[EVENT RUNDOWN] VLF 18: Hitik

The Virgin Labfest 18 presents: Hitik, with four sets of untried, untested, and unstaged one-act plays plus a revisited set of last year’s top three hits! Categorized from A to E, each set contains three plays that are sure to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

Here are this year’s setlist:

Set E is the most sought-after playset as it is already the top picks from the year before. On the June 16 8PM show, the set was played in the following order: Punks Not Dead, Fermata, and Nay May Dala Akong Pansit.

Note: The following parts contain spoilers.

Punks Not Dead

The stage setup was a classroom with a teacher who’s waiting for her students’ parents to submit their modules. One parent arrived with a concern: a discriminating answer to a question regarding people with tattoos. In the module’s answer keys, it shows that a person with tattoos is synonymous with being a criminal–a very known misconception and generalization the modern society works hard to dismantle. The simple housewife with a “Punks Not Dead” tattoo now complains to the teacher about what kind of values and education are being taught to kids. The teacher, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the parent, tries to appease her by making compromises like excluding that specific item in the module next school year or promising to provide a note saying that that item is incorrect. However, the parent did not want to leave until all the modules distributed is corrected. This isn’t exactly easy as there are due processes that must be followed before any changes to these course materials can be applied. In the middle of their discussion, another student’s parent arrives–a policeman who seems to be chummy with the teacher at first. When the policeman caught up to the topic, he agreed with what was on the module and stood his ground that tattooed people are indeed criminals. As a policeman himself, he bore witness to every criminal he has ever caught having had at least some tattoos on their bodies. When the “item” [on the module] was brought up again, this became a triggering word to the policeman that made him start pointing his gun at the parent. In the confusion and frenzy, he also starts pointing the gun at the teacher. He keeps insisting on revealing where these drug “items” were and the teacher exclaimed to the policeman that even if she takes all her clothes off, there won’t be any [drugs] to show. This act, however, revealed–not drugs, but–her “Punks Not Dead” tattoo she didn’t want to admit to also having to protect her profession. The matching tattoos were enough conclusion to the policeman that the teacher and the parent were a criminal duo that’s been using the return of the modules as an excuse to make an “item exchange”. The scene ended with the policeman shooting both women and then planting his own carried drugs to support his narrative as there were indeed no drugs in the classroom.

It’s funny how when we say that all cops are bastards, there is always one person who would make a weak rebuttal with the words, “not all”. But when cops say that all criminals have tattoos, nobody is as quick to defend especially if they’ve already been shot dead. The scene was a really powerful confirmation of what we already know truly happens–discrimination, willful misunderstanding, killing, saving face, and revising events. Yet, when it’s happening right before our eyes, it’s still such a hard thing to process. The playful act of the teacher and parent during the first scenes did not prepare the audience for the grim end they were about to face. It goes to show how something so harmless and innocent can go sideways in the presence of the hungry-killing.

Fermata

A musical note defined as a pause of unspecified length or rest, Fermata shed light on a very heavy topic that some people take years to speak about or not at all: rape. The act shows Alex and Ben, long-time buddies who haven’t seen each other for years, get together over jazz and a few drinks. As their conversation develops, Ben reveals the ulterior motive for his visit. He wanted to confront Alex about a rumor that’s been haunting his late father, who was a renowned music teacher, as a news outlet tries to rummage about his past, being the son of a great artist, for a tribute article. Ben didn’t want to glorify his dad in the article while some others believed him to be a predator, and what better way to put an end to this hearsay than to ask his best friend about it and get the facts straight from the horse’s mouth. Alex did not take this kindly. He references the one remarkable thing he learned from Ben’s father–Fermata, defining his life as in the state of rest for an indefinite time. He could neither confirm nor deny if he was one of Ben’s father’s young victims back when he was still a student of his until he explained how Fermata is basically like being stuck in limbo. You try to forget, you try to bury it, yet even when your abuser dies you can’t get out of this purgatory-like condition. You can’t move on with your life. How being a victim changes you in ways illogical to the eyes of the untraumatized.

