his family suggests a religious retreat. A failed writer gets a visit from his friend who has succeeded in the field in London. A young woman contemplates on what life would be if she ran away with a sailor. These are some of the many stories found in James Joyce’s Dubliners, which has been hailed as a milestone in Irish literary history at a time when the country was in the midst of a fierce quest for a distinct identity stoked by nationalism.

A Quiet Place: Day One

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Samira (Lupita Nyong’o), a poet, is dying of cancer. She chooses to deal with the challenges of her condition through wit and sarcasm, keeping a notebook handy to record her thoughts. Reuben (Alex Wolff), a care worker at the hospice, takes the patients on a trip to the city to watch a marionette show, which Samira reluctantly agrees to in exchange for a promise of pizza. The promise is no longer fulfilled as they all find themselves amidst an alien invasion, with dead bodies piling up everywhere. The extraterrestrials are very sensitive to sound, and so silence is key to survival. They shelter along with other survivors at the theater. When helicopters announce that people are being evacuated to the islands, everybody heads to the port but many are fatally ambushed along the way. Samira runs into a distressed Eric (Joseph Quinn), a British law student suffering from severe anxiety attacks. Will they survive?

Gone Girl

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Nick and Amy Dunne are both laid off from their jobs in New York City and are forced to move back to his hometown in Missouri where they trade their fast-paced life in the Big Apple for a slower flow of existence in the Midwest. Nick’s mom is sick with cancer and his dad is always causing trouble at the care home. To make matters worse, Amy’s parents are forced by circumstance to borrow from the trust fund they have given their daughter, which happens to be the couple’s last money. Coming back home one day from the bar he is managing with his twin sister Margo, Nick finds his front door wide open and his living room in disarray. Amy is missing, and the angle the police are exploring is that of kidnapping. However, as more evidence and testimonies come to fore, Nick slowly figures as the main suspect in what could be his wife’s murder.

VIRGIN LABFEST 19: Set E - Sagad

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DOMINADOR GONZALES: NATIONAL ARTIST - There are rumors that this year’s National Artist Award will be given to Dominador Gonzales (Joel Saracho), who could be the first openly homosexual recipient should all the gossip turn into reality. He is visited by his former student and mentee Oliver (Bong Cabrera), a flamboyantly gay writer who has left his craft to stagnate, trading it off with a BPO job that guarantees fixed monthly income. Hearing about his mentor’s impending award, he intends to use their relationship so he could go back to the limelight. Unfortunately, “Dmon” has other plans.

New to the Virgin Labfest? Always choose Set E. This is a set of three plays that were the best and most popular from the previous year, meaning these are basically reruns. One can easily see how DOMINADOR GONZALES: NATIONAL ARTIST fits the mold. Expect a lot of laughs via self-deprecation and snappy comebacks when you have a gay storyline. This play guarantees that and also manages to tackle ever relevant topics in the LGBTQ community, particularly in the Philippines. A theme discussed that I really appreciate is divorcing the artist and the art which seems like a big issue lately, what with Cancel Culture and the like being ever so rampant nowadays.

VIRGIN LABFEST 19: Set D - Di-Tiyak

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SI HESUS NA’A SA US - Separated husband and wife head to the airport in his taxi to wait for the arrival of her boyfriend that will take her to America. Pregnant, Luna (Sheryll Ceasico) is excited to fly to Illinois not just to be with her boyfriend but also to look for her mother Corazon (Kiki Baento) who abandoned them when she was young. Navigating the traffic along EDSA, Marlon (Roi Calilong) pesters his wife with stories of their past. Some are happy memories while others are tragedies better left forgotten. Will they make it to the airport?

This one didn’t quite connect with me and if I were to rate it separately, I would’ve just given it a mere three stars. Most entries in the labfest are dialogue-heavy. The difference almost always lies in the diverse themes tackled and the backdrop that serves as a distraction. In terms of themes, what this play talks about are normal soap opera storylines that you could watch on TV at home for free. As for the distraction, they do have a skeleton of a taxi on the stage but that’s about it. Some quips were funny and the actors were great but I ended up bored. Maybe there just isn’t much to unpack as far as the plot is concerned.

I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change (Repertory Philippines)

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Do not expect a storyline because there isn’t any. I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change is a collection of vignettes poking fun at modern day relationships, leaving no stone unturned in lampooning everything from dating to sex to parenthood all the way to its culminating chapter hilariously named “Funerals Are For Dating” where two newly-widowed senile individuals take another chance at romance despite not remembering whose wake it is they are currently at. This musical is like watching a comedy show skit and since the brand of humor is right up my alley, I actually enjoyed the damn thing all throughout, perhaps thanks to all the sarcasm. Everything from the dialogues to the song lyrics are packed with some crass humor and common observations about relationships that you would not dare say out loud. Perhaps this is also one of the reasons why this musical ends up being funnier than it’s supposed to be.

