#TheaterPH - The Ocean Came Into That Black Box — and It Drowned Me Beautifully: Our Full Experience of 9 Works Theatrical’s Yemaya
You know how the sea feels before a storm? That low, electric pressure in your chest — not dread exactly, but a kind of readiness? That’s the feeling Yemaya handed me the moment I stepped into The Black Box at The Proscenium Theater in Rockwell, and it didn’t let go until long after I walked back out into the Makati night air.
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| Photo by: Myra Ho |
9 Works Theatrical opens its 2026 season with Yemaya, a Filipino adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes’s debut play, Yemaya’s Belly (2003) — and right away, let me tell you: this is not a show you watch. This is a show that happens to you.
The story follows a young boy who, inspired by his first taste of Coca-Cola, leaves home in search of a new world — and a chance to meet the American president. On paper, that sounds almost like a fairy tale. In the hands of this creative team, it felt like a wound being cleaned. Director Ed Lacson Jr. uses magic realism as a device, bridging Hudes’ Latin American roots with the shared maritime and archipelagic experiences of the Philippines — and that bridge doesn’t just hold, it soars.
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| Photo by: Myra Ho |
The first thing that hits you is the stage. Moving away from grand spectacles, 9 Works Theatrical embraced a raw, evocative approach, trading the expansive main house for the immersive close-quarters experience of the Black Box — and that decision is everything. Ed Lacson Jr. — who serves as both director and set designer here — turns that intimate space into something mythic. You feel the humidity of Magdalena clinging to your skin. The lighting (by Jethro Nibaten) slants across the stage like afternoon sun cutting through saltwater. When the rain comes, you want to reach for an umbrella. When the waves build, your body actually braces. The magic isn’t done with spectacle — it’s done with precision, with trust that a well-placed shadow and a perfectly-timed sound cue (thank you, Teresa Barrozo) can conjure an entire ocean. And it does.
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| Photo by: Myra Ho |
But let me talk about what undid me most: the Filipino translation by Eljay Castro Deldoc. I’ve seen productions where translation feels like a courtesy — technically accurate, emotionally approximate. This was not that. Deldoc didn’t just translate Yemaya’s Belly into Filipino. He transplanted its soul. Every line landed with the weight of something that had always been in the language, waiting to be said. There were moments when a single sentence — quiet, almost offhand — cut straight through the chest. The kind of line you replay on the jeepney ride home, turning it over like a stone to see what’s underneath. That’s not translation. That’s alchemy.
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| Photo by: Myra Ho |
Leading the cast as Yemaya/Inay is Bituin Escalante, joined by Herbie Go as Tico, with Tommy Alejandrino and Benedix Ramos sharing the role of Jesus/Mulo, and Sheena Belarmino and Ness Roque alternating as Maya. Completing the ensemble are Sheenly Gener as Lila, Anthony Falcon as Jelin, and Wenah Nagales as cover for Yemaya/Inay. Escalante, as always, commands the room with the kind of presence that makes you forget to breathe — but what I didn't expect was how tender she'd be in the stillness. There's a moment where she stands at the edge of the light, and nothing happens except that she exists in that space, and it's the most devastating thing I've seen on a Philippine stage this year. The boy's journey — Jesus/Mulo's odyssey from the small world of home to the vast, indifferent ocean between here and America — is carried with such physical truth by the entire cast that you stop seeing actors and start seeing people who have genuinely been at sea.
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| Photo by: Myra Ho |
And that’s the thing about Yemaya that makes it more than a production. What begins as a simple question of “what if” becomes a magical adventure filled with hope, perseverance, and the call of the tides — but it’s also, quietly, a story about every Filipino who has ever looked across water and wondered what waits on the other side. We know that story. We are, in so many ways, made of it. Hudes wrote it from a Cuban-American experience; Deldoc and Lacson have drawn it closer until it fits like something inherited. The boy’s dream of America isn’t foreign to us. It’s in our families, our group chats, our airport farewells. That’s why the magic realism here hits differently than it would in a Western staging — because for Filipinos, the sea has always been both escape and elegy.
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| Photo by: Myra Ho |
This production marks 9 Works Theatrical’s first venture into straight plays in 17 years , and what a way to return to the form. No orchestra pit. No trap doors. No elaborate set pieces that do the emotional heavy lifting for you. Just language, bodies, light, water — and a story that refuses to let you stay comfortable or detached.
By the time the final image settled and the lights came down, I realized I’d been holding my breath for the last ten minutes. The person beside me exhaled at the exact same moment. That involuntary synchrony — two strangers releasing something together in the dark — might be the best argument I can make for why live theater still matters, and why Yemaya is exactly the kind of work that reminds us.
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| Photo by: Myra Ho |
Yemaya runs until July 5, 2026, at The Black Box, The Proscenium Theater, Rockwell Makati, with 8:00 PM performances on Fridays and 7:30 PM and 3:00 PM matinee performances on Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets are available through Ticket2Me. Go while the tides are still high.
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