Dulaang UP’s “LULU”
August 17, 2009 by mic-camba
Written by Frank Wedekind
Translated by Joel Saracho
Directed by Dexter Santos
After seeing this play last night at Palma Hall’s Guerrero Theater, it made me want to download the whole text of the play ASAP.
The R-18 label stamped on the ticket makes any theater-goer curious to the whole production. Given Dulaang UP’s literally and metaphorically ‘bold tradition,’ one would still wonder why the R-18 label. But after seeing the play last night, the R-18 is an understatement.
The whole play revolves around Lulu, a woman who has no qualms about the body and its sexual needs. Adored and lusted by men (and women) she unmasks and expresses her desires without any guilt or compromises. In articulating her sexual and bodily freedom, she also searches for someone who could accept and understand her ‘deviant’ nature. This irresolvable clash between Lulu’s instinct and civilization’s code of conduct led to her tragedy.
The play not only discusses this predicament but also visually presents it. Viewers are bombarded by seduction, outright nudity, suggestive sex and masturbation. No wonder copies of the play were destroyed and banned during the early 1900s (until 1918) when it was first performed in Germany.
Putting this aside, the promise of desire and pleasure is but a myth in the whole Dulaang UP production. One, is the monotonous tone and acting of the characters. Second, the gracefulness in executing the dances of desire and lust are no-where to be felt on stage. Everything seemed so staged and by-the-number. This is a paradox given the choreography and dance background of the director. I guess, he was just as ‘good’ as his celebrated debut work, ‘Orosman at Zafira,’ which unfortunately after two more production (this one and ‘Ang Kiri,’ which was staged last February) can’t be duplicated yet.
The Brechtian technique of letting the audience participate and decide on Lulu’s future (to let her live or to kill her) wasn’t that successful either: (1) given the lack of luster of the acting (which in turn would affect the audience’s attention), the viewers weren’t really engaged in the whole production for them to decide on Lulu’s fate, (2) this scene was immediately segwayed to Lulu’s abrupt death, incurred by a badly choreographed slap at the face and a punch on the stomach.
Anyways, who am I to complain? My ticket’s complimentary.
