Written by Abigail Ravalo
The show must go on—titled “KAPIT: Lab in the Time of Covid”, the annual festival of new, unpublished, and unstaged works by Philippine playwrights, The Virgin Labfest (VLF), goes against all odds and proceed with a virtual staging as the 15th edition is plagued by the pandemic.
From June 10 to 28, 2020, the festival featured 10 new plays, with three “revisited” works, five staged readings, and among others, a panel discussion. Philippine High School for the Arts’ now Grade 12 Theater Major, Ethan King Velasquez, took part in Bernice Dacara’s Matira Matibay and shared his point of view.
“For the most part, it was beautifully difficult because this process introduced a whole new vocabulary to [theater] and introduced the art form to whole new modes of being and creating,” said the actor as he described how the process of virtual staging went.
“I was always taught that performance is materialization, acting is moving, acting is reacting, and acting is believing. But how do we go about moving and reacting in a space where we don’t even see our co-actors? How do we really listen to our co-actors when ads keep popping up and your mom keeps texting you? These are all struggles that this new mode brought upon us.”
When asked about the transition and adjustment that they had to go through from the conventional theater set-up, Velasquez acknowledged that what they were doing is an entirely different set up from “traditional” theater. Questions about the difference between the Virtual Labfest any different from film arise, more so that the online staging involves laptop cameras and angling already. “We had to find ways of expressing real life ideas and emotions and translating that into the liminal space that is the internet,” said the actor.
He also addressed the importance of perfect balance between live performance and the so-called “movie” acting, as it was very vital for the actor to be one of the leads in a two character play. “Creative minds and hearts always find a way to live on and create. Create, create, create. Nothing can jail an artist’s spirit,” King concluded.
In this innovative way of theater and staging, VLF proved that it is possible to produce and mount performances outside the box and norms of conventional theater. This period of uncertainty and first wavering step towards a foreign method of performance that was deemed to be almost impossible, opened new doors and possibilities for performance making.
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