Commentary

Jun Lana’s clever work a must-see

Meanwhile, Dick Talk doesn't push the envelop but the performance is splendid

Jun Lana
Romnick Sarmenta and Elijah Canlas in About Us But Not About Us: They both the talent and the intellect.
Jun Lana

The cast of Dick Talk: seated, Gold Aceron and Nil Nodalo; standing, Mikoy Morales, Jake Cuenca and Archi Adamos

It was early in my lifestyle writing career when I got to see Eve Ensler’s acclaimed play, The Vagina Monologues. I was then slaving for a glossy magazine and we flew to Cebu to feature the works of the city’s leading fashion designers. So it was in Cebu where I got to see the play. The presentation, staged by Monique Wilson’s theater group, was in the ballroom of a five-star hotel.  Aside from Ms. Wilson and Pinky Amador, the often touching and sometimes hilarious monologues were read by some of Cebu’s prominent career women.

The play was the only game in town with the glamorous titas of Cebu comprising the bulk of the audience. Yet after intermission the venue was noticeably half empty.  Half the audience had gone home. This was 20 years ago and the play was probably too provocative for such a public arena.  It may have been a hit in her home base in Malate but elsewhere in the country at that time, Ms. Wilson ought to have just played Maria von Trapp.

Today’s Filipino theater audience is much more progressive. Featuring nudity onstage is now ordinary, and just a week ago I got an invitation to see a play that seemed like the male version of Eve Ensler’s play. Its title: Dick Talk.

Written by Benj Cruz Garcia and Ara Vicencio, Dick Talk presents five monologues, each featuring men of various ages. The first segment is about an oversexed 16-year-old (played by Gold Aceron). This is basically locker room talk about circumcision, sex education, sizes and shapes, and teenage lust.

The second segment stars Nil Nodalo as a man trapped in a woman’s body. The character he plays is in a hospital, awaiting surgery for gender reassignment. While waiting he talks about his childhood, and the time he realized he was attracted to girls.

The third monologue is especially well written and acted. Mikoy Morales plays a young man who detests the way society labels men who’ve memorized the names of every Miss Earth beauty pageant title holder (and who turn out to be better wedding planners than their brides-to-be).

And then we have Archi Adamos as a philandering senior citizen who laments how his advancing age has rendered him virtually impotent.

Archi Adamos is so effortless in his delivery. It’s as if he was telling his personal story

The grand finale belongs to the play’s star attraction, Jake Cuenca. He plays an obnoxious professional escort who starts to question his own masculinity after being diagnosed with a disease that supposedly afflicts only women.

Dick Talk is the first theater production of V-Roll Media Ventures. Directed with polish by Phil Nobles, it’s a slick production with colorful sets designed to fit the background and persona of each character.  It’s breezily written and is surprisingly less offensive than the title suggests. The title Dick Talk was obviously chosen for click bait. Some lines are amusing but for a play with such a blatant title, Dick Talk doesn’t push the envelope.  As theater, it doesn’t break new ground either.

It also doesn’t offer any new insight on the subject. Eve Ensler’s work brought the plight of women to light. It became an advocacy and symbol for the fight to stop the abuse of women. Dick Talk has no new advocacy.  The one lesson to be learned from Dick Talk is inadvertently aimed at women:  Avoid the kind of men featured in each of the segments. They’re all dicks.

Still, director Nobles extracts such splendid performances from his talented actors. They’re all game and they maintain audience interest, especially when each monologue threatens to overstay its welcome. Archi Adamos is so effortless in his delivery. It’s as if he was telling his personal story (we hope not).

 I just wished the segments were shorter so as to allow time for a sixth sketch with the five actors together.  Before the start of the show, I was actually expecting a revue composed of brief skits and an irreverent musical number or two. It’s the sort of Viagra that could have made Dick Talk really work.

Dick Talk runs until April 23 at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Makati City.

About Us But Not About Us: A masterpiece by Jun Lana

Several years ago, I got to chat with a prolific writer/director who carved his niche with films spiced with biting humor. I told him it was rare for a homegrown movie to offer such sharp wit. Yet somehow, it often seemed that his actors just didn’t get it. His dry humor didn’t come across as well when the lines were delivered on camera. “They recite your words but it’s still your voice I hear,” I pointed out. “They can’t make your words their own.”

Only a handful of actors have the precise timing and nuances to deliver the true flavor of the punch line. They are all veteran actors with the experience and know-how to be that filmmaker’s mouthpiece.

That wouldn’t be the case of his colleague, the writer/director Jun Lana. He chose two actors with the talent and intellect to bring his complex characters to life in his film About us But Not About Us. The two are Romnick Sarmenta who plays an English professor, and Elijah Canlas who plays his student.

The film’s title is in reference to an unfinished novel,  a roman a clef on that book author himself, his life partner (the professor played by Sarmenta), and the student who enters their life (Canlas). The student asserts: The novel may be about us but the author embellished the characters to look more interesting and less mundane. “So the book is about us but not about us.”

The professor, the novelist, and the student are the only characters in the film. The novelist is dead and is presented in flashback. Amazingly, he’s portrayed by Canlas in the first flashback and by Sarmenta in the second. It’s a daring concept but through their own artistry, the two actors actually pull it off.

Even more audacious is the film’s premise. The story happens one late afternoon in a restaurant. The entire film happens in this location in real time.  It begins when the professor meets the student in the restaurant.  They exchange pleasantries and behave just like any of us when we go over the menu. It’s so natural and real.

 The professor takes it upon himself to act as surrogate father to the student, who suffered physical abuse from his stepfather. The two diners touch on various subjects, from the young man’s unfortunate plight to the rumor about their relationship.

It’s all dialog between two actors. A two-character play usually works well in a stage setting, and it can work on film if the script and director have what it takes. Happily, Jun Lana makes it constantly compelling for his audience. Little by little, layers are peeled off and true motives are unmasked.  Apparently, the movie’s title also pertains to artificial facades and hidden agendas.

As the protagonists are an English professor and his student, much of the script is written in English. It’s sounds normal and not pretentious. Lana’s brilliant screenplay concocts a bona fide member of the academe and Sarmenta is in full control of the part. Every line he delivers is nuanced.

Matching him at every turn is Elijah Canlas.  He’s as authentic as any actor can get.  He plays an English major student at UP, and Canlas really does look like an English major at UP (I’ve met several of the real ones). His character has so many shades and Canlas expertly imparts them. When he declares the professor’s late partner to be “the Nick Joaquin of his generation,” you believe him. With just one glance he projects the look of a young intellectual, and then with another, a manipulative schemer.

Watching this movie, the all-time classic All About Eve starring Bette Davis and Anne Baxter comes to mind. I can’t explain why because to do so is to give away the plot of Lana’s film. Let’s just say that the Oscar-winning film offers proof that a “talky” film, if intelligently written, can be as riveting as a cinematic one.

 And with a flawless script and virtuoso direction, Sarmenta and Canlas each gives a tour de force performance sans having to shout or cry. This rare clever film also dispels any doubt one might have had over Lana’s abilities as a filmmaker.  It’s the cream of the crop of his several achievements.

About Us But Not About Us is an official entry to the ongoing Metro Manila Film Festival and is showing in a cinema near you.

About author

Articles

He is a freelance writer of lifestyle and entertainment, after having worked in Philippine broadsheets and magazines.

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