Theater review: No tired State U love story

For how many times can you write about love in the State U? How many times can we reconfigure the love story, the boy-meets-girl-they-fall-in-love-then-fall-apart narrative, and not feel like we’re being taken for a ride on a road we know like the back of our hands? And when it is a smaller world being portrayed, within such a short time frame too, there is barely any time to breathe, so to speak, and it is easier to fall into the pits of the usual.

 

And then there’s the one-act play “Symposium.” And you become hopeful for the love story, romantic-comedies included. Because here the typical love story is turned on its head, not just because it plays up the funny in the cliché of opposites attract, but even more so because it allows for today’s Pinoy teenagers to unravel on stage and I mean that in a good way. 

 

That is, with nary an apology and thank goodness no moralizing. Even as the love story begins with the fact of a stolen umbrella, even as the kids here are cursing and smoking, having too much coffee. Even as the girl (Ji-Ann Lachica) is more forward than we’d like to accept of our daughters, and the boy (Lian Ross Pesigan) is too emotional for machismo’s comfort. Here we are being told, f*&^ you, deal with us, we exist. 

 

So babaeng bakla as the girl is, she’s allowed to take liberties with the mama’s boy who gets flustered by her presence. And yet this is no conventional torpe boy, because he is more emo boy, emotionally unavailable, obviously wary of love. The combination is strange for sure, but only about as strange as it can be to an outsider, those of us who are far from teenage lives, those who can only be looking in on these teenagers that have as context the State U. 

 

Which is crucial to this story’s telling, representative as these two kids can only be of the current landscape of teenagers and love that is in the State University, representative as they can only be of the kind of conversations and concerns that make up the lifeblood of the university. Here, the girl’s vernacular is one that’s half-gay-lingo, half-bungangera, all-confident and over to top. The boy understands what she’s saying but speaks quietly and with an amount of uncertainty, if not discomfort. His hands are tied to the pile of books he carries, his words are as measured as the weight of his feet. His crisis the loss of a mother, the girl’s her feistiness, if not later on her regret. 

 

The love story begins here, but also and only within the setting that is the U.P. Main Library, or more precisely, outside the U.P. Main Library. And that is to say that the story’s bigger than the limits of this space, where possibilities seem infinite, yet it is the random exchange that allow for the circumstance of love. Along with this setting is its manong guard (Jelson A. Bay) who is both Pilosopo Tasyo, if not conscience, who doesn’t moralize, and whose presence becomes a kind of anchor for the story’s evolution, the weather included. The manong guard is seamlessly part of the narrative, as an authority on the one hand, but as confidante on the other. The one who sees it all, knows it all, rarely listened to of course. 

 

It’s in this sense that this small space of the U.P. Main Library’s steps, and the bigger context that is the State U fuels creativity as it is what allows for a storytelling that’s enjoyable. “Symposium” utilizes the limits of its space and time well, literally and within the narrative, love story as it is. There is no moment onstage that seems useless, no moment that is stretched. In fact what it becomes is almost a parody of what might be in a conventional romantic-comedy, with the montage of happy romantic moments done quickly, the conflict in the relationship made more absurd by the fact of an umbrella at its center, its ending as crazy as it can become given how it began and where it happens. It refuses to fall into the pits of kabaduyan, even as the falling-in-love remains believable.

 

Of course that is a measure as well of this set of actors, who have perfect timing, even better rapport on stage, age differences notwithstanding. But too “Symposium” also promises this: a succinctness that can also only be a portrayal of the times, love and teenagers included, the State U as setting, too. And did I mention the use of music?

 

Love in small places never looked this good. –KG, GMA News

 

“Symposium” is written by U.Z. Eliserio and Maynard Manansala, and directed by JK Anicoche. It is part of Set A of Virgin Labfest 8. It will run another two times, on July 7 at 3 p.m., and July 8 at 8 p.m. at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.  Katrina Stuart Santiago writes the essay in its various permutations, from pop culture criticism to art reviews, scholarly papers to creative non-fiction, all always and necessarily bound by Third World Philippines, its tragedies and successes, even more so its silences. She blogs at http://www.radikalchick.com. The views expressed in this article are solely her own.