VIRGIN LABFEST 19: Set C - PuTim

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PAGKAPIT SA HANGIN - Nurse A (Elora Espano), Nurse B (Wenah Nagales), and a Doctor (Timothy Mabalot) are trapped by their profession in a government hospital at the height of the COVID pandemic. Aside from the fatigue and lack of manpower, the trio are hounded by a dilemma which is a shortage of oxygen tanks that they must distribute equally to the 60 patients under their care. Not expecting any outside help, the three decide to select which patients have less chances of surviving, turning off their air supply. A Watcher (Gold Villar Lim), whose father is among those deprived of air, discovers the anomaly.

Most of us had the luxury of getting bored in our homes as our biggest dilemma during the pandemic, while others were not as lucky and ended up at crowded hospitals either as health workers or patients. Many of them died. PAGKAPIT SA HANGIN relives the horror and the drama at hospital halls that we’ve only ever heard about but never got to experience. It is harrowing. While deciding who has a good chance of survival seems like normal everyday occurrence in hospitals, the moral question of such a difficult decision, multiplied many times over during a pandemic, is just so unprecedented. The toll on mental health must have been traumatic.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

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A sprawling estate between the town and the highway, Blackwell Manor once had more than three occupants. The trio living there now are the survivors of a multiple murder during a night when their dinner was laced with arsenic. The primary suspect, found to be not guilty, was Constance Blackwood. Now 28 years old, she has become agoraphobic and never steps foot outside the house. All the grocery shopping is carried out by her 18-year-old sister Mary Katherine Blackwood, known to everyone as Merricat. Superstitious and deludedly so, she’s often picked on by the unsympathetic townspeople who have come up with their own urban legends about their wealthy and reclusive neighbors. Completing the trio is sickly Uncle Julian who had a taste of arsenic but managed to survive, albeit now confined to a wheelchair and forever trying to write a memoir of that fateful night. One day, a certain Charles Blackwood claiming to be a cousin knocks at their door, with his own ideas about what to do with the house and family fortune.

Goodbye to Berlin

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British writer Christopher Isherwood moves to Berlin at a time of shifting ideologies aligned with the quick rise to prominence of a political figure named Adolf Hitler. Berlin during the last days of the Weimar Republic is a portrait of a society in decay, holding on to the pleasures of a bygone era giving way to what will be a tumultuous phase of the country’s history. Dealing with penury and lack of motivation for his novellas, Christopher changes residences quite often and meets some colorful personalities along the way, among them: Sally Bowles, a flapper who possesses grand showbiz ambitions but without the talent to match; homosexual couple Otto Nowak and Peter Wilkinson, with whom he shares a flat at a Baltic Sea town; Natalie Landauer, a young Jewish woman who is among the many students that he is tutoring in English; and Fräulein Schneider, his German landlady. They navigate Berlin society as anti-Semitic sentiments are on the rise, paving the path for a grim and uncertain future.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

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Once again the New Year has come and King Arthur gathers his knights for merrymaking in Camelot. As they savor the festivities, a gigantic humanoid crashes the party on his horse, both rider and equine of a natural green color from head to toe. He wields a battle axe despite not wearing any armor and announces his arrival to everyone with the purpose of having some Christmas fun. What he has in store for them is a little holiday challenge, should someone come forward and prove to be strong enough for him. It involves hitting him with his own axe anywhere on his body, on the condition that whoever does so would agree to receive a retaliatory blow exactly a year and a day later. King Arthur prepares to take on the challenge, but his young nephew Sir Gawain asks to do it in his stead. He quickly beheads the Green Knight, after which the latter stands up, picks up his head, and bids him goodbye before reminding him of their meeting the following year.

Nightbitch

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MM is a stay-at-home mom whose daily routine is heavily focused on raising her son. Her husband is always away on business trips and seldom helps around when he finds himself at home with them. The mother has regrets about her domestic life given how she had a successful career as an artist before she got married and gave birth to her son. As pent up frustrations begin to surface, she notices strange changes happening to her body. Aside from the surplus of hair growing in unlikely places, her front teeth also start to resemble those of a canine. Is she literally transforming into a dog or are all these a hallucination of her tired brain? The plot thickens when she meets a trio of mothers in the community who, she swears, have visited her one night as a trio of dogs. Curious, she seeks answers in a book about magical women written by a certain Wanda White, to whom she decides to write emails to quell her curiosity.