#TheaterPH - The Plays That Refused to Be Forgotten: VLF XXI’s Set E: Dilang Matalim Is Sharper, Funnier, and More Devastating Than Ever
There’s a particular kind of joy that comes with revisiting a story you already loved — that split-second before a punchline lands where your brain goes oh, I know what’s coming and you grin anyway. That’s the feeling Set E of Virgin Labfest XXI: Hubo’t Hubad delivers in spades.
Three plays that earned their place in last year’s lineup have returned to the Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez stage — and they didn’t come back unchanged. They came back upgraded.
Ade Valenzona’s Polar Coordinates, Rolin Cadallo Obina’s The Late Mister Real, and Siege Malvar’s Presidential Suite #2 were already strong enough to be selected as revisited works for this year’s festival. But what makes Set E genuinely exciting is how much these productions have evolved. Revised, updated, sharpened with fresh references and renewed staging — these aren’t reruns. They’re second editions, and second editions, when done right, are always the better read.
Polar Coordinates opens the set, and it comes in deceptively gentle. On the surface, it’s a story about Igo — a student who just bombed his Math exam and is now quietly unraveling at the intersection of family pressure, academic anxiety, and feelings he can’t quite name yet. His friend Bobbie volunteered to tutor him. It did not help in the way Bobbie intended. The math of Igo’s interior life — who he is, what he wants, where he’s going — turns out to be far messier than any polar coordinates problem on a test paper.
Set designer Jerome Aytona grounds the production in a spare but evocative world, and the lighting design by Roman Cruz keeps the emotional temperature fluctuating in all the right moments. But the true scene-stealer this run? Sheryll Villamor Ceasico as Ma’am Onqui, whose witty, perfectly-timed interjections cut right through the play’s heavier currents. Every time the tension threatened to swallow you whole, she arrived with exactly the right remark — not to undercut the drama, but to humanize it. The kind of comic relief that earns its place because it’s rooted in character, not cheap laughs. This version of Polar Coordinates is more alive for it.
Then comes The Late Mister Real, and the air in the room changes.
Rolin Cadallo Obina’s play is set inside a COVID-19 isolation facility — two rooms, a shared wall, and a marriage’s worth of wreckage to sort through. Boyet (Bene Manaois) still wants to reconcile, still holds on, still frames everything through the lens of their son Carl. Raquel (Shé Maala) has moved on — to Canada, to a different life, to a version of herself that doesn’t require staying. In the play, they’re quarantined beside each other without being able to touch, which is, honestly, the most painfully precise metaphor for a dead relationship that Philippine theater has served us in recent years.
What’s been sharpened in this revisit is the pacing. The exchanges land harder, the silences breathe with more intention, and the emotional sucker punches feel more deliberate. Director Maynard Manansala strips the staging down to its essential truths — two people, a wall, and everything they can’t say directly. The minimalist set design by Wika Nadera reinforces this beautifully: there’s nowhere to hide, for the characters or for the audience. The Late Mister Real was already a gut punch. This version is a cleaner, more focused gut punch. Punchier, as it should be.
And then Presidential Suite #2 closes the set, and honestly — magaling talaga itong si Siege Malvar.
The premise alone is delicious: a senator has been accused of laundering money through charitable institutions under the shadow of her own landmark legislation (the “Zara-Gulay Act of Carrot Importations,” which alone should earn this play an award for naming). While she lies recovering from a heart attack, her three children — Constantino, Gertrude, and Richie — are left to manage the optics, the strategy, and their own unraveling family dynamics. It’s a satirical family drama about class, reputation, and the art of keeping up appearances when everything is falling apart.
What makes this revisit electric is how aggressively the production has updated its references. The recent senate drama that’s had Filipino social media collectively clutching its pearls? It’s in there. The specific flavor of political absurdity we’ve all been living through? Absolutely in there. This play understands that political satire has a shelf life, and rather than let the material age, the team has restocked the shelves with new ammunition. The result is a production that feels ruthlessly current — the kind of theater that makes you laugh in the first half of a sentence and wince in the second. One hell of a ride, from curtain up to curtain call.
Here’s what strikes me most about Set E as a whole: these three plays weren’t just chosen because they were good. They were chosen because they had more to say. A story about a confused teenager navigating identity is never really done — there’s always another generation of Igos figuring out their coordinates. A story about a marriage that died in a pandemic isolation room carries different weight as that collective trauma settles into memory. And a story about political families managing scandal is, unfortunately, perennially relevant in this country.
The Virgin Labfest has always operated on the belief that a script doesn’t have to be perfect to be powerful — it just has to be honest. What Set E demonstrates is the next step of that belief: that honesty can be refined, that a play can be honest and more precise, and more current, all at once. These playwrights and directors came back to do the work, and it shows.
VLF XXI: Hubo’t Hubad runs until June 28, 2026 at the Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez (CCP Black Box Theater), CCP Complex, Pasay City. Shows are at 2:00 PM (matinee) and 8:00 PM (gala), with educational events at 5:00 PM throughout the festival run. Tickets are priced at ₱1,000 (regular) and ₱1,200 (premium), available at the CCP Box Office or TicketWorld. Don’t wait — the run is almost over, and these are exactly the kind of plays you’ll wish you’d seen when everyone starts talking about them.
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