It takes a lot for victims to come forward and tell their truth, but most others don’t even muster up enough courage to do so. Just like Mike, another one of Ben’s father’s students, who ended up killing himself without unearthing the reason why. If Ben hadn’t pushed Alex, he wouldn’t have known the load his best friend had been suffering from all these years, carried out by his father, his hero, his idol whom he loved dearly. How can someone so revered do something so ghastly? It’s the nuance of life. “Why didn’t you scream?” “Why didn’t you ask for help?” “Why have you never said anything?” are questions seemingly so easy to put out there, yet so many victims just fall silent. The way Alex described his rewired line of thinking was quite eye-opening, to say the least. He said that after letting the misdeed go on and continuing to show up to his music lessons only to be violated by his teacher again and again, he had forfeited the window for telling. Even after it was all over, the harassment stayed with him. When a roommate in college confessed his attraction to Alex, he digressed that he was straight and doesn’t like him like that; they were just friends. But in the dead of the night, his brain went, “This guy is so nice, how come I can’t let him have me when I let [Ben’s father] do those things anyway?” And so he proceeded to come to his roommate and deliver his sexual desires, even though he knew that was not what he wanted. It doesn’t make sense. It’s true, nobody understands trauma until it happens to you in the same degree. Ben wanted nothing more than to understand Alex, but how could he? He’s never been violated like that as a child, by someone who everyone regards so highly. So how can you write about a person’s great works and contributions to the industry they belonged in when, all the while, they wreaked havoc on other people’s lives?

The play finished with an inconclusive scene–Will Ben reveal his late father’s crimes for the world to know and for the victims to suffer even further from? Or will he respect his best friend’s wishes and leave him in Fermata?

Nay May Dala Akong Pansit

This last play features a popular skit: it starts with two siblings who are getting their mom’s favorite–pansit–for her birthday, but as soon as they arrive home, they find their mom laying to her rest. However, there’s a twist: the sister exclaims how this has already happened before and she tries to warn her brother not to order pansit anymore as they get looped back to the food stand. The brother wanted to surprise the mom with her favorite to make up for an altercation they had beforehand. But each time they arrive home, it’s the same fate. Mom is dead. For some reason, only the sister remembers being stuck in the loop. So she always has to stop her brother from bringing pansit home. When they finally bring her a different dish entirely, the universe comes up with a way for pansit to show up on their doorstep anyway.

As soon as pansit materializes, the mom loses her breath and it’s back to the food stand for the brother and sister again.

Each loop, slightly different than the other, is played but the end remains the same. There was one loop where they interacted with the audience and the audience helped them fight off their mom’s prophesied demise by suggesting ways to avoid pansit at all costs, but to no avail. On the last loop, they made peace with the fact that their mom was going to die and they spent the day showing her how much they love and celebrate her until it was her time.

It seems like a very simple play but it was the most entertaining out of the three. The actors were drenched in sweat from all the running and looping, with different gimmicks per scene (there was one loop where they made it a musical and the interactive one became KPop-based). In conclusion, you just can’t prevent a canon event. All you can do is spend what little time you have left without regrets of not being able to show those you love how much they meant.

VLF never fails to provide commentaries on important matters, like discrimination, abuse of power, and acceptance in this particular set. However, there is a noticeable pattern in how they group the plays together: First, they start with an unassuming act and end it with something dark to prime the audience for the darker scenes that lied ahead. Second, the dragging, drama-heavy, and sensitive topics are touched and you’re left with more questions than closure in its inconclusive end. Third, they serve a kind of dessert to finish the proverbial course meal that will leave you with some food for thought.

It’s definitely a formula that has been played in the prior years. Overall, it’s still a great way of keeping the annual tradition and also a welcoming means of reeling in newcomers to go to the festival again the next year.