Physica Curiosa
Authored by Jesuit Gaspar Schott as part of his world-renowned “Books of Curiosity,” the Physica Curiosa is a thought-provoking compendium of mythical figures and so-called “human monsters,” depicting queer representations of half-men/half-elephants, centaurs, satyrs, and a cacophony of other spine-tingling sensations with real birth anomalies. While Schott and his contemporaries have credited these deviants’ supposed existence to their popularity in 16th- and 17th-century literature, it is perhaps Dulaang UP’s recent staging of Hinabing Pakpak ng Ating Mga Anak that metaphorically insinuates the undying stigma behind such conceptual peculiarities.
In Hinabing Pakpak, the centaurs and satyrs are satirized in the form of impoverished Filipino youth whose plight stems from the pitfalls of poverty and social injustice. Bearing witness to these events are two writers, played by Earl Ignacio and Joel Saracho, as the two strive to answer the question: Is there hope in a land that, like a hungry wolf, will eat its young? The play moves along in episodes and spaces that preclude powerful themes such as child abuse, prostitution, and the faint resilience of the human heart. Furthermore, the avenues for exposition are sourced from present-time allusions to the stories of late children’s wordsmith Rene O. Villanueva. The writer’s works were said to be the inspiration for Anton Juan Jr., director and playwright of Hinabing Pakpak. Villanueva’s fables are juxtaposed alongside real-life conflagrations that sear through the souls and innocence of those in their marginalized juvenescence, providing both irony and catalyst to the show’s meaty exposition of life during troubled times.
On several occasions, the hands of Aktor 1 (Via Antonio) and Aktor 2 (Zaf Masahud) are nested with trapos that the two street vendors peddle to the implied window exteriors of luxury, air-conditioned vehicles. While in purposeful stage convention, the “people on the other side” are rendered through the breaking of the fourth wall, the symbolism of a trapo suggests that of the destitute man being trapped — like a never-ending circle that travels in infinitesimal space. As mentioned in the play, trapos, if crafted with wings, convey emaciated hope that longingly springs eternal. In the absence of these, however, hope becomes forever lost. Such ironies illustrate the double-edged conundrums that the protagonists perpetually face.
Another gripping instance exhibited in the play is a demon paying regular visits to a terrified dreamer in the thick of the night. As the girl’s wails and tears are washed away by her mother’s slumber of indifference, a father claws his way up his daughter’s thighs and snatches her last ounce of dignity. The imagery of a molested young girl is made even more potent by Via Antonio’s absolutely engaging performance as one of the street children, keeping audiences at bay with empathy for her character and a box load of tissue for the show’s endless guilt trip. Whether in the simplest act of begging or during the actress’s gripping soliloquy as she is being raped in the dark, Antonio is as captivating as the company she keeps alongside DUP’s outstanding league of performers.
On the other side of the looban, a maiden is driven insane by poverty and her inability to pursue her education. As she enters into wicked servitude to some unruly employers, the young maiden-turned-maid takes her bittersweet escape. This time around, the imagery of a circle as previously used in the trapo becomes a desperate form of escape in the form of a noose — an instance that director Juan juxtaposes with the youth’s aspiration of having a gold medal placed around her neck. Out of affliction, she succumbs to death, just as many others like her are otherwise kidnapped to engage in some form of human sabong. Whereas the winner lives to die another day, the loser is harvested for bodily organs.
Perhaps, one of Hinabing Pakpak’s most provocative features is the stylized choreography that movement expert Dexter Santos weaves into the show’s poignant scenes. His use of flashlights in the show’s earlier segments makes for an engaging light display, especially in an aesthetic of darkness where demons are said to lurk and dreams are crushed before they take flight.
For DUP’s much-awaited follow-up to last season’s critically acclaimed Orosman and Zafira, director Anton Juan assembles a noteworthy crew of behind-the-scenes artistic folk to generate the show’s aesthetic. For Hinabing Pakpak, the tenured full professor and theater director of the University of Notre Dame du Lac enlists the help of dramaturge and assistant director Pat Valera, with Leo Abaya for the stunning set, John Batalla for lights, Carlo Pagunaling and Carlo Cannu for costume and makeup, and Jethro Joaquin for the music. Not to be forgotten is Abaya’s stunning use of a ramp in which the top part is a crafted with a simple stretch fabric camouflaged in resin as with most of the ramp’s exterior. One can almost feel a sense of horror when several actors creep out from the top of the initially solid ramp for the opening scene à la Dawn of the Dead. Finally, Marnelli Puyot and Pangunaling’s craftsmanship in devising the angel wings the children wear towards the end of the show is a stroke of pure genius. Through the use of water bottles as feathers, and further on with the graphic representation of the birhen na maraming suso, audiences are treated to a crafty and cohesive journey through the surroundings of these impoverished delinquents.
Overall, Hinabing Pakpak is a riveting piece of art that reveals much about the problems of society today. It compels people to remember what is most important in light of the actions they undertake in the present and shifts focus back to the youth. Furthermore, it brings audiences back to the question: Is there hope in a land that, like a hungry wolf, will eat its young? Anton Juan reveals that, in looking for hope, perhaps it is in the very act of writing and creating art that hope is made possible. After all, as Don Quixote would put it, “Sanity may be madness but the maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be.”
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