‘El Fuego del Alma’ runs until Aug. 23, 2026, at Sine Pop in Cubao, Quezon City. Tickets are available through Ticket2Me.
With the several plays that have so far opened this year, it’s refreshing to see one that’s based on a classic authored by a revered playwright.
El Fuego del Alma, now playing Friday to Sunday at Sine Pop in Cubao, Quezon City, is a Tagalog adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke. The play had a successful off-Broadway run with Geraldine Page in the lead role. The film was produced in 1961, with Page as Alma, the repressed spinster who’s sexually attracted to a doctor. For her heart-rending performance, Page was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She lost to Sophia Loren, who was also terrific in Two Women.
The play was adapted in Tagalog by Palanca award-winning Eljay Castro Deldoc. While the original was set in Tennessee Williams’ deep American south in the 1910s, Deldoc moves it to a small town in the Philippines.
Sandino Martin as Juanito and Madeleine Nicolas as Mrs. Ortega
Deldoc’s Tagalog prose sounds beautiful and sophisticated, and makes the story seem to be happening in some surreal place bordering heaven and hell, or in a dream that’s slowly evolving into a nightmare.
This is in sharp contrast to Summer and Smoke, where most of the protagonists speak with Southern accents. Having seen films set in the American south has made us somewhat familiar with the Southern ways of living. The original story set in early 20th century, the townsfolk give off a strong judgmental Bible belt vibe. This fits perfectly in our own local setting, where being sexually repressed isn’t limited to spinsters.
In his adaptation, Deldoc reduces the roles of the supporting characters into a 90-minute one-act play. He focuses on the main protagonist, Alma, who, at 25, looks older than her age and spinster-like. Alma believes she’s wasted her youth playing caregiver for her mother, who suffers from dementia. But the return of her childhood crush Juanito, now a handsome physician, ignites the passion and longing for a man.
Sandino Martin as Juanito and Opaline Santos as Alma
The play is in line with the themes Tennessee Williams often wrote about—the aged or disabled women like Blanche Dubois (A Streetcar Named Desire) lusting after a man who seems unreachable. A steep price is usually paid when the neurotic heroine gets what she desires. Critics have written about how Tennessee Williams, who was openly gay, created these female protagonists to express his own repressions. It’s as if he used their advanced age or disability as metaphors for being gay in the intolerant society he grew up in.
Our film industry has churned out countless movies with similar themes. Unlike in past eras, today’s filmmakers, however, can be blatant about the subject. Tennessee Williams brilliantly masked it with gothic metaphors, colorful protagonists, and stories that were sexually provocative yet ultimately ambiguous at the same time.
Sandino Martin as Juanito and Opaline Santos as Alma
Eljay Deldoc’s admirable adaptation is faithful to the original material. No major surgery was needed to cater to the modern audience. Thankfully, none of the characters were turned into sitcom-comic-relief stereotypes, and none reduced into gay confidantes. His words created a dark atmosphere even during the play’s rare light moments.
Thankfully, none of the characters were turned into sitcom-comic-relief stereotypes, and none reduced into gay confidantes
Deldoc’s title, El Fuego del Alma, likely alludes to Alma’s yearning to fly free from her mundane existence before life passes her by. At some point in the ’60s, Tennessee Williams rewrote Summer and Smoke, and gave it a new title, The Eccentricities of a Nightingale.
Hariette Mozelle as Alma
We saw El Fuego at Sine Pop, a modern boutique cinema in Cubao off Aurora Boulevard, where huge stand-alone movie theaters like Diamond, Coronet, and Remar once thrived. The three cinemas have closed since, and now exist as dark and sleazy monstrosities.
At first, it felt strange for the Porvenir Collective team (the new theater company producing El Fuego) to choose this venue for their play. Sine Pop is a 1947 home (its previous owner lived in it for 70 years) that has been repurposed into a private cinema, its ground floor redesigned into a minimalist interior with panoramic window displaying the bamboo garden. Monocle featured it in 2022 and TheDiarist.ph in its premier 2020 issue as the “cinema in a bamboo forest.”
For El Fuego, the lobby of this repurposed house serves as makeshift theater. There is no stage or platform; front row audiences witness the drama unfold just two feet away from the cast. There’s just enough space for a few props, notably a chair and a three-foot-tall fountain of an angel.
The audience is seated to face Sine Pop’s panoramic window into the bamboo garden. It feels like looking at a giant aquarium, but without the fish, only the cast.
Vincent Pajara as Juanito and Hariette Mozelle as Alma
Director Mark Mirando makes excellent use of the venue. Through the window Alma watches the world outside. From her house, she enviously observes couples strolling in the garden. Scenes are also presented simultaneously; this Sine Pop lobby becomes her prison, and the garden is where one sheds inhibitions. She sees Juanito as her knight in shining armor, yet through that window the audience is privy to the womanizer that he is, flirting with one girl after another.
It’s staging at its most inventive, and it’s done with great polish and without clutter.
As a result, this production amazingly provides a cinematic experience. The play actually begins with hardly any dialogue. Juanito has just arrived home from Manila and observes his surroundings from that bamboo garden looking in. He then enters the lobby, and from there he watches Alma sing in a gathering in the bamboo garden. This is a play that feels like an atmospheric 2D movie.
From the very start, tension builds up, and we feel something unsettling would happen at some point. This production succeeds where the film version failed. The material is not to blame. Old Hollywood craftsmanship and strict censorship diluted the sexual tension. The movie was too pretty to look at, and director Peter Glenville presented it like an old Judy Garland musical. It took a Geraldine Page to elevate the film.
In contrast, El Fuego is constantly stark and dark. Director, playwright, and cast have effectively recreated the world of Tennessee Williams. For backdrop music, two guitarists play to lend local flavor while underscoring dramatic moments.
It’s difficult to review plays today, because most productions use actors alternating in a role on various playdates. Whether the play is better with the other actor, we’ll never know. But we were impressed with the cast we saw on the first night.
Hariette Mozelle as Alma
As Alma, Hariette Mozelle gives us an Emma Stone vibe, though she’s much prettier. In fact, she’s attractive enough for Alma to attract a long line of what Tennessee Williams called gentleman callers. But Mozelle is poignant in the role, and inhabits Alma’s sense of hopelessness and repression. The moment she appears, she immediately wins over the audience.
Vincent Pajara as Juanito and Janna Cortes as Nelia
As the playboy Juanito, Sandino Martin exudes the charisma and the machismo to attract the girls and abandon them at a snap of a finger, sans regret.
But the roles aren’t just about posturing. There’s tension and uncertainty in the way Mozelle and Martin make their characters interact with each other, even when a scene has no dialogue. They’re at their finest in the final intense encounter between Alma and Juanito.
Opaline Santos as Rosa and Rolando Inocencio as Doc Yago
As the barrio lass Rosa, Opaline Santos has the showier role. She plays it with sass, and she has a grand time onstage. We had a grand time watching her, too.
‘El Fuego del Alma’ continues its run on July 31 and August 1, 2, 21, 22, and 23 at Sine Pop.
