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Theater review: The truth about growing up in ‘Toilet: The Musical’
Joey the Everyman gets his turn in the spotlight. Photos from Lara L. Antonio/Ateneo Blue Repertory
High school sucks. But with just two weeks to go before the end of the school year, all the students have to do is pass the biggest exam to determine how their lives would turn out after graduation.
Yet instead of studying, they're more focused on fixing their own personal problems.
This is the set-up of Ateneo Blue Repertory's “Toilet: The Musical,” a character-driven play following eight troubled teenagers, each falling into a well-known category—the jock, the good girl, the class whore, the scholar, the average joe, the beauty queen, the guy inside the closet, the loser—and all dealing with the problem of acceptance.
The two-tiered stage feels quiet: blue is the dominant color here, despite the white floor. Lockers mark the school hallway. At center stage there are two restroom entrances. Each room has six toilet cubicles. Inside the cubicles are walls vandalized with graffiti: messages of hate and complaints about the school system in neon spray paint.
Written on the cubicle doors are the words “This is my life. You were my fairy tale,” queuing the start of the show as the Janitor (Darrell Uy) enters. He knows everyone’s secret. “If these walls could talk, there would be a lot of history,” he says, as the first song starts to play.
The characters
The first character sharing her story is the loser, Tiffany (Cassie Manalastas). She's in love with Paul, but doesn't have the courage to tell him. She also shares everything with her BFF Dianne, the popular girl. Well, everything except for her bulimia.
Tiffany thinks the only way to be noticed is to become a "skinny Disney princess," because she's not desired by most of the guys in her school as she's in the larger department. She's also self-conscious with a bad attitude, and compensates for her lack of confidence with good grades.
She makes everyone around her suffer because of her selfish motives towards Paul, even though she knows a love affair between them can only be dream.
Paul (Franco Chan) is no saint either. He is expected to graduate valedictorian in his class and is secretly dating the most popular girl in school, Dianne. While it looks like nothing could go wrong for him, his test results arrive and we learn that he is a pothead.
He has his parents to blame—always pressuring him to be in his best shape and on his best behavior. Since he's not number one in class anymore, the only person he can turn to is Dianne, the fallback after his world crumbles and he stops caring about the future.
Dianne (Bernice Reyes) also has her fair share of failures. Besides her friend Tiffany having set her sights on on Paul, she is having some strong feelings for someone else herself: Joey (Nel Gomez), the average joe who had his heart broken by Dianne before.
And then there's "holy" girl Lucille (Mica Fajardo), who quotes Bible verses and trusts in the power of prayer to help her finish school, but who is also bent on destroying her half-sister, the class "whore" Therese (KC Kane)—even using her precious virginity to convince her boyfriend Patty (Boo Gabanada) to toy with Therese's emotions.
The last character is Gus (Lorenzo Mendoza), who holds the biggest and darkest secret. He is the school joke—he goes to school drunk, kisses the class whore, sleeps with his teacher— but no one notices, no one really cares. And then he reaches his breaking point.
Different sides of one person
"Selfish" is one word to describe the characters, and another is "depressing." Watching a show about self-centered teenagers will make you realize that there are more important problems in the world than your own.
But the show also tells you to grow up. It will make you realize that there's more to life than what you just want to see. The simplicity of the story and the direct-to-the-point lyrics drive home the point that whenever we fall at a hurdle in life, we need to pick ourselves up and recover.
Despite blocking and audio problems, the musical intelligently played with the audience's mind: you feel that you are the characters. The show's creator, Ejay Yatco, says a part of him is in all of them.
"They're my friends, but they also show the different sides of my personality or who I want to be, that I was, and that I am," he said. "I don't think I can write a song if I don't even have an idea of what they're going through."
Yatco added that he followed his instincts when he wrote the songs. "I'm not gonna lie, I was really sad when I wrote those songs. But then, at least I had an outlet and I used my songs as an outlet for my emotions. I'm kind of a very emotional person," he said.
The setting—it takes place not just in a school, but in the school's toilets—was also deliberately chosen.
"The toilet connects all of us... It's a public place, but we do our private things there," Yatco said.
"Toilet: The Musical" definitely knows how to tickle your funny bone with every word in every song. At the same time, it can touch your heart at the end with every emotion the characters (and you) go through. — BM, GMA News
Ateneo Blue Repertory's "Toilet: The Musical" runs until March 1, 2014 at the Gonzaga Exhibit Hall, Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City.
Yet instead of studying, they're more focused on fixing their own personal problems.
This is the set-up of Ateneo Blue Repertory's “Toilet: The Musical,” a character-driven play following eight troubled teenagers, each falling into a well-known category—the jock, the good girl, the class whore, the scholar, the average joe, the beauty queen, the guy inside the closet, the loser—and all dealing with the problem of acceptance.
The two-tiered stage feels quiet: blue is the dominant color here, despite the white floor. Lockers mark the school hallway. At center stage there are two restroom entrances. Each room has six toilet cubicles. Inside the cubicles are walls vandalized with graffiti: messages of hate and complaints about the school system in neon spray paint.
Written on the cubicle doors are the words “This is my life. You were my fairy tale,” queuing the start of the show as the Janitor (Darrell Uy) enters. He knows everyone’s secret. “If these walls could talk, there would be a lot of history,” he says, as the first song starts to play.
The characters
The first character sharing her story is the loser, Tiffany (Cassie Manalastas). She's in love with Paul, but doesn't have the courage to tell him. She also shares everything with her BFF Dianne, the popular girl. Well, everything except for her bulimia.
Tiffany thinks the only way to be noticed is to become a "skinny Disney princess," because she's not desired by most of the guys in her school as she's in the larger department. She's also self-conscious with a bad attitude, and compensates for her lack of confidence with good grades.
Tiffany wants the fairy tale life of a 'skinny Disney princess.'
Paul (Franco Chan) is no saint either. He is expected to graduate valedictorian in his class and is secretly dating the most popular girl in school, Dianne. While it looks like nothing could go wrong for him, his test results arrive and we learn that he is a pothead.
He has his parents to blame—always pressuring him to be in his best shape and on his best behavior. Since he's not number one in class anymore, the only person he can turn to is Dianne, the fallback after his world crumbles and he stops caring about the future.
Dianne (Bernice Reyes) also has her fair share of failures. Besides her friend Tiffany having set her sights on on Paul, she is having some strong feelings for someone else herself: Joey (Nel Gomez), the average joe who had his heart broken by Dianne before.
And then there's "holy" girl Lucille (Mica Fajardo), who quotes Bible verses and trusts in the power of prayer to help her finish school, but who is also bent on destroying her half-sister, the class "whore" Therese (KC Kane)—even using her precious virginity to convince her boyfriend Patty (Boo Gabanada) to toy with Therese's emotions.
The last character is Gus (Lorenzo Mendoza), who holds the biggest and darkest secret. He is the school joke—he goes to school drunk, kisses the class whore, sleeps with his teacher— but no