The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
After briefly restaging the Palanca award-winning Maniacal last December and mounting an adaptation of Moliere’s The Misanthrope, titled Schism, last February, the Egg Theater Company is presenting this month its first full-run production: a Filipino translation of Irish playwright Martin McDonaugh’s acclaimed The Pillowman.
Winner of the 2004 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Play and nominated as Best Play in the 2005 Tony Awards, The Pillowman is about a writer in an unidentified totalitarian state being interrogated about his gruesome and macabre short stories that has inspired a series of child murders.
The Pillowman is a dark comedy that exhibits the riveting power of narrative and how storytelling and inveting fantastical tales are basic human instincts. With the national elections fast approaching—and the specter of authoritarianism looming—this production is seen to resonate with its exploration of the fine line between the freedom of an individual to tell a story and its impact on the security of society.
In translating and directing The Pillowman, Palanca awardee and Egg Theater Company co-founder George de Jesus III said, “In examining the dark side of imagination and creativity, the play probes into how stories are created, the motivation that drives a writer to tell a story and the responsibility of a writer on the impact of what he has written. Put that against a totalitarian-state setting and we get a play that are, by turns, disturbingly funny and emotionally shocking.”
“Given that the play is set in an unnamed totalitarian state, translating it into Filipino (helps) us (in) not only making it somehow familiar, but also (fueling further) the idea of it possibly becoming real,” he added.
“But beyond being political, The Pillowman will make us take stock on the power of words and how it can affect other people. There’s a line by Katurian that says, ‘It’s not about being or not being dead, it’s about what you leave behind.’ I think it’s something that will resonate with anyone in the creative field, and it’s what we want to accomplish with Egg Theater Company: to create Filipino productions that will linger in the minds of our audience,” de Jesus said.
Co-presented by Pineapple Lab, The Pillowman features Gabs Santos as Katurian, Paolo O’Hara and Paul Jake Paule as Michal, Renante Bustamante as Tupolski and Acey Aguilar as Ariel.
The production will also feature original music and animated graphics by Joee Mejias.
The play will run from April 8 to 10 and 22 to 24, 8 p.m. at Pineapple Lab, 6071 R. Palma Street, Poblacion, Makati City.
For tickets and inquiries, visit the Egg Theater Company’s Facebook page, or contact 0917-8440520.