#TheaterPH - We Watched All 12 Plays at Virgin Labfest XXI — Here’s My Honest Ranking
There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that only VLF can give you. It’s not the bad kind — it’s the kind that comes from sitting in a blackbox theater night after night, watching stories that haven’t existed anywhere else in the world until that exact moment. No touring production. No revival. Just a playwright’s raw nerve, a director’s vision, and a cast breathing life into something completely, irreversibly new.
This year, I made it my mission to watch every single one. All 12 plays across all four sets of Virgin Labfest XXI: Hubo’t Hubad at the Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez (CCP Black Box Theater). And I want to be honest with you — it was one of the most fulfilling things I’ve done as a theater fan. Exhausting, emotionally loaded, occasionally gut-punching, and deeply worth every commute to CCP.
Hubo’t Hubad. Completely naked. The theme wasn’t just a clever title — it was a dare. And these twelve playwrights, twelve directors, and dozens of performers answered it with everything they had.
So here’s what I thought. This is my personal ranking, measured across five things I care about most: compelling conflict or premise, strength of character, thematic resonance, originality, and emotional impact. Fair warning — this year made ranking genuinely painful. Every entry brought something real and brave to the table.
She’s Electric (Set C: Balat Kalabaw) — 4.5/5
Written by Ron Evangelista, directed by JP Habac
The reformed womanizer premise sounds like it could collapse into something predictable, but She’s Electric subverts expectations beautifully. What emerges is a sharp, philosophical, surprisingly funny dissection of how we talk about sex, love, and personhood. Glaiza de Castro is magnetic, and Habac’s direction keeps the pacing electric — pun fully intended. My top bet for next year’s revisited list, and I’ll be genuinely shocked if the committee disagrees.
Lualhati (Set B: Kapit Tuko) — 4.5/5
Written by Gab Mactal, directed by Mara Paulina Marasigan
This one broke me a little. Set on the last night of a wake for a Reverend Mother, it’s the reunion of a philosophy teacher — a woman who once chose to leave the convent — and Lualhati, the life she could have lived. Jackie Lou Blanco and Angel Aquino bring a weight and tenderness to this play that I’m still carrying around with me. It’s quiet in the way that only the most confident writing can be quiet. Gab Mactal writes grief and devotion like they’re the same feeling, because maybe they are.
Password 123, Pilipinas 321 (Set A: Tengang Kawali) — 4.5/5
Written by Anthony Kim Vergara, directed by Norbs Portales
On paper: a cybercrime play set in a fake technical support center. In practice: a moral thriller about what it costs to belong somewhere, to admire someone, and then watch them become someone you can’t recognize. Earvin Estioco as Nix is the emotional anchor, and the play builds to its reckoning with real craft. Vergara’s script is tight in all the right places and trusts the audience to keep up. First-time playwright energy at its absolute best.
Taksyapo! (Set D: Pusong Mamon) — 4.25/5
Written by John “Sweet” Lapus, directed by Tuxqs Rutaquio
A rage booth in Tarlac. Two strangers. One unexpectedly tender connection forged over traded disappointments and screamed frustrations. John Lapus — yes, that John Lapus — writes with a warmth and specificity that catches you completely off guard. Christian Bables and Mosang are a pairing I didn’t know I needed. The comedy never undercuts the sincerity, and the play earns its emotional payoff honestly. This is the one your non-theater friends would love if you could convince them to come.
Footprint (Set D: Pusong Mamon) — 4.25/5
Written by Jerom Canlas, directed by Mikko Angeles
A grieving family uses a virtual archive of memories to go back — and in doing so, excavates everything they couldn’t say when they had the chance. Elijah Canlas and Meryll Soriano are extraordinary here, and it’s fascinating to watch Elijah perform in a play written by his brother Jerom. Footprint isn’t just about grief. It’s about the stories we construct to survive it, and the ones we owe each other when we can’t.
