The short, profound stories onstage

1 of 6

By John Anthony S. Estolloso

THEATER TAKES on various iterations, and while some of us may associate the artform with the opulent display of set and lighting design, extravagantly detailed costumery, a script running to hours of banter and conversation, and more so, lavishly staged song-and-dance numbers, it may further deepen our appreciation to indulge into the demurer side of the dramatic art.

The evenings of May 7 and 8 witnessed a revisitation of this theatrical minimalism of visual design and conversely, the maximization of performance, with UPV’s Living Room Theatre’s presentation of a series of short narratives. Staged with the artistic direction of Prof. Alfredo B. Diaz, the aptly titled interSections contained brief bursts of stage-spiels, ranging from the disconcerting to the laughable, yet all the while providing the viewers with a moment to reflect on and examine the follies and foibles of human nature: deeply flawed yet passionately emphatic as well.

Nestled in the apsed performing arts hall of the university’s Museum of Art and Cultural Heritage, thespians stood in front of microphones and delivered their lines – immersed deep in their characters, of course – and that was all that sufficed to bring out the depth and universality of their scenes. There were minimal props; the costumes were all in muted hues and of the simplest designs and patterns; lighting was provided by two theater lamps, flooding the performance platform in blues, reds, pinks, and yellows alternately. That was all – and yet the whole of it exceeded the sum of its parts.

Needless to say, the storytelling carried the evenings: powerful performatives that relied mostly on the eloquence of the human voice and on the subtle nuances of gesture and expression. So what were the stories that enmeshed the audience in rapt attention?

A nearly psychopathic conversation between a teenage transient and a rustic backwoodsman. A cringy siblings’ ontological argument involving the removal of ketchup labels. A squabble most fowl revolving around an absurd conspiracy theory (or was it?) about chickens. A morbidly curious repartee between three young ladies who encounter Death aboard a train. A tragically romantic monologue about poetry and all the passion and ardor tucked amid the lines. An awkward Zoom meeting that runs foul with disability, race, and gender issues. A running commentary on the seductions of cigarette smoking that turns ghoulishly macabre at the close. Stories most sinister yet tantalizingly entertaining: Roald Dahl shakes hands with Neil Gaiman in between the banter and the burlesque.

While series of one-act scenes have been a perennial production of the Living Room Theatre, interSections provided its audience an avenue to review once more an ever-fresh proposition: that great theater needs not be grand or ostentatious. One may go so far to call it counter-cultural, but no, not in the splendid scale of staging or in the showy extravagance of props, not in sweeping musical scorings or spectacular production numbers are the intimate stories of the human soul found and shared.

Taking snippets and potshots from what can readily be experienced by any of us and transforming these into performative passages, the production in its entirety is hilariously truthful. But running beneath the ominous tragicomedy ad absurdum was the stream of existential queries, questioning identities, realities, and possibilities. In interSection’s tapestry of stories, the stage is transformed into a philosophical agora where principles and transgressions intersect with each other as currency for happy contemplation.

Altogether, the production’s ephemeral brevity of bits of dramatic narrative made it all the more profound. It just went to show that there is no need for razor-wielding barbers, barricades with red flags, or falling chandeliers to teach the human heart the knowledge of itself: the deep humanity in the characterization and performance carried it all.

[The writer is the subject area coordinator for Social Studies in one of the private schools of the city. The photographs are from UPV MACH’s FB page and are used with permission.]