THEATER 2022: The best of the first brave few

These are the best of the first theater productions that were able to bolt out of the thicket of pandemic lockdowns and restrictions that had shuttered all performing arts companies for two years, and banished artists to the unfortunate, government-designated category of "non-essentials."

This year, as constraints eased up, a number of theater companies tiptoed out and returned to the stage.

And, happily enough, whether it was a challenging straight play like Anak Datu or a rousing musical like Mula sa Buwan, the crowds came and packed houses every time — proof of the hunger the public felt for the magic of live theater that no amount of livestreaming or video-recorded performances could replicate.

Next year will see more companies dusting themselves off and reclaiming the stage. PETA (the Philippine Educational Theater Association) has a new original Filipino musical scheduled in February 2023 (Walang Aray), Ateneo Blue Repertory is bringing back the cult hit musical ZsaZsa Zaturnnah with a new generation of talents, and Newport World Resorts is likewise restaging its beloved Ang Huling El Bimbo (based on the Eraserheads songbook).

The forced hiatus of the last 24 months was an extreme stress test for local theater companies. Yet even a worldwide pandemic is evidently not enough to snuff out an art form and industry perennially said to be on the verge of dying but, as seen globally and hereabouts, is among the first to rebuild, pick up the pieces, and forge on.

That grit and spirit are worth honoring, hence this list that attempts to recognize the best of the first theater shows in Manila that braved the post-pandemic anxieties of 2022. Underlining, in this or any other year, how essential and irreplaceable the performing arts are to keeping us alive and sane.

BEST PLAY (ONE-ACT)
The Reconciliation Dinner (Floy Quintos, playwright; Dexter Santos, director). A compact play of galvanizing authenticity and immediacy, The Reconciliation Dinner's ripped-from-the-dinner-table conversations and collisions offered a virtual time capsule of the partitioning of the national soul — dissecting, with keen sorrow and sensitivity, how the fissures pounded open by Facebook-warped contemporary politics have shredded family and community bonds, creating a nation fraying at the core.

Honorable Mention:
Fermata (Dustin Celestino; Guelan Luarca, dir.)

BEST PLAY (FULL-LENGTH)
Anak Datu (Rody Vera; Chris Millado, dir.). Two years after being grounded by the pandemic, the CCP's resident theater company Tanghalang Pilipino returned to the stage looking none the worse for wear with the magnificent Anak Datu — a work of both documentary and imaginative power that retraced the historic Mindanao struggle in piercingly human terms, persuasively making the case that the personal is inevitably political and thus requiring unflinchingly engaged consciousness, from sustained remembering to defiant art-making.

Honorable Mentions: No citation

BEST ACTOR, PLAY
Basti Artadi, Fermata. Yes, rock star Basti Artadi, quietly searing the stage with a gripping, provocative portrayal of a grown-up sexual abuse survivor insisting on working out and coming to terms with his traumas his own way, in a play that was yet another worthy addition to playwright Dustin Celestino's growing body of work scrutinizing machismo and Filipino patriarchy.

Honorable Mentions:
Phi Palmos, The Reconciliation Dinner; Randy Villarama, The Reconciliation Dinner; Jojo Cayabyab, The Reconciliation Dinner; Lian Silverio, 'Nay, May Dala Akong Pansit

BEST ACTRESS, PLAY
Stella Cañete Mendoza, The Reconciliation Dinner. Cañete-Mendoza's take on the upper-middle-class woman grasping with every fiber of her being at rituals of politesse, civility, and tolerance as all these are progressively swept away by political differences among lifelong friends was harrowing, heartbreaking — and perhaps also delusional. Her wailing over a dinner gone to hell while other people around her are staking out urgent moral choices made for a tantalizingly ambiguous character.

Honorable Mentions:
Frances Makil-Ignacio, The Reconciliation Dinner; Tex Ordoñez, Bienvenuta Al Lido di Venezia; Skyzx Labastilla, Mga Balo; Manok
Nellas-Bagadiong, 'Nay, May Dala Akong Pansit

BEST FEATURED ACTOR, PLAY
Nanding Josef, Anak Datu. In playing an old man recalling the terrifying days of his youth as a survivor of the 1968 Jabidah massacre, Josef brought authentic power and poignance to the act of retelling eyewitness testimony, in the end embodying not only one victim, but also an entire generation scarred by that seminal spasm of violence and historical injustice.

