VIRGIN LAB FEST XX: A FRUITION OF CREATIVE COLLABORATIONS

You always feel a sense of community when you watch Virgin Lab Fest, a celebration of brave new works presented by the Cultural Center of the Philippines together with Tanghalang Pilipino and The Writer's Bloc, now in its 20th year with 12 one-act plays selected from 219 qualifying entries.

- RICKY TOLEDO & CHITO VIJANDRE

It's exciting to see what "virgin" writers come up with outside the mainstream. "These fresh, vital stories go through rigorous script development, pushed to their best possible form," says VLF co-director Marco Viaña.

While the best in the industry act as mentors, VLF has evolved into a platform for emerging talents in all related fields, "transforming itself into a nursery for new collaborations that help shape the landscape of contemporary Philippine theater," adds co-director Tess Jamias.

The festival's theme is Hinog or ripe—a metaphor for the fruition of creative cycles. Set A is subtitled Bubot or unripe. In Lian Carlo Suelan's Ang Bata kag ang Ilaga (The child and the rat), Isaac, who is ostracized because he's the only orphan among children in a care center, faces the moral dilemma of saving a baby rat. The hesitation begs the question why humans are so selective and why they limit kindness while the child projects motherhood by virtue of lacking one. In bunraku style, Isaac is a puppet while the rest of the characters are actors—distinguishing this piece with its novel staging.

In Takbo, Batang Tondo, Yoj creates a microcosm of society where a group of children do role-play as a policeman, a salesgirl, a thief, and a baby. Just like in real life, disagreements arise on how the play should proceed, while characters aren't always what they were thought to be.

Polar Coordinates by Ade Valenzona brilliantly ties high school student Igo's coming of age with Mathematics which he is flunking and is the source of upheaval with his family. Jack Denzel makes a star turn playing the lead with naiveté and sensitivity, directed by an inspired Paolo O'Hara who wanted to show how "poetry can be found in Math, and structure in emotion."