The Virgin Labfest has always been a space for trial-and-error. Before the doors open to the public, scripts get massive cuts and additions, props and sets get overhauled, lights and sounds are toyed with til open house, and even actors are removed and replaced at the last minute. All of these decisions are guided by the sentiment that the most important thing is the story and that transformation continues even past the closing date. The show behind closed doors can be completely different from the ones audiences see.

It is why writing criticism about the work viewed during an open rehearsal feels like a violation of the artistic process of Virgin Labfest. Transition states are crucial to the work’s maturation and criticizing the art as it is being formed feels like an assault on creative freedom. How then is one called to write about theater that is still finding its footing?

Instead of being nitpicking at the specifics, the challenge for critics and audiences becomes one of imagination: We are called not to judge the work using binaries of good and bad, but to also see what it is trying to say, what it can be, what horizons and conversations it opens up in its ephemeral nature, what experiments work and why these add value to the community, and how the convergence of the art and the context with which it is staged pushes or holds back the stories they attempt to tell.

It’s fascinating to encounter this dilemma with Set A — one which has been organized by festival directors Marco Viaña and Tess Jamias under a theme of adulting. The young adults of each one-act play are forced to confront a different demon in a loved one; one that embodies their struggle of assimilating into a world that grows more broken as we age. Yet just as easily, the set is defined by a theme of negotiating boundaries — lines on the sand that each character continues to redraw and that family members continue testing, hoping they disappear in the prodding.

10 to Midnight (written by Juliene Mendoza, directed by Sarah Facuri)

Juliene Mendoza’s 10 to Midnight makes this boundary immediately clear through Julia Pacificador’s production design — a navel-high cement gate separating brothers Bien (Bombi Plata) and Billy (Jerome Dawis), who have grown distant after their father’s death. Despite its measly height, the wall reminds the audience of a hazard, broken glass lacing two of its corners, only a small wooden gate allowing brothers access to each other. 

We enter their story in medias res and everything that has happened comes to us in waves of exhausting exposition — Bien’s drug addiction, their estranged relatives, financial woes, and the all-consuming guilt that comes with existence. It is typical of plays in Virgin Labfest to use evasion to create tension, building up to an explosive finale. But here, director Sarah Facuri flips the treatment, using resentment baked into Mendoza’s dialogue to demonstrate how, clouded by responsibilities to each other and the world, the brothers’ adult relationship has become frustrating and tenuous.

However, these insights into the purpose of such chaos come in hindsight and the experience of watching 10 to Midnight is at first admittedly discomforting, with both actors seemingly lacking the ease and playfulness that teases out nuances in the work. But if one manages to get past the first three quarters of the play, one will be rewarded with surprising tenderness, an unveiling of the true relationship between siblings. Dawis and Plata are at their best in these silent moments, when they allow the resentment between their characters to settle and sink in the solitude, their memories of goodness in childhood untethering the grudges that weigh them down in adulthood. 

One wonders, even after, if the material has anything new to say about familial relationships, the toxicity of masculine expectations, poverty, or drug addiction. But theater cannot be measured solely on its novelties. By creating this temporary space where connections matter more than traumas, where relationships can be mended not simply thrown away, where resolutions can be found not in confrontation but attentiveness, where quietness and listening can heal instead of ruin, we are reminded to hold onto hope instead of fear.

O (written by Raymund Barcelon, directed by Missy Maramara)

From Eljay Castro Deldoc’s Walang Bago sa Dulang Ito to Ryan Machado’s Huling Haraya Nina Ischia at Emeteria to Dustin Celestino’s Fermata, last year’s Virgin Labfest was filled with material that demonstrated the ways sex can be used for violence and disempowerment. This year, however, Raymund Barcelon’s O treats sex simultaneously as setting, topic, and conflict, and the violations falls into ideological and moral territories.

