The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
After staging Nina Raine’s family seriocomedy Tribes to critical and audience acclaim last year, young theater company Red Turnip Theater is set to immerse audiences in an environment so different from the others it brought to life before with its fourth-season closer, Jennifer Haley’s science-fiction thriller The Nether.
Winner of the 2012 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, The Nether is set in the not-so-distant future and deals with the dilemmas of living in a virtual world. It explores the ethical questions and moral consequences of living out one’s hidden desires and fantasies.
Directing The Nether is Red Turnip co-founder Ana Abad Santos, whose visibility in the entertainment industry increased last year after winning the Gawad Urian and Luna award for best supporting actress in Mario Cornejo and Monster Jimenez’s Apocalypse Child.
Since appearing in that lauded surfing drama, Abad Santos has appeared in such films as Lemuel Lorca’s Ned’s Project, Chris Martinez’s Working Beks, and Theodore Boborol’s Vince & Kath & James.
“When I first read The Nether, it was love at first sight. It is a new material that bravely dives into the horrors of man…and still makes sense of it. It’s about our present journey into the big unknown, that other world we call the internet,” Abad Santos said in a statement.
“To present this advanced concept on a very basic, traditional medium, which is the stage, is so exciting. It explores human desires and boundaries, or lack of (them). And the discovery that, no matter how beautiful or grotesque our desires are, we are all still searching for that ‘one’—to love and be loved,” she added.
Another co-founder, Jenny Jamora, returns to the Red Turnip stage to take on the lead role of Detective Morris, an investigator of The Nether’s online offerings.
Jamora, whose direction of Red Turnip’s production of Moises Kaufman’s 33 Variations was critically praised and led to more directorial projects, described Morris as a “strong female character” in a “position of power.”
“I’m excited to take on her internal struggle to maintain that authority as she discovers hidden parts of herself that may threaten that,” she said in the statement.
Joining Jamora in the cast are esteemed actors Bernardo Bernardo and Bodjie Pascua, as well as young actresses Alba Berenguer-Testa and Junyka Santarin, who alternate in one of the play’s key roles. The production marks the Red Turnip debut of all four performers.
“I do most of my scenes with Bernardo Bernardo and Bodjie Pascua. I’m terrified, but absolutely psyched for the challenge,” Jamora admitted.
Rounding out the ensemble is film and television actor TJ Trinidad, who earned praise for his Gawad Buhay-nominated stage debut in The Necessary Theatre/Actor’s Actor Inc.’s production of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart. He was last seen onscreen in Avid Liongoren’s animated love story Saving Sally.
Helping Abad Santos realize the world of The Nether are technical director and lighting designer John Batalla, set designer Ed Lacson Jr., sound designer Teresa Barrozo, and costume designer Faust Peneyra.
Since its establishment four years ago, Red Turnip has made considerable impact on the local theater scene by producing contemporary, envelope-pushing straight plays in English. Proof of this are the awards and nominations it received from the Aliw Awards and the Gawad Buhay of the Philippine Legitimate Stage Artists Group (Philstage). ALVIN I. DACANAY
The Nether opens on March 10 and will run every weekend until April 9 at the Power Mac Center Spotlight Center in Circuit Makati (Level 2, Circuit Lane, A.P. Reyes Ave., Makati City). For tickets, visit www.redturnip.com.ph or www.ticketworld.com.ph.