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...
Tag: Philippine Educational Theater Association
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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...
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“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...
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To go or stay: The life-and-death quandary of Filipino healthcare workers
“Stay,” President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said last week, addressing healthcare workers at an event in Leyte where the government turned over patient-transport vehicles. His remark was an acknowledgment of the great number of healthcare workers seeking employment abroad. A similar point was raised in the recently staged play “Nobody Is Home” by the Philippine Educational...
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FEU Theater Guild cooks up dark comedy ‘Karne,’ a delicious twist on a Roald Dahl classic
On its 91st season, the Far Eastern University Theater Guild (FTG) is staging an interactive dark comedy, “Karne,” a reimagining of Roald Dahl’s “Lamb to the Slaughter.” Written and directed by the Philippine Educational Theater Association’s senior artist-teacher and the FTG’s artistic director, Dudz Teraña, “Karne” invites audiences into the aromatic home of a 1980s...
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Peta’s ‘Walang Aray’ balances light drama with spectacular music
The sentiment that drives the Philippine Educational Theater Association’s (Peta) full production of “Walang Aray”—itself a comedic adaptation of Severino Reyes’ 19th-century zarzuela “Walang Sugat”—is a triumphant one. From its title to its celebratory tone, the production proudly announces itself as Peta’s return to live theater unscathed, emphasizing that nothing can replace the experience of...
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Live theater, digital interaction educate teens on drinking issue
Filipinos consume an average of seven liters of alcohol every year, according to the World Population Review. While that might appear manageable to many, the Philippine College of Physicians recently presented numbers sufficient to give Filipino parents a nightmare: About 70% of students had their first taste of alcohol at age 14, and many of...