Theater & Arts
The Ateneo Entablado begins their 32nd season with a double bill, featuring a very disgruntled shoe store work staff and an oddly charming duo of misfits.
APIR, DISAPIR! is an adaptation of two one-act plays, the first being “Paraisong Parisukat,” by Orlando Nadres—a tale of ambition, dreams, excursions and a lot of pent up emotions. Set in G. Mirasol and Sons, a shoe store somewhere in Manila, the play follows Isya (Kath Castillo), an employee who rejoices in her state as the store’s minimum wage clerk. Her contentedness with the mediocre strikes the interest of newcomer Al (Karlo Erfe) whose lofty ambitions compel him to try and crack Isya’s pristine outlook on her condition.
The second play and arguably the better of the two, “Ang Bayot, Ang Meranao, at ang Habal-Habal sa isang Nakababagot na Paghihintay sa Kanto ng Lanao Del Norte”by Rogelio Braga is a conversation between two caricatures: Bambi (Jerome Ignacio)—a flamboyant non-govermental organization worker who had just arrived in Lanao, trying to find his way to an office up on a mountain—and Hamid (Kevin Solis), a local habal-habal (motorcycle) driver whose curiosity of the new arrival instigates a conversation of discrimination, misconceptions and pent up frustrations.
The entire production was an interlocked portrayal of smallness and duality. Alive with broken shoes, dinaing na bangus, swearing and a myriad of tracks from Radioactive Sago Project, the double bill was buoyant and friendly, whilst still venturing into the social abnormalities of today.
Directed by Dominique La Victoria and Third Villarey, APIR, DISAPIR! felt like a fluid and masterful portrayal of emotion, grounded in a subtle, yet palpable context. Layered with insight, the production saw its actors become true people in real world sketches.
Armed with a single podium and array of props the stage was built with pinpoint precision. The two scenes portrayed adequately the claustrophobic smallness of the shoe work store and the dull emptiness of a waiting stop in the middle of nowhere.
The acting was sublime—albeit, occasionally insincere. Standouts include Yvonne Ricaro, who plays Ate Pastora, the strict and linguistically challenged store manager of G. Mirasol and Sons. Her momentous breakdown had each tremor of her body echoing throughout the auditorium, leaving the audience in an audible silence. The voracious Glyds Urbano was scintillating as Emmy, one of Isya’s coworkers, while Ignacio and Solis’ beautiful chemistry made even the stiffest hearts rend.
APIR, DISAPIR!, is a lecture on the complex social paradoxes of the modern age, spoken in the vocabulary of the millennial: Summing up the plight of the Muslims and the homosexuals with two men on a motorcycle and framing the problem of the marginalized in the search for a shoe in a closet full of shoeboxes.
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The production will be showing on the following dates: August 12 to 16 at the Rizal Mini Theater at 7:00PM, with an additional show on August 16 at 2:00PM.
