Art rocks

Art is the best drug a person could score without getting busted. We could get hooked, yes. Busted, never. And the good thing about art (in terms of paintings, plays, poetry readings, etc.) is that it offers an escape from reality, and yet at the same time it brings us face to face with our own realities. Painters like Elmer Borlongan, Manuel Ocampo, and Ronald Ventura present to us the human condition in strange and beautiful forms. In Ventura’s "Heat," we stare at a man with the face of a dog who chills on top of a fire hydrant while an ancient city burns in the background, and realize the subject is each of us. We do nothing while the world burns, burns, baby, burns. Grateful are we to poets like Lourd De Veyra who takes readers somewhere subterranean – where jazz slenders from the speakers and cigarettes offer a weird trip. We go to the theater to take a breather from the trauma of every day life, and that is what we precisely get: the trauma of every day life.

Art takes you from yourself for a bit, and then returns you to your fleshy shell a renewed being.

Here is a list of events that young people (asphyxiated with news about politicians, exhibitionists who live in a televised house, and Hale) could check out.

I dig British humor – wry and acerbic. A digression: Two of my favorite comedy shows are Little Britain and The League of Gentlemen (which belong to the stratosphere ruled by American sitcoms Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm). I love the absurdity of Little Britain characters like Vicky "Yeah… but… no, but…" Pollard, Harvey "Bitty" Pincher, Emily "I’m a laaaydeee…" Howard, and Dame Sally "Chapter one… The end!" Markham, among other quirky creatures. In League, you meet those dark and twisted individuals like Tubbs and Edward with their catchphrase, "This is a local shop for local people, there is nothing for you here." You also have local butcher Hillary Briss who sells "special" meats and, my favorite, Papa Lazarou who is the proprietor of a circus cum freak show. Season 3 of League has got to be the best thing to appear in television history. The third installment is more mind-altering – like a good collection of short fiction. (More of League in a future article.)

That’s why I am looking forward to the show by the Peepolykus (pronounced "people-like-us") comedy troupe, which has been invited by the British Council to present its Edinburgh Fringe First-winning production All in the Timing tomorrow (with matinee and evening performances) at Equitable PCIBank’s Francisco Santiago Hall. And with subsequent shows at Liceo de Cagayan’s Rodelsa Hall on July 3 and 4.

Peepolykus – composed of John Nicholson, David Sant, and Javier Marzan – specializes in an "exhilarating collision of anarchic verbal slapstick, visual surprises, absurd scenarios, and sublimely ridiculous performances." All in the Timing promises to delight audiences "by dispelling stress, anxiety and depression."

The group also runs an education program, where the members teach their "impulsive approach to physical theater, as opposed to a more introspective or intellectual methodology." The results, of course, are impressive, moving, and hilarious. Peepolykus will teach this method to youth groups from Marawi and Cagayan de Oro on July 4.

For ticket details and inquiries about the workshop, call the British Council at 914-1011 to 14 extension 132, the MCO Foundation at 840-7000 local 2630, or Liceo de Cagayan at (088)858-4093 local 107, or e-mail susan.arcega@britishcouncil.org.ph.

Tanghalang Ateneo shows three production that deal with the "clash among different discourses and people’s awakening to new truths." The theater company opens its 28th season in July with a Filipino version of Nobel Prize winner Darion Fo’s satire An Accidental Death of an Anarchist.

Ang Aksidenteng Kamatayan ng Isang Anarkista deals with a railway worker who suspiciously dies when he allegedly flew out of a fourth-floor window of a police station. Seeking to find out the truth, a character illegally infiltrates the police bureau and reopens the inquiry. In debunking the police’s version of the worker’s death, the character makes a realization, through the use of grotesque comedy. The play is directed by Ricardo Abad, with production design by National Artist Salvador Bernal and translation by Joseph dela Cruz.

Something to watch out for in November is Tanghalang Ateneo’s Middle Finger (Hinlalató) by Han Ong. The play centers on four high school buddies as they "search for sense in a world dominated by parents, teachers, counselors, and other adults." The friendship gets strained when one of the boys kills himself after being unjustly expelled from school. Two other friends drift away soon after, while the fourth nurses a violent plan to avenge his friend’s death. The play is directed (and translated into Filipino) by Ron Capinding, with production design by Gino Gonzales.

The theater company will also stage Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. Abad and Bernal will transform the setting into ’50s Manila. It will star Laurice Guillen as Amanda with real-life daughter Ina Feleo as Laura.

Dulaang UP will stage Shadows of the Reef, written and directed by Anton Juan Jr. from July 12 to 30 at the Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero theater, second floor of Palma Hall, UP Diliman.

The play depicts the lives of the inhabitants of fishing villages, and "how they are affected by the muro-ami style of fishing – killing."

It features a multiracial cast led by Frances Makil-Ignacio, Andoy Ranay, Diana Malahay, Peter Serrano, as well as actors from Greece such as Stella Driva, Xenia Bolomyti, Nikos Stavridis, and the Dulaang UP ensemble.

For inquiries, call the Dulaang UP office at 926-1349 or William Manzano at 0918-5800137.

Four different Pinoy bands take on the task of scoring a German silent film – live in 3rd German Silent Film Festival spearheaded by the Goethe-Institut Manila. To be screened on Aug. 3, 10, 17 and 24, 8 p.m. at SM Megamall are The Cabinet of Caligari, The Golem, Asphalt, and Tabu, respectively.

The Cabinet of Caligari, directed by Robert Wiene, is a horror classic and a landmark of German Expressionist cinema. The movie deals with a dark world in which a demented doctor and a carnival sleepwalker perpetuate a series of murders in a small community. In The Golem, Rabbi Loew creates a golem to protect the residents of 16th century Prague’s Jewish ghetto. The story is said to have inspired a writer who specializes in blind bureaucratic machines, creepy castles, and a salesman who wakes up one day as a giant vermin: Franz Kafka. Asphalt is set in traffic-strewn Berlin and follows a thieving femme fatale’s attempts to seduce a young officer. Tabu was director F.W. Murnau’s last film.

For inquiries, call Goethe-Institut at 817-0978 to 09 and 840-5723 to 24.

Another event to look forward to is the Cinemalaya Film Festival, which will be held from July 17 to 23 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

Cinemalaya is a competitive film festival that aims to "discover, encourage, and honor the cinematic works of Filipino filmmakers," and seeks to invigorate the Philippine film industry by developing a new breed of Pinoy directors. The finalists this year are 10:25 ng Gabi by Reggie Gulle, Gee-Gee at Waterina by Dennis Teodosio and M. Tanangco, Kwarto by Jose Emmanuel Taylo, Labada by Raz dela Torre, No Passport Needed by Jeanne Lim, Orasyon by Rommel Tolentino, Parang Pelikula by Hubert Tibi, Putot by Jeck Cogama, Puwang by Anna Isabelle Matutina, and Sa Silaw by Reinzi Balao. (The 10 short film finalists were selected by a committee composed of a panel, which includes Philippine STAR columnist Juaniyo Arcellana.)

Yes, like what I said paragraphs ago, art is the best drug a person could score without getting busted. Wanna get high?

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Check out a slew of bands at Fete Dela Musique, which happens today, starting at 4 p.m. at the SM Mall of Asia. Featured this year are great bands such as mind-bending industrialist Elemento and Pinoy reggae heroes Cocojam. Ah, what a treat it is to listen to Lakambini once again.

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For comments, suggestions, curses, and invocations, e-mail iganja_ys@yahoo.com.