Ateneo Blue Rep’s ‘Toilet the Musical’ is not about toilet humor

In the toilet, it's no-holds-barred—for secrets, that is. Whether it's something as mundane as a hidden singing talent or the lurid details of a scandal, you can be sure that a toilet's walls have seen (and heard) them all.

 

In fact, that is exactly why director Ejay Yatco—fresh from the World Championship of the Performing Arts with one gold and three silver medals—finds the toilet so interesting.

 

“It's basically a public place where you do very private things,” he said at the “Toilet the Musical” press conference at Ateneo de Manila University last January. “It kind of connects us all—because that's all part of the theme, we all have to go to the bathroom to do our thing.” 

 

“Toilet” is an original musical by Yatco, who wrote down random lyrics in his sophomore year at Ateneo, and these are “Always, the hallways / close in on me / worries and fears / I can't let them see / Just hold it in / put on that smile / and just wait / just wait a while.”

 

Then, one week in 2012, inspiration overtook both his eating and sleeping habits. From that week came 11 full-blown, seemingly unrelated songs. Yatco asked co-director Bym Buhain and lights designer Miyo Sta. Maria to help him make a story out of them.

 

Yatco stated that the production was an off-Broadway, underground sort of affair, and that he hoped someone would take interest and stage it.

 

A high school dramedy

 

To be staged by Blue Repertory in February, “Toilet” tells of eight teenagers on the cusp of their high school graduation. All of them were suspected of vandalizing a certain toilet with a suicide note, as found by the school janitor. Yatco phrased it as the bathroom serving as a confession room for eight different characters with different stories, all loosely-based on people he met in his life.

 

“This show is about masks and people pretending to be something they're not,” explained Yatco.

 

“People think this show is about a comedy, toilet humor,” Yatco added. “Now there are some fun parts, but this show is actually what I'd like to call a dramedy. It has fun parts, but it also ends in a tragedy.”

 

Indeed, the show is so dark and heavy in tone that the cast (alumni, current students, and even one high school student) admitted that between rehearsals, they looked at cute pictures of animals on the Internet to lift their spirits. The directors also made sure that they had fun while working with the sad material.

 

When asked why the characters were placed in a high school situation, Buhain explained that “the psychological issues fell in the high school bracket, though some overlap with college. We wanted to stay true to those issues.”

 

Rollicking, sobering music

 

It seems that “Toilet” has a song for all teenage issues, be it the fantasy of confessing one's love in “I Do” or the marriage between jazz and the opening strains of Beethoven's fifth symphony that clearly captures the rhythm of being in the “Friendzone.” Rocking electric guitars and a melancholy piano tune accompany the lyrics to “Nobody Knows,” a song about secrets.

 

But the songs are not only creative; they're brimming with emotion. The climax song, “Darkness I Find,” is intense and despairing, while “Take Me to the Sky” is a slower solo about wanting to run away from inner demons.

 

Opening song “Just Wait a While” contains the lyrics that Yatco first wrote down in college. Finally, finale “No Ending” is about life's gray areas, but it also encourages the audience to choose life.

 

Best of all, these songs are guaranteed to stay in your head for a long time. They're free for listening on the musical's Facebook page.

 

Ateneo Blue Repertory's “Toilet the Musical” will run from February 12 to March 1 at the Gonzaga Exhibit Hall of Ateneo de Manila University. For ticket inquiries and reservations, call (0917) 878-2239. —KG, GMA News