State of the arts: Out of the fringes

Among the 12 months, February is particularly important for Filipinos in the arts. It is, after all, National Arts Month, and for many performing-arts companies, this is when they mount their season-closing productions. If you want to see the local arts scene as its most visible and, it can be argued, most vibrant, then there is no better time than this month.

One proof of this vibrancy is found in the second Fringe Manila festival, which kicked off at the Pineapple Lab, a versatile arts venue managed by Andrei Nikolai Pamintuan, the festival’s energetic and young director, in Makati City on Feb. 9. The festival runs until the 28th.

Part of a larger network of independent Fringe festivals around the world, Fringe Manila, as its Facebook page describes it, “is an open-access, noncurated (and) uncensored arts and community festival that aims to showcase fresh, daring, and groundbreaking material, highlighting the unique points of view of emerging and established artists from the Philippines and all over the world in theater, literature, music, dance, visual art, film, cabaret, performance art, circus, and every other artistic genre in between.”

If the acts that performed at the Fringe Manila kickoff event prove anything, it’s that the festival offers plenty of activities to join in and performances to watch. There’s really something for everyone here. There’s the wittily titled, R16-rated Deus Sex Machina: Fringe With Benefits 2/Rebooty by the inventively named Bored Horny Unpaid Writers, who offered an excerpt during the event. The festival website calls it “Metro Manila’s first-ever comedic erotica live-reading show, where guests enjoy a good laugh about dangerous, dirty things in a safe, clean environment.”

For those into pretty, if muted, lightshows, there’s EinSof: A Flow Art Show by the Flow Arts Collective. Its members include artists wielding entrancing hula hoops made with light-emitting diode (LED) rope lights, a pair of handleless and hole-dotted “sickles” that can be clipped together at the middle, and a glowing stick.

And if you like to be amazed, there’s MND FCK* by Justin Pinon, the so-called Mental Assassin. He entertained the event’s guests by using educated guesswork, not magic, to correctly guess the three things—a glass of red wine, a chapstick, and a cigarette stick—presented to him without holding them and while coins and duct tape covered his eyes.

Of course, Fringe Manila wouldn’t be complete without plays performed by school-based and emerging theater groups. They include UP Repertory Company’s production of U Z. Eliserio’s Karitas + Damaso; FEU Theater Guild’s Confessions, written and directed by Dudz Teraña, who’s also the group’s artistic director; Egg Theater Company’s Schism, Palanca award-winning playwright and director George de Jesus III’s adaptation of Molière’s The Misanthrope; and Twin Bill Theater’s production of American dramatist and screenwriter Bert V. Royal’s Peanuts-inspired Off-Broadway play Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead—the company’s first-ever offering—which I watched at cultural sponsor Staple and Perk Bakery in Makati last week.

Peanuts go nuts

Those who fondly remember Charles M. Schulz’s much-loved comic-strip characters are in for a mild shock once they watch the palindromically titled Dog Sees God, which has been described as an “unauthorized parody.” Here, Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang are no longer children, but angsty teenagers dealing with the various issues—bullying, drug abuse, identity, and sexuality, among others—their age group is often faced with.

In the play, Charlie becomes CB (Nel Gomez), grief-stricken after a rabies-afflicted Snoopy was put to sleep after killing Woodstock. He seeks sympathy, but gets none from his younger sister Sally (Faye Camille Velicaria), who, the play suggests, goes through more phases than the moon; or Pigpen, renamed Matt (Brian Sy), a sex-crazed germophobic jock who’s only concerned about getting laid.

The changes don’t stop there. Linus, now called Van (Gab Medina), has become a pothead, while his sister Lucy (Sarah Facuri) is in a mental instituton for setting the Little Red-Haired Girl’s hair on fire. Peppermint Patty and Marcia, renamed Tricia (Kathleen Francisco) and Marcy (Maronne Cruz), are now mean girls gone wild. And piano-playing Schroeder, called Beethoven (Vince Lim) here, is now a bullied gay teen who later becomes CB’s object of affection—a startling development that turns tragic for all involved.

If company founders Francis and Joseph Matheu and director Steven Conde’s choice of Dog Sees God as Twin Bill Theater’s first production says something, it’s their commitment to bring edgy, easily stageable works that its target audience—millennials—could relate to. That is quite admirable, and so is the production, despite some weaknesses (slow buildup in the first half; too-manic performances from some members of the cast).

Those familiar with Peanuts may be the most receptive audience of Dog Sees God—rather ironic, for many of them don’t exactly belong to the millennial generation. Gomez brings sensitivity to his portrayal of the earnest CB, but the play’s most nuanced performance is turned in by Lim. He conveys Beethoven’s feelings of confusion and isolation quite compellingly.

In a way, Dog Sees God can be seen as a reflection of Fringe Manila: familiar characters and subjects rendered in new and unfamiliar ways, no matter if they succeed or fail. Art, at its best, offers people fresh perspectives—some are agreeable; others, not—on the world they live in, and the great thing about Fringe Manila is that it offers a space for such perspectives to be recognized, if not flourish.

For more information about Fringe Manila, visit www.fringemanila.com or www.facebook.com/FringeMNL.

Remaining playdate for Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead is on Feb. 26 at 8 p.m., at Staple and Perk Bakery, G/F Eco Plaza, Chino Roces Ave. Extension, Makati City. For more details, send an e-mail to twinbilltheater@gmail.com.