A New Brain by Ateneo Blue Repertory

A powerful sentiment that truly strikes a chord whenever I think about it now is how Director Toff De Venecia articulates on the story of A New Brain as not one for happy endings but for new beginnings. A lot of us in the universe fancy life and its challenges as a narrow rope on which we need to walk in order to get to the other, more beautiful side of things, in which walking across is a one-shot deal, and any opportunities of doing it all over again is shut down.

In taking the challenge, we ask: who will we be when we wake up? What will change? Will we become better people? Will everything be okay? What will happen to precious memory – the ones that we cannot let go but instead display in a glass case – will they ever really matter after all this? The rope then becomes a hindrance from which we must escape rather than an advantage to which we can refer in preparation for the next test. We fail to consider that it is the resiliency to face another challenge after the conclusion of one that weighs heavier than actually reaching the better side of the rope. This we see in A New Brain, a musical comedy that plies on irony, wit, power, commotion, memory, and letting go.

I’d like to believe that, at some point, there is a Gordon Schwinn lurking inside each of us. He is the poor frustrated soul that, for so long has been hurting because he has lost faith in his own capabilities. He is the ego that once knew what greatness and glory took; the one that fought tooth and nail just to prove that he deserves to be in this point of his life, but now hurts himself over the nonexistence of self-worth in his core. He is the part of us that wants too much yet represses these desires into a ball of confusion and dissatisfaction because he does not believe that he quite understands it himself, or that nobody else will understand it with him.

Even so, the Gordon Schwinn that dwells in us is loved. Our friends and family admire us not because of our line of work but because of the brilliance with which they associate us in all the years that we have known them. That, no matter how whiny or selfish we grow, our loved ones could never really find some stranger to just take our place – which, makes for a sad fact that while many people believe in us wholly, we seem to let other desires get in the way of that love. We become defeated and we start pushing away the helping hands because we do not feel deserving or we feel as though we deserve so much more, believing that we ought to die soon in taking the path that otherwise leaves us no choice. We become less than what our friends, lover, or parents know: the writer who tells the best stories through melodies and lyrics, the lover with whom a cuddle could comfort another, a stranger who drops change in a homeless person’s can, a composer who plays yes, he can on the piano.

There will be times when we cannot exactly figure out what it is that we are doing or why we choose to do them. We sometimes lose our way or forget why we are doing them in the first place; why we love doing this thing that now gives us so much frenzy and frustration that we cannot fathom its worth. We might not even completely understand what it is that bothers us; what it is that we want; what is so discontenting that we inevitably lead ourselves to take this challenge. More often than not, we become the people that we refuse to be. Or worse yet, we become the people that we once were, but had already ridden past ourselves.

In coming across the highest peak of the challenge, we look back – to those who believe in us: friends, family, ourselves, even the Man Up From Above. It is only when we picture who we are when we are with them do we become inspired or grateful or simply revved up for the dawn of a new beginning. We see ourselves closing in towards a good ending that is ultimately a better beginning. In this manner, we create something: a picture, a memory, a journey across the seas, or a song that might as well change someone else’s perspective on life – masterpieces that should express just how wonderful it feels to be loved, to transfigure into who we are because of these people that have shaped us when we started out and might even still surround us towards the end of our lives. These people are our reminder: the memo pads why we deserve getting this far; memories, to which we must cling as much as we wish while we have all the time in the world. We trust and keep faith. The music of life and love and chances and change is always raging inside us. It’s a beautiful melody that makes everything else so much worth it. We just have to believe that everything else will never stop getting better.

D' Wonder Twins of Boac on PETA

Following a desperate attempt on actual Filipino theater, my first PETA experience finally took place last Saturday night on the glittering streets of Eymard Drive in New Manila, in which D' Wonder Twins of Boac was showing on its first week. For some reason in which I was not supposed to be involved, I received an 80% discount on the ticket - the kind of luck that willfully drove me not to miss out on quite an opportunity.

The minute the doors were opened and I was ushered into what in theater vocabulary is a full house, I was instantly aroused by the small hall that enclosed an arena stage. I saw when the play began that the theater in the round provided the production a delightful synergy with the audience. That was when I found myself sitting next to Kenneth, the nine-year old kid of one of the caterers, and who claimed to have watched the play twice already. Yet, he persists.



Written by ingenious playwright Rody Vera, D' Wonder Twins of Boac is an adaptation of William Shakespeare's 12th Night, set in the 60's during the decline of Philippine Cinema's Golden Years, bedazzled with the unfailing loyalty of a musical that parodies the evolution of Philippine film industry.

Once the show put on its green lights, it couldn't be stopped. Not even the slightest kilo-joule of energy was lost. It deemed only the strong, right reactions, without dead air in attendance. Alas was the unraveling of passion, of secret desires and ulterior motives, the unhinging of personal interests, the offering of diverse business perspectives, unscrewing of egotism and self-rightousness, while underneath, all along, lurked the deterioration of an industry that was escorted stage left for its final exit.



One thing that I found interesting was the incorporation of the multi-media on the stage: a television screen hanging from the ceiling that subtlely dramatized the most striking acts such as the shipwreck of the twins Viola and Bastian, the slow rise of Cesar in the industry, even the bitter rivalry between Sampaguita Films and BLV Pictures. The idea fit just as well within the concept.

I think that the biggest factor that makes Boac quite easy to love is the new life that the actors breathed into their characters. We could still identify them in some of today's most powerful and influential Filipinos. It was a wholesome cast that knew their place onstage without outweighing the other. From beginning to end, not one of them fell out of persona, even off-scene. My personal favorite is the eccentric character of Malovolio, brilliantly played by Lao Rodriguez. Then there were Bastian and Antonio, and the bromance that hung over me in the morning that followed the experience.

Chrome Cosio as Bastian

Riki Benedicto as Antonio

In the end, the play turns out to be more tragic than the darkly comedic nature that, from the get-go, it had excellently expressed. What resulted from the singing and dancing, and the Elvis Presley wannabes of the late 60's was the scandalous explosion of the unflinching bare-bodied stars of the 70's Bomba era.

Director Maribel Legarda describes Boac as "not simply a period play". Call it a lesson on Filipino film or an classic that is only really meant to entertain the society that could easily identify with the business warfare of film. Beyond those, D' Wonder Twins of Boac is a recollection, a reminder, a "meaning" of the What Was Then that clicked so nicely with the Filipino film industry. It was a witness to the comings (and fadings) of stars, a classic battle royale of producers, vantage points, love and dreams detonating in disarray.