“Eksena Kuwatro”

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Other

Theater Review
“Eksena Kuwatro”
University of San Agustin Little Theater (USALT)
USA Auditorium, Gen. Luna Street, Iloilo City
July 25–28, 2006

“Eksena Kuwatro” by the University of San Agustin (USA) Little Theater was an “engaging showcase of new and old works as well as traditional and contemporary theater forms,” as it featured a fusion of monologues, scene studies and performance poetry, signatures of the four-decade-old theater company.

Just like any theatrical production involving a community of members, “Eksena Kuwatro” has been a collaboration of sorts. Aside from portraying Shakespearean tragic heroes Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet that have already found Filipino sensibilities in the authors’ adaptations, "Eksena" also presented satirical monologues written by USALT Director Edward Divinagracia and alumnus Kristoffer Rhyss Grabato, and a number of modern adaptations of classic women characters from Panay folklore.

Cursed Men, Emancipated Women
The concept of theater as claustrophobic enclosures—where statements about man and society are articulated—highlight this theater’s tendency to lay bare the character’s stark, individualized and individualistic realities.

Both women and men’s issues were bluntly tackled in the naturalistic-tragic “Saling” whose storyline clearly delineates the oppressive feudal structures profusely detailed from Rizal to Sionil Jose to Deriada.

William Shakespeare’s tragic heroes Hamlet and the ill-fated amoroso Romeo, along with the biblical Judas are presented as cursed characters.

Hamlet’s indecisive and vacillating character goes consistently well along with Romeo’s impetuousness as a stubborn lover of the equally impulsive Juliet, whose both fates only spell tragedy. After all, tragedy has been the greatest bard’s preoccupation. Though Hamlet’s indecisiveness was not well wrought by one actor, Romeo’s amorousness complemented Juliet’s feminine energy to take part wholeheartedly in an eventual tragic ending.

Gino Santillana’s “Hudas” delivers a marked performance of the biblical Judas Iscariot who forged his chance of redemption by killing his own life instead of believing his Teacher’s on God’s overwhelming compassion. The monologue rendered the audience mum as if it spoke of their own desire for faith, or the lack of it.

On the other hand, the women characters almost perfectly tackled enfranchisement and empowerment. In the equally persuasive characters of Darna, Alunsina, Na-erz, and Pina, the women’s issues were brought out either comically and tragically—in sharp and witty effects. Altogether, they presented marginalized characters still surviving and seeking to be liberated from the clutches of a patriarchal order.

“Pina” was tied to Filipino Diaspora, the tendency to flee poverty and bureaucracy and seek greener pastures through migration, and the Ilongga Na-erz scathingly satirized nurses and the medical [mal] practice in this country, engaging the audience with the Hiligaynon sing-song twang.

While “Darna” was a parody of the woman’s struggle for identity and self-preservation, the erstwhile mythical character “Alunsina” transformed into a sharp feminist full of rage against Tungkung Langit’s patriarchal, dominant male status quo. Most women performances were commendable, inasmuch as their issues constantly need to be addressed.

Pure Forms and Adaptations
As it has been a mixture of forms and genres, “Eksena Kuwatro” notably played around with types and approaches if only to present realities in a number of varied and therefore acceptable ways.

Featuring Western Visayan folk poems, loa, bordon, binalaybay, pagdayao and composo, “Dagway Sang Binalaybay” presented a fresh look at the precursor of vaudeville and Broadway shows—the rather lavish costumes and colorful pageantry coupled with emotional chanting of hearts reminiscent of the Tagalog "Dasalan and Tocsohan" provided an original masterpiece and spectacle. No wonder the company must have toured some parts of the country for such an ingenious performance.

More importantly and more impressively, Isidoro Cruz’s prizewinning “Tarangban” was given a heart-pounding interpretation that included a resident Sulodnon’s chilling chant recounting Humadapnon’s rescue by his bride Nagmalitong Yawa. Center for Culture and the Arts (CCA) Director Eric Divinagracia takes pride in training a Sulodnon tribe member who can render the theater company folk authenticity and ingenuity.

In “Ang Pag-ibig ni Tungkung Langit” and “Alunsina,” the Tungkung Langit myth is revitalized in the work of John Iremil Teodoro, which rather situates banished Alunsina as an empowered housemaid in the modern context. The modern adaptation proved effective not only because Kirsten Marie Primavera’s candid, heartfelt performance elicited elaborate emotion from the audience, but because in fact, Alunsina’s issue—just like that of Sophocles’s Antigone— perennially draws woman’s utter sensitivity and resistant temperament in any oppressive order.

As an added entertainment, the comically funny [redundancy for emphasis] “Baboy” shows versatility of the characters and sensitivity of he scriptwriters to use literary knowledge so as to satirize social realities—ultimately, one of the purposes of literature. The John-Iremil-Teodoro-inspired gay verse text, when fused with superhero and soap-opera caricatures, easily connected with the audience, engaging them in no time. After all, we should say this is how Filipinos are—literally comic and fun loving, certainly homophobic, but seldom cerebral or intellectual.

Art is Style is Purpose is Art
The theater experience is also reminiscent of Swedish dramatist August Strindberg whose techniques of dramatic naturalism included unaffected dialogue, stark not luxurious scenery, and the use of makeshift stage props as symbols.

Consistent lighting effects and swelling music when needed also helped create an organic atmosphere of want and discontent.

Much like a community theater, the cramped stage shared both by the audience and the actors themselves otherwise made contact and rendered the much required catharsis, since the actors literally spoke in the midst of the audience themselves, sometimes bringing them as part of the play themselves either through dialogue or setting. Such setup that also featured makeshift props made the presentation realistic and closely knit to the people whose issues themselves are being tackled.

The theater’s use of the baul as a symbol or treasure trove of the stories proved effective in presenting to us a storehouse of beliefs and traditions from which we could also retrieve our sense of being Ilonggo and of being human. Used as the virtual proscenium for the entire presentation, it also served as the focal point from which consciousness could emerge and sensibility could thrive.

By and large, the production’s well-wrought characters [female actors, in particular] and the entire showcase of persons and realities are all the while promising. While the women characters, articulating their own pains and travails, convincingly push for emancipation and the constant awareness of equality between the genders, their manner of presenting all these sensibilities bluntly says how it [theater] can make people see truths wisely, the way perceived by the Greek greats themselves, and later perpetuated through generations.

Such and other elements and techniques seamlessly brought the theater’s own purpose to the audience.

Insofar as theater ought to “challenge audiences with their productions,” it has so far delivered a convincing performance whose moral precepts and social undertones must have sunk in the minds of an informed audience, [or only if there were].

Through “Eksena Kuwatro,” the theater promises more, featuring sensibilities that reflect versatility and articulates varied influences that may guarantee an impressed global reception.

At least according to Aristotle’s "Poetics," the bottom line is the formative purpose of art, which the tragedy and comedy supposedly seek to deliver onstage. Eksena Kuwatro’s efforts have proven useful in educating the public about the beauty and sense of theater, if only to be sensibly appreciated in its own time, which is both here and now.