Theatre Review: Find Your Kind of Love in 'Fireflies'

With cast member, Dave Fabros

With Dave, the head of the Japan Foundation here in Manila, and Tanghalang Ateneo's Artistic Director Ricky Abad

Mama with Dave, the head of the Japan Foundation here in Manila, and Fireflies' director Ricky Abad

With cast member Mirick Paala

With cast member Katskie Flores

Cast members Mirick Paala and Ella Palileo

With cast member Ella Palileo

With cast member Xander Soriano

With cast member Atrio Hapitan

I don't remember ever watching a contemporary Japanese play, and that does not count the noh play I saw in Tokyo years ago.  So when I saw that the Tanghalang Ateneo was staging one as their final piece for the schoolyear, I decided to watch it, given that most plays shown here are written either by local or Western authors, rarely by our fellow Asian playwrights.

As what we would expect, the play's set design was minimalist at best and just like Carlos Celdran's Livin' La Vida Imelda, it used four different smaller stage sets to mark the different scenes and the different couples in the play.  Interestingly, with the theme of love being universal and all, it wouldn't be surprising to discover that even our local couples feel the same way as the couples in the play.  Actually, when I talked to Dave Fabros after the play, I told him that there are times when I do what his character does, just for the sheer fun of it!  Well, that may not count as love, just fun really.

There are three other couples in the movie, each at their own stage of loving, and for someone like me who has gone to Mars and back when it comes to love - I have experienced all of those emotions - that's why the play is something I can appreciate. I am just amazed though that the very young cast can do the same, knowing that maybe, just maybe, they may not have yet experienced what their characters have gone through.

My favorite couple in the play is the Husband and Wife, played by Xander Soriano and Katskie Flores respectively, who both seem very comfortable with their roles, exchanging banter effortlessly, which sometimes become tense then tender within minutes, just like how couples who have been together for a long time, talk to each other.

The young, flirtatious couple played by Mirick Paala and Ella Palileo is the most fun to watch since they are still at that stage of sizing each other up and trying to make the best impression, carefully constructing their words into sentences that should not offend but regale the other.

And of course, there's the 'madrama' kind of love which we usually see among young-ish couples in their early to late 20s, depicted in this play by Nicolo Magno and Cindy Lopez.  It's tentative yet full of wanting, the urong-sulong kind, the one where "I miss you" when you're not around - but I can't stand you when you're here type of love.  They don't get any resolution as the play ends which is just as well, because even in the real world, we know of couples who take forever to admit to each other that they really love each other.

Finally, there's the flirtatious kind of love, well, maybe not love, more of lust really, as played by Dave Fabros and Cindy Lopez.  That Cindy's character actually agrees to this date just shows how she is undecided on her true feelings for her lover, or maybe, she just needs her job so much that she has to say yes to the boss, or else....

All is not lovey-dovey here because with love also comes loneliness and isolation which is par for course for people who fall in love.  You are in a high when you're together, while you go mad when your object of affection is not around.

You can be at any age in your life right now but I'm sure you'll find that kind of love for you when you watch this play.