Finding our way to the Caterpillar pillar (A Critique on "Hope for the Flowers")

The Review

The following were some of my hypotheses regarding Chewy's role in the play Hope for the Flowers:

• Flower/Tree trunk - with minimal speaking parts or worse, just standing there and blending in with the set
• Caterpillar - crawling around, trying to walk with a thousand legs
  
• Butterfly - sniffling around the flowers (see first hypothesis)
• Cocoon - 'nga naman, kung walang piso, walang P100; kung walang cocoon, walang butterfly
  
• Cogon grass - 'nuff said

Of course, she later told me she was playing the role of a caterpillar. One of a hundred, I thought. "Do you have a speaking part, you know, one that's not part of the chorus?" I asked. She nicely replied, "Yeah, I got a few." Well, at least meron I said to myself. So now, I got three good reasons to watch the play: 1. Chewy was on it 2. Kythe Foundation was a beneficiary 3. It's a nice venue to meet with friends (again!)

The group: Leks, (willing to miss work for obvious reasons), Joyce (birthday girl - happy birthday!), Oliburger (muntik na kaming ilaglag), Jogon, Jam (plus one, I mean Ann), Jem, Pat, Norman (fellow teacher at IE Department), and the late Jinko Misa (sorry, could not resist!)

The venue (Aldaba Hall) looked like the sari-sari store/canteen behind the UP theater. It was much better inside. The air-conditioning was a welcome change of temperature (it must have been 35 degrees outside!). Manila paper/cartolina was scattered all over the place (later realized it was for good reason). There was free coffee too and as expected, Oliver suddenly became a caffeine addict. As remarked by Jogon, the chairs were not ergonomic especially for people standing 6'2" and up (yeah, how many people do you know who's taller than that?). The chairs were fine though. It's no Eastwood Cinema though (what do you expect for a hundred bucks anyway).

As the lights turned dark, the actors came in. To my surprise, I didn't immediately find our Chewy. A few moments later, she came in. We had to adopt a very awkward posture just to see her (and this is bad as this leads to various cumulative trauma disorders or CTD's). To my pleasant surprise, I found a mic on Chewy's cheek. Hmm, malamang marami-raming linya to...

Putcha, 'bat walang nagsabi sakin na bida siya? Of course, Jam mentioned it, but I didn't read it.

She actually played Yellow, the female lead of the play opposite Stripe. Too bad, Leks wasn't wearing stripes. And she was good. I always thought she had a good voice, being in a "band" and all. I just never imagined her to be that good. She wowed the audience with her Broadway-like voice that seemed to be a perfect fit for the role of the caterpillar who was left by her BF (Leks wouldn't have left you for a freaking tower made of drums), made good and became a butterfly.

Like in any romantic play, there's bound to be some love scenes, where the characters show off the affection for each other. In this case, it elicited more than the usual "aww" as we had a stakeholder in the audience. I had to stop myself from making hirits as I was already affecting my seatmates' concentration.

Stripe was contemplating on a trek to the "top of the pillar," only to find out later that it was lonely at the top and it wasn't worth the climb. In the meantime, our girl Yellow's been left crying (abangan na natin sa labas si Stripe...). I wonder how would I have reacted to this play if I saw it when I was seven years old. Would I have gotten the message? Darn, it's supposed to be a children's book...

Pat had something to say about the costumes, but had to keep it to herself when she was introduced to the costume designer (by Cris Tanseco).

Overall, the play was good, but I honestly wouldn't have watched it if Chewy wasn't there.

Watching the play made me very proud. Kilala ko yung bida!

Let me end this review with what Tita Chato (Chewy's mom according to my phonebook) said after watching the play...

"...."*

*Portions of the statement were deleted.

Watch out for Part II, which will talk about what happened after the play.