In 'Choosing,' personal truth takes center stage

In Choosing, Liza Diño’s first venture into playwriting, which debuted last year, she chose to be vulnerable — and uncomfortable. That was the point. Writing, after all, demands honesty.

For the play’s upcoming restaging this 6 to 15 June at the Doreen Blackbox Theater in Ateneo De Manila University, she, along with her husband Ice Seguerra and director Anton Juan, emphasized the same: the importance of unabashed truth.

“Liza was my student, and I think that one thing that Liza learned is that I told all my students to not be afraid of the edge. Go to the edge. It’s important that you see what’s at the edge of things,” said Juan during a recent press conference at Fire and Ice Studio in Quezon City.

“You allow yourself to be vulnerable when you’re writing. I’m actually able to do that. To go towards the uncomfortable. To discuss the things that I dare not say. So, that was the process. And it was a very... it was challenging,” Diño shared.

At the heart of Choosing is personal truth. The semi-autobiographical twohander — written by and starring Diño and Seguerra — draws from their real-life experiences and stories from the LGBTQ+ community. They play fictionalized versions of themselves, Mitch and Stella, whose relationship unfolds with honesty, struggle, intimacy and reflection.

“There is power in actually talking about things, even if it hurts,” Seguerra said. “Sometimes, we talk just to say what’s in our heads, and then we stop there. But we forget to listen to the other side as well. Kasi lahat tayo, may kaniya-kaniya tayong katotohanang ginagalawan. May kaniya-kaniyang pinanggagalingan ‘yung katotohanang ‘yon mula sa pagkabata natin. At totoo ‘yon para sa’yo — iba man ‘yung katotohanan para sa’kin (Because each of us lives in our own truth. That truth comes from our own background, starting from our childhood. And that truth is real for you — even if it’s different from mine).”

The play dives into the joys, tensions, and discoveries in the relationship between Mitch, a transman, and Stella, a cisgender woman. Writing the play became a shared process: the couple passed a laptop back and forth, crafting monologues, writing their disagreements, and confronting buried truths.

“If you’ve seen the last staging, we didn’t discuss sex there,” Diño said. “Actually, after the porn scene, it was clear that it was not going to be about sex. It’s just going to be about transition. And where is Stella in all that? So I felt the necessity to actually discuss sex this time, because it is in those intimate moments that we are always confronted with a question.”

“When you become intimate, it’s like it’s always the first time. I think having sex and making love and intimacy — that’s what you can’t do routinely. And it was never a routine for us. So I know and I feel when there are changes, and he’s going through things. And as a woman and as a writer, I felt that I needed to understand it. And I have this wonderful platform right now to actually understand and explore it.”

When Diño showed the script to Seguerra, his reaction was raw — and revealing. “He was very, very defensive. He was like, ‘Huh?’ The body dysphoria, malaking (big) part of ng (of our) relationship namin ‘yon.”

It became Juan’s task to balance his direction with Diño’s voice. “How do they try to move? To approach? To be reproached? To try and convince? How to scoop a space in order for you to embrace time and memory? How do you try to attack a line without it being confrontational? How do you confront?” he asked.

“You look at (the script) in all kinds of arches, lines, spaces, shapes, in order for you to look for what is really essential. The Japanese have a word for it. Yugen. And that’s why Japanese theater is also based on movement, right? Yugen means essence. And in this play, I was trying to distill their memories, their life that they have gone through — both of them, their relation — into that yugen, to that essence. And it is based on movement. How people try to approach each other.”

The play earned nominations at last year’s Aliw Awards, including Best Play and acting nods for Diño and Seguerra. But beyond recognition, it sparked strong feedback from audiences — particularly from LGBTQ+ viewers who saw their own experiences reflected on stage.

“I mean, it’s easy to see this as an LGBT play,” said Seguerra. “But when you strip away all these labels, whether cis or bi or trans, whatever — you’ll realize: actually, we’re all going through the same things. Whether you’re a cis couple, bi, or anything else, we all have dreams for ourselves. We all have desires — both for ourselves and for our partners."

“So, at the end of the day, the message of this play — Mitch and Stella’s story — is something very universal. Because at one point in our lives, we’ve all asked: Should I do this? And if I choose myself — if I go after this dream — will it hurt the person I’m with?”

Juan offered a reflection that captured the core concept of Choosing.

“When we look at theater, we encounter both imaginative reality and objective reality. Theater becomes a space where these surfaces — imagined and real — move into and through one another. But it’s not just the realities of the characters on stage or the story being told. It’s also about the stories carried by the audience, the viewers themselves.”