Honorable Mention:
Hassanain Magarang, Anak Datu

BEST FEATURED ACTRESS, PLAY
Tex Ordoñez-De Leon, Anak Datu. Flitting here and there, donning various guises to thread through the layers of Anak Datu's complex tale-within-a-tale structure spanning decades and milieus, Ordoñez was a superb guide for the audience, thoroughly in command as she forged complete characters from the barest of lines and the most fleeting of scenes.

Honorable Mentions:
Mia Bolaños, 'Nay, May Dala Akong Pansit; Lhorvie Nuevo, Anak Datu; Dippy Arceo, Hamlet

BEST MUSICAL PRODUCTION
Mula sa Buwan (book/lyrics by Pat Valera, music/lyrics by William Elvin Manzano; Pat Valera, dir.) What a difference 12 years and creative maturity can make. Over many stagings in that period, the original Cyrano: Isang Sarswela, a musical retelling of Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac using Francisco "Soc" Rodrigo's melodious Filipino translation, became Mula sa Buwan. Its latest incarnation could now bid fair as the definitive version — a radiant grown-up with sweep, emotion, and clarity to spare, at its best an achingly lyrical over-the-moon experience.

Honorable Mention:
Joseph the Dreamer (book by Freddie Santos, music by Cam Floria; Paolo Valenciano, dir.)

BEST ACTOR, MUSICAL
Gian Magdangal, Carousel. Repertory Philippines' needlessly busy, tonally and conceptually blunt updating of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel found its saving graces in the enthralling sound of the ensemble, Lorenz Martinez and Mikkie Bradshaw-Volante's sterling supporting turns, and, above all, Gian Magdangal's towering Billy Bigelow, his Soliloquy qualifying as one of the most breathtaking musical theater moments in recent local memory.

Honorable Mentions:
Myke Salomon, Mula sa Buwan; Sam Concepcion, Joseph the Dreamer

BEST ACTRESS, MUSICAL
Gab Pangilinan, Mula sa Buwan. Pangilinan gave audiences a vivid, charismatic Roxane, playing the character as a markedly intelligent, free-spirited woman reveling in the possibilities of her youth and the changing times in Mula sa Buwan's Old Manila setting while, by the way, also singing the daylights out of her songs, the mournful aria "Ang Sabi Nila," for instance, turning into a true emotional highlight.

Honorable Mentions:
No citation

BEST FEATURED ACTOR, MUSICAL
Lorenz Martinez, Carousel. A sheer delight as Enoch Snow, his was a comic tenor part performed with both becoming dignity and exuberant zaniness, not to mention sung with the clearest diction one heard on a local stage.

Honorable Mentions:
Gary Valenciano, Joseph the Dreamer; Phi Palmos, Mula sa Buwan; Topper Fabregas, Joseph the Dreamer; Carlo Orosa, Joseph the Dreamer; MC Dela Cruz, Mula sa Buwan

BEST FEATURED ACTRESS, MUSICAL
Mikkie Bradshaw-Volante, Carousel. As Carrie Pipperidge, Bradshaw-Volante's every scene in Carousel hummed with accomplished comic timing and singing, her tandem with Lorenz Martinez goosing up the proceedings with buoyant moments that felt like a breath of fresh air every time.

Honorable Mentions:
Carla Guevara-Laforteza, Joseph the Dreamer; Bituin Escalante, Joseph the Dreamer

ARTISTIC AND TECHNICAL STANDOUTS
The across-the-board excellence in Anak Datu, first of all — Toym Imao's spectacular set design, Hassanain Magarang's pangalay choreography, Carlo Pagunaling's costumes, Chino Toledo's music and musical direction, Katsch Catoy's lighting design, TJ Ramos' sound design, and GA Fallarme's projections;
MJ Arda's scintillating choreography for Joseph the Dreamer, as well as that show's set and costumes (Mio Infante), musical direction (Myke Salomon), lights (Dong Calingacion), and sound design (Rards Corpus);
Salomon again weaving his musical director's wizardry for Mula sa Buwan (on top of playing the lead part), along with Bonsai Cielo's ravishing period costumes, choreography by JM Cabling, set by Ohm David, and lights by Meliton Roxas;
Carousel's first-rate twin piano playing by Joed Balsamo and Ejay Yatco (also its ace musical director), plus the sound design by Glendfford Malimban;
for The Reconciliation Dinner, Arvy Dimaculangan's sound design and Steven Tansiongco's video projections;
and lastly — a harbinger of what the young generation is bringing to the table — Nelsito Gomez's thoughtful pruning and adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, viably transposing the play to a Gen Z classroom setting.