JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

After weeks of microwave sunshine and temperatures high enough to perm your hair, the weather has swung to another extreme: lashing rain and rough winds that set off car alarms. Flooding is expected.

Mike T mentioned that he is looking forward to walking his dog around the block tomorrow, assuming the storm exits the city. Apparently Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine begins tomorrow, and we can go out for exercise. Hmmm. I think I will stay home till June, ponder the meaning of modified-enhanced, and see what happens. The real test is on Monday when people head out for work with limited public transport.

I will continue keeping this journal until Modified-Enhanced is downgraded to Basic.

PETA’s Ang Buhay Ni Galileo (The Life of Galileo)
by Bertolt Brecht, translated by Alan Glinoga
Directed by Rody Vera

Galileo the great astronomer and physicist redefined earth’s (and thus humanity’s) place in the cosmos (not central as the Church decreed). He barely escaped torture and execution at the hands of the Inquisition, to live out his days under house arrest, but able to write. By refusing to be a martyr for science, he deprived us of a noble hero, but freed our minds. What good would it have done for him to burn at the stake like Giordano Bruno? Science was not his religion, but its opposite: he would not die for science, he would live for it.
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Dulaang UP’s Ang Dalagita Ay ‘Sang Bagay Na Di-Buo, an adaptation of Eimear McBride’s novel A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing, is intense and electric: theatre as a form of exorcism. You go in expecting a thoughtful entertainment for the age of #MeToo, and you leave with your soul purified in a cleansing flame. It upends all notions of what it is to be female in a world where casual brutality is normal and sexual violence a given, where everything that happens to you is supposed to be your own fault.

Dalagita is directed by Jose Estrella from Rody Vera’s Filipino translation of the adaptation by Annie Ryan. The adaptation is a marvel, following the novel’s stream of consciousness to put us inside the protagonist’s mind. We feel everything she’s feeling, and it is beautiful, ugly, hilarious, and harrowing. For one hour and fifty minutes, Skyzx Labastilla charges across the stage like a raw nerve as Dalagita from fetus to young womanhood, and as everyone Dalagita meets throughout her life. She contains multitudes, and all she needs is a stage and one chair. I don’t know how she does it, but I have to see it again.

I am in awe of everyone involved in this production. More. Alternating in the role of Dalagita are Missy Maramara, Opaline Santos and Hariette Damole (understudy).

Remaining playdates: March 7, 8, 9 at 7pm and March 10 and 11 at 10am and 3pm, at the Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero Theatre, 2/F Palma Hall, UP Diliman. For inquiries call Camille Guevara at 0917 823 9531 or the Dulaang UP office, 926 1348 0r 981 8500 local 2449. Help us spread the word in your social media accounts.

Sinapiang Koro (A Possessed Chorus)
by Deo Giga

Sa mga huling sandali ng pelikulang The Crucible, maaalalang may pagka-sentimentál ang tagpo sa pagitan nina John Proctor (Daniel Day-Lewis) at ang may-bahay nitong si Elizabeth Proctor (Joan Allen). O lubhang sentimentál nga naman; tila layunin lamang ng pelikula na magpaiyak. Natatandaan kong puspos ng luha at hinagpis at pagpapaalam ang mga saglit na iyon—ngunit hindi sa paraang malamhing o nakasusuya o walang-kabuluhang sentimiyento lamang. Humantong sa ganoon ang pelikula mula sa sali-salimuot at makahulugang mga tagpo. Hindi ito tearjerker lamang. At lalong hindi ito pantasyang tulad ng The Craft na tungkol sa kulam at salamangka. Naalala ko rin kung gaano ako napoot at mabilis na humusga sa tinawag ko noong kakitiran ng pag-iisip ng mga “kontrabida.”

Kasalukuyang itinatanghal sa CCP “Ang Pag-uusig,” isang pagsasalin ng dulang The Crucible ni Arthur Miller sa Tagalog. Nilayon ni Miller na magpatungkol ang dula sa mga kalagayang pulitikal noon, lalo na ang McCarthyism (ang pagpaparatang ng kaliluhan sa bansa na walang sapat na katibayan).

Ayon mismo sa kanya, malimit matanghal ang dula sa Latin America, “just before a dictatorship is about to take over—as a warning—and just after one has been overthrown, as a reminder (bago magsimula ang isang napipintong diktadurya—bilang babala—at pagkatapos maigupo ito, bilang paalala).”

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When Master Pieces—a sort of greatest hits compilation of works by Ballet Philippines—began, I settled in my seat for two hours of dutiful art appreciation. “Dutiful” in this sense can mean

A. Good for you, the way leafy green and yellow vegetables are good for you.

B. The responsibility of every cultured citizen.

C. Showing support for Filipino artists, who are acclaimed in other countries but are unrecognized at home.

D. All of the above.

The first piece, Farandole, set to music by Georges Bizet, confirmed my expectations. It was a showcase of grace and technical prowess, impressive, but largely indistinguishable from a performance by a good ballet company anywhere in the world. Which is probably where the dancers will end up, given the limited opportunities for professional ballet dancers in the Philippines. (Well, maybe not in Britain, where the result of the Brexit referendum backs up my suspicion that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Couldn’t the Queen do something, along the lines of, “We are taking back this country because you clearly don’t know what to do with it”? Excuse the digression.)

As far as I could tell the most Filipino thing about the opening piece, apart from the dancers’ nationality, was the set design: None. The dancers performed valiantly on a stage that announced the lack of a budget for set design. Granted, there was nothing to distract us from the beauty of human movement. The fact that Dance MNL the Philippine Dance Festival exists at all is the brave organizers’ declaration of faith in art over general indifference.

When the piece ended, I joined in the polite applause. “Polite applause” being

A. A tribute to the talent and discipline of the dancers.

B. A way of showing the other viewers that we are not philistines, or asleep.

C. “That’s nice, what else have you got?”

D. All of the above.

The next piece, Halik, choreographed by Paul Morales, was an excerpt from the ballet Crisostomo Ibarra. I did not know this at the time because I didn’t buy the programme. However, I could tell from the very expressive performers that it was an emotionally charged scene between two lovers saying goodbye. There was a sadness about the piece, a sense of wistfulness and regret. Maybe the evening was not going to be as dutiful as I thought.

It wasn’t. My sense of duty rapidly changed into relief that I was there to witness something that reached for greatness.

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WHAT A COMFORT it is after an intense and contentious election to hear a musical that makes you want to give standing ovations to the idea of nationhood. The hairs on my arms rose, there were icy sparks down my backbone, and an irresistible force propelled me out of my seat to applaud this work. And I was all alone in my room.

Good luck getting tickets to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, which apart from earning a MacArthur genius grant for its author has won a Pulitzer, a Grammy, Obie, and Drama Desk Awards, and is poised to win a truckload of Tonys. Hamilton has united two often opposing camps, the critics and the audience, with its rousing hip-hop treatment of American history. Until you manage to book your tickets, you’ll have to content yourself with listening to the original Broadway cast recording.

The subject of the play is Alexander Hamilton, the founding father who established the American financial system and is best known today as the face on the ten dollar bill. As a line from the show says: He doesn’t get enough credit for all the credit that he gave (them). I know little about American history, but I know who Hamilton is because I read a Justice League comic book in which he and his adversary Aaron Burr traveled through time and met Superman and company.

Continue reading The Binge, my column at BusinessWorld.

Listen to the original Broadway cast recording of Hamilton at Spotify.