Philippine Bedtime Stories

Once again, thanks to BFF Carlo (hahaha!), I got to watch Philippine Bedtime Stories at CCP's Tanghalang Huseng Batute last night. Rawr, we missed you, Z!

So anyway, after a visit to Sundee's house in the morning, a visit from Ate Maui from noon til early afternoon, and a crazy Y!M conference with Z and Carlo, I headed for CCP. First familiar face that I saw was Ian, hahaha. Apparently he had a busy day. He went to PETA in the morning to watch Belong Puti, then CCP to watch the matinee show of The Pretenders, and we were both about to watch the evening show of Philipiine Bedtime Stories.

When Carlo and Micah arrived, we had nowhere to go so we just stood in the lobby and talked. Hahaha, first in line. While we were standing there, we were reading the playbill, already curious about what to expect from the show. Because the event was a tie-up with the Rink Ko Gun theater company, half the playbill was written in Japanese. Oh no, does this mean that the show won't be in Filipino or English because half the cast is also Japanese? I remember watching a couple of plays--'Yun Na Nga, Kung 'Yun Na Nga (performed in Filipino and subtitled in English) and Bakeretta (performed in Bisaya and subtitled in English)--that had subtitles projected on a wall. Oh well, we'll see. It did say in the flyer that it will have subtitles anyway. Aside from that, I saw familiar titles of the one-act plays. This should be interesting.

Sure enough, for all 5 one-act plays, there were subtitles. If they were speaking in Filipino, there were Japaneses subtitles, and if they were speaking in Japanese, English subtitles were shown.

I've read Isang Libong Tula para sa Dibdib ni Dulce before, when I had purchased this book that Rody Vera was selling during the Virgin Labfest 2. Like I always say, every play is subject to interpretation, be it when you just read it, and when it's performed. When I had read it, it was funny, but when Rody, Mailes and Jojit had executed it, the play was hiliarious.

Single Brown Female was another play I was familiar with because it came from another book I have. One difference was that in the one I had read, there were lots of different foreigners. This version only had Asians (duh). Funny, but still touching. I had even considered using Lara's lines as a monologue, but vetoed it after a while.

I had seen Ang Unang Aswang performed by PHSA students in last year's Virgin Labfest 2, and in this show, the play was split into 2. One was a Japanese aswang with the Filipino lover, and the 2nd one had a Filipino aswang with the Japanese guy. I found Yuko, the Japanese aswang, as the epitome of kawaii. Never mind that she played some creepy Filipino folk character. I found her cute and animated the whole time.

Walang Iwanan was about a man and a woman's affair. Once again, I had read this play, and compared to the other 4, I found this the most dragging. But not because it was draggy, it's just that the other plays were more fast-paced compared to this one.

Of course, my favorite would have to be the last, Ligaya sa Isang Pinoy Bar. Totally hilarious, I was on the edge of my seat waiting for the next punch line every time. At first I didn't get it when Yuko kept calling Mailes her "brother", but after a couple of lines, there goes another punchline, hahahaha! Que funny talaga. I have to find a copy of that play.

Darn, after the show, the cast had stayed in the dressing room and didn't have the usual meet-and-greet. I wanted to meet the cute Yuko. Ahehehe, no, I haven't turned lezzie. I was just amused at the way she moved. Totally cute.

Shout out to Luis, who had found my blog. Hahahaha, kakahiya naman that you found it.

To the ironman, take care, pare.