Film and theater operate on fundamentally different contracts with their audiences. Cinema is more controlled: It is edited, color-graded, scored, and packaged for the screen. Theater, on the other hand, refuses all of that: It is raw, immediate, unrepeatable, and alive in ways that no camera can fully simulate or contain. For “Ang Babae Sa...
Category: Culture
Post
Plant a tree, but make sure it’s not mahogany
Every tree has a story, a name, a role in healing, Glenda Flores Co told her audience. She spoke in elegant Filipino—“Bawa’t puno ay may kwento, may pangalan, may silbi sa paghilom”—at the close of the program held to launch the book “Philippine Native Trees 404: Rooted and Rising” last April 28 at Club Filipino...
Post
Power and survival take the stage: A review of Peta’s ‘Ctrl + Shift: Changing Narratives’
The Philippine Educational Theater Association (Peta) once again brought socially engaged storytelling to the stage with “Ctrl + Shift: Changing Narratives,” a four-play production that challenges audiences to confront the realities shaping contemporary Filipino life. Divided into two contrasting sets, the show, held April 12 to April 19, navigated themes of power, corruption, survival, and...
Post
“Endo”: Precarity in Philippine theater
Most of the trademarks of a Peta play can be gleaned in “Endo,” the company’s latest offering for the second quarter of the year. Snippets of dialogue on the burning issues of the day (fuel prices, flood control projects) slide in every now and then. The koro is in full throttle, signifying the bigger community...
Post
Vivid portraits of Filipino Americans Philip Vera Cruz and Narciso Manzano
Filipinos are generally unaware of the personal histories of Filipino Americans who played significant roles in the transitional period of the Commonwealth, the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines, and the postwar republic. Pioneering authors Craig Scharlin and Lilia V. Villanueva have produced two books on such key figures—Philip Vera Cruz, who led Filipino immigrants in...
Post
Light up a cigar for we are in nobody’s service
PHUKET, Thailand—Why do sex workers always figure in a scenography where they lean on the ledge of a balcony, their hair undulating in volume or in chaos, while smoking a cigarette? Does the smoke from the cigarette bear the air exchanged in the lip-locking kisses, the promises of romance, and the depths of intimacy, only...
Post
Dulaang UP’s ‘Ang Kaliitan ng Kasalukuyan’ finds the self we were told to forget
There’s a particular Filipino habit of dressing up sacrifice as virtue. For instance, we call our overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) “bagong bayani,” or modern-day heroes, and mean it sincerely, but the term also makes their leaving feel inevitable—noble, even—rather than the product of a system that has failed to give them any other option. The...
Post
After a crash landing, stranded students fight to survive in FEU Theater Guild’s ‘Bangaw’
Breadcrumbs lead to the set of “Bangaw,” the new musical production of FEU Theater Guild (FTG) for 2026. The reminders over the speaker sound like flight announcements, and the viewers walking to their seats are welcomed by a cosplaying flight stewardess. Furry masks heaped on a table behind her hint of danger. Inside the small...
Post
The Ramon Magsaysay Award continues to uphold women’s empowerment across Asia
For nearly seven decades, the Ramon Magsaysay Award has honored individuals and organizations whose leadership has transformed lives across Asia. Among them are women who expanded opportunities for women—through education, political rights, economic inclusion, and protection from exploitation—long before “women’s empowerment” became a widely used phrase. As the world marks International Women’s Day and reflects...
Post
FEU Theater Guild’s gritty tale of survival set to open in March
“Bangaw,” an adventurous reimagining of William Golding’s classic story “Lord of the Flies,” takes the stage starting on March 5 for the 92nd season of the Far Eastern University Theater Guild (FTG). Written by Gold Villar-Lim, with music by Vince Lim, and directed by Peta senior artist-teacher and FTG artistic director Dudz Teraña, “Bangaw” explores...