Killing conventional theater

The air of disgust rang through the Facebook status of a former high school classmate. “No one dresses up for the theater anymore. It’s really frustrating.” She was outraged because, apparently, the shorts-and-tsinelas get-up of another attendee was offensive. “The theater is a temple!” she cried, “What happened to the culture in our generation?”

If I wanted to argue for the so-called lost culture of our generation that she despised so much, I might have said, “Well, f*** the house of theater! Remove theater from its four walls and take it to the streets.” At which point Facebook friend would probably slap my face with a leather glove, swiftly turn her head the other direction, point her nose in the air and call me uncouth and classless.

Leave it then to a dissident theater group of idealistic and avant-garde artists to slap conventional theater lovers back, because they have actually been able to change the landscape of theater performances. It’s not that they have anything against conventional theater space; in fact most of them have been academically trained in formal institutions. It’s just that audience attire would probably be last priority.

Maybe JK Anicoche, artistic director for Sipat Lawin Ensemble, who I am meeting over coffee, would have a better way of encapsulating what exactly his so called renegade theater group is all about. JK talks so fast it’s difficult to keep up. He switches not only between English and Tagalog, but the languages of sub-culture as well. One minute he is talking about theater like a formally trained practitioner, the next he is spitting words like “gago” and “ulol.” The enthusiasm is bursting through his vivacious personality and I’m overwhelmed by his passionate energy.

Sipat Lawin Ensemble is a Manila-based edge work, contemporary theater company working on the fringe. Their specialty is site-specific theater performances, meaning each performance is tailored to the venue and the people of a certain area, outside of a theater house. From restaurants, to living rooms, to a barangay basketball court, Sipat Lawin Ensemble is all about taking the stories to the people. “Let’s design the play based on the space, and use the language of the actors, and see the sensibilities of the audience,” explains JK. Instead of an audience trying to live up to the standards and expectations of a theater house, with Sipat Lawin Ensemble, they study the culture of their audiences and adapt accordingly. I told you, they probably wouldn’t give a damn if you came in shorts and tsinelas.

Sipat Lawin Ensemble first got attention with their racy performance of Haring + ubol XXX in Cubao X. After which, they did an adaptation of the George Orwell’s classic Animal Farm, but to a very unlikely audience — children — at Museo Pambata. Then, just recently, they adapted the Shakespearean classic Romeo and Juliet, but performed on a barangay community basketball court, used rap and hip-hop, and called the play R’MeoW <3’s JHuLEz. They also collaborated with Leeroy New’s Psychopomp’s Reef installation at The Fort last December.

Here is a theater group that doesn’t go to extremes by making themselves exclusive to a certain social class or market. They just want to reach as many people as possible, whether barangay barkadas, radical leftists or yuppies from the cosmopolitan Makati. “Because of the range of the works that we do, we keep on changing faces. When we started doing site-specific work, we decided that we wanted to engage as many people as possible,” says JK about the totally random choice of market for whom they perform to. “Like they say, ‘a thing of wonder is a thing of wonder. A great experience is a great experience.’ So even if you don’t understand it, if you can feel it, then people can claim that they ‘liked’ it and they owe the theater something.”

Feelings after all would be the only take away they would need from the audience, because JK adds that they’re not just about creating shows anymore. “We don’t make plays, we create experiences. A play is a social experiment, and even the production itself is a social experiment.”

Reading The Audience

While most theater shows give their audience no choice with regards to how the story flows, Sipat Lawin Ensemble prioritizes the audience first. “A bunch of it is sensing. We use ethnography. We immerse ourselves with the culture there.”

For R’MeoW <3’s JHuLEz, they used fliptop battles and krumping lessons to tell the story to the barangay. “There are emerging forms that we don’t know yet that we have to incorporate in performance. We are very academic but, like, right now I can talk this way. Pero mamaya naman, kung makapagsalita ka lang, nag-iiba ka ng pakikitungo. Parang, ‘gago tong ulol!’ Tapos pag academically, nag-iiba ulit yung tone. So we’re very conscious about that.”

The consciousness and sensitivities even go as far as having to change the content of their work. JK recalls their concern about the classic ending of two teenage suicides in Romeo and Juliet. During the time they ran this show, it was also the time when the teenage suicide shootout at SM Mall hit news. When someone suggested ending the play with a musical rendition of Heal the World instead, it was a “be-all and end-all” denouement — ultra corny, but it worked. Everyone sang along.

“One actor said, why not kanta nalang tayo ng ‘Heal the World’? Parang gago lang eh no?” says JK in exasperation.

I pause with a hidden smirk on my face.

“See? You’re cringing!” He says, laughing. “I’m cringing too! But it’s a lot of killing. You kill the elitist, you kill the theater practitioner, and you kill your sensibilities. But that is what will work. Because if you’re going to end Romeo and Juliet with the suicides, and telling it to a community, ano ang responsibility ng theater dun?”

By this time, it is clear to me that Sipat Lawin Ensemble is both innovative and destructive. Innovative because they relay clearly relevant contemporary themes, and teach it in new and emerging formats. Innovative because of the amount of work they put in reading the audience, in analyzing how to use space, and in experimenting with various formats. However, it is destructive, because in the process of their pioneering thinking, they have killed theater. They killed the actor. For them, it is just about the audience, and however way they want to experience it.

“It serves as a wink of the eye. You know what you’re teaching, you know what you want to tell them, but you don’t reveal all of that. Parang ano lang,” says JK while squinting his right eye quite very animatedly in front of me, “alam mo yun, parang kindat lang.”

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Sipat Lawin Ensemble’s next production Battalia Royale, is a loose adaptation of Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale which they say “makes the Hunger Games look like a rip-off.” For more information on the Sipat Lawin Ensemble, check out http://www.facebook.com/sipatlawin.inc.