Astrid (Aryn Cristobal) breaks up with her fiancée of two years named Oliver (Juan Carlos Galano) just before he climaxes. Hoping to finish what they started, Oliver coaxes her into an admission neither of them were ready for: she’s never had an orgasm with any of her sexual partners. Including him. The rest of the play then becomes a tug-of-war between the two: with Oliver hoping to prove her dissatisfaction is a fluke and Astrid’s insistence that it’s rooted in her partners’ selfishness.

While the premise has the audience expecting a drama around deeper traumas similar to 2020’s Doggy, director Missy Maramara creates a contrast by approaching it almost like a comedy of errors — with Galano and Cristobal navigating the awkwardness of admitting their sexual dissatisfaction. Galano imbibes Oliver with a cockiness and vanity that becomes both a boon and a bane for his wife-to-be, but underneath the playfulness and optimism is grinding petulance and sexism that grows more grating as he refuses to acknowledge his shortcomings.

The one-act play rests on Cristobal, whose prior experience with improvisation leads her to be more effective in the comedy. But when the play begins to enter more demanding territory, when Astrid becomes defensive over her upbringing and the conservative and patriarchal values she inherited from her mother, she struggles. Maybe this is a purposeful decision on Cristobal, Barcelon, and Maramara’s end: to escape, Astrid must keep the atmosphere light, refrain from piercing Oliver’s ego, and prevent the situation from escalating into violence and further manipulation. Oliver’s persistence despite Astrid’s boundaries become a source of covert violence. While the conclusion will elicit a “good for her!” from the audience, it is also curiously dissatisying. O feels like an argument half-formed; an orgasm waiting to happen.

Regine: The Fairy Gaymother (written by Chuck D. Smith, directed by Mark Daniel Dalacat)

Chuck D. Smith’s Regine: The Fairy Gaymother is a family comedy-drama centered around the perennial queer question: “If Regine Velasquez told you to come out to your parents, would you?” Timed perfectly for Pride Month, the work goes against the dominant narrative that equates coming out with living authentically, and in the hands of director Mark Daniel Dalacat, who co-directed this year’s brilliant theater adaptation of Kung Paano Nanalo sa Karera si Rosang Taba for Dulaang UP, evasion is the currency. Dalacat spatially separates the family into two sections of the home — with mother and father dealing with their crises in the living room and their son Diego and the fairy gaymother Regine having a fantastical confrontation in the bedroom.

It helps that the cast balances their emotional understanding with humorous delivery. Tex Ordoñez-De Leon’s over-the-top reactions and physical comedy are balanced by Ron Capinding’s groundedness, creating a hilarious yet surprisingly gut-wrenching picture of two parents figuring out how to best support their child while bogged down by their limited understanding of sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression.

On the flip side, Anton Diva’s regality as Regine Velasquez is offset by her sassiness and deadpan delivery as she questions Diego’s resolve. Adrian Lindayag is pitch-perfect as Diego, as he teeters between considering telling his mother, not wanting to ruin their relationship, and yearning for a return to the openness between them when he was younger. The invisible character in the work is society — as family members impose heteronormative ideals on one another for fear of being ostractized or ridiculed, inadvertently widening the emotional gaps between them despite their forced proximity due to the pandemic.

At times, the work is weighed down by its excess — its transitions-turned-production numbers and extensive Regine Velasquez discography leaves scenes feeling crammed with gags, taking away some of the material’s emotional momentum. Yet it cannot be denied that where Regine: The Fairy Gaymother ends up is an unexpected delight without being didactic. It leans into the absurdity brought about by the complications of a world that still requires people to come out and the ways it forces people to behave against their lived realities. Instead of adhering to this myth of a singular path towards queer truthfulness, Smith and Dalacat choose to depict an image of acceptance that honors not the loud and public declarations we often see glorified in media but the private, solitary journeys that are equally as important but often erased. It is theater that is radical in its empathy for its characters without sacrificing its fabulousness. And it doesn’t hurt that it proves its point with a few songs, too. – Rappler.com

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