Buhaghag (Set D: Pusong Mamon) — 4/5
Written by Gerald Manuel, directed by Tess Jamias
A young woman haunted by a long-haired enigma who forces her to choose between self-preservation and self-destruction. Buhaghag operates in the space between psychological horror and deeply personal reckoning — and it pulls that off with enough atmosphere and nerve to leave you unsettled in the best way. Manuel’s writing has a rawness that feels genuinely first-generation VLF in the most exciting sense of the phrase.
Betamax (Set C: Balat Kalabaw) — 4/5
Written by Faith Ferrer Lacanlale, directed by Sheenly Gener
A woman begins seeing “human pigs” after a minor road accident — and as her descent into madness deepens, the darkness within her family history surfaces with it. Betamax has the kind of layered, slightly surreal construction that rewards close watching. Lacanlale is a VLF Writing Fellowship alumna, and her script shows exactly why that program matters: she’s writing at a level well beyond debut.
Haram (Set B: Kapit Tuko) — 4/5
Written by Alab Usman, directed by Mark Daniel Dalacat
Three queer Muslims navigating faith, love, and the borders between devotion and belonging. Haram is the kind of play VLF was made for — a story that probably couldn’t exist anywhere else on a Philippine main stage, and that demands to be heard. It doesn’t simplify its characters into symbols, and the tension it holds between spiritual sincerity and personal truth is genuinely difficult to write. Usman handles it with care.
Elehiya (Set C: Balat Kalabaw) — 3.75/5
Written by Dustin Celestino, directed by Ron Capinding
An impressionistic montage of conversations between sons and their fathers that should have happened, but never did. Elehiya is formally ambitious — it’s not a linear narrative but a collection of could-have-beens — and Celestino’s language carries an elegance that makes the absences ache. Carlos Siguion-Reyna and his son Rafa in the same production is a casting detail that adds a meta-layer the play doesn’t explicitly need but quietly benefits from. It took me a moment to fully settle into its rhythm, but once I did, it landed.
Human Rights Story of the Year (Set A: Tengang Kawali) — 3.5/5
Written by Elijah Felice Rosales, directed by Nelsito Gomez
A journalist on the verge of receiving an international award for her human rights reporting — until a former colleague challenges whether she deserves it. The premise is charged with the kind of moral complexity this country has every reason to keep wrestling with. CJ Navato and Justine Peña hold the tension between them well. The play stumbles slightly in its pacing toward the close, but the questions it asks don’t let you off the hook easily — and that counts for a lot.
Balos (Set B: Kapit Tuko) — 3.25/5
Written by Neil Arkhe Azcuna, directed by Cholo Ledesma
A wounded fighter whose arrival upends the lives of medical workers in a small Marawi hospital. Balos has genuine stakes and a setting ripe with history, and Azcuna clearly cares about the world he’s writing. It’s a solid entry that simply got a little overtaken by the competition around it this year — the kind of play you’d appreciate more on a different night, in a different set.
Patayin Ang Mga Surot (Set A: Tengang Kawali) — 3.25/5
Written by Floyd Scott Tiogangco, directed by Lhorvie Nuevo-Tadioan
Set on the last night of Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency, the play arrives already carrying enormous thematic weight. Tiogangco commits to the political moment, and there’s bold provocation in the premise. It didn’t fully land for me in execution — the ideas feel more fully developed than the characters who carry them — but it’s the kind of risk-taking that belongs exactly here, in a festival that exists to host daring first attempts.
Here’s the thing about ranking VLF plays: you’re ranking apples against grief against comedy against horror against history. Every score above is relative to extraordinary peers, and a 3.25 here would be a career-defining moment in many other contexts. The bottom of this list is still the best of a very good year.
My bets for the revisited works in VLF XXII? She’s Electric, Lualhati, and Password 123, Pilipinas 321 — three plays that felt fully formed, fully alive, and fully worth a second production for the audiences who didn’t get to see them this time around.
VLF XXI still has performances running until June 28, 2026 at the Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez (CCP Black Box Theater) in the CCP Complex, Pasay. Ticket information and schedules are available through the official social media channels of the CCP and Tanghalang Pilipino. If you haven’t been yet — go. Choose a set, any set. You don’t need to watch all 12 to feel the weight of what this festival is doing for Philippine theater. But if you happen to find yourself going back for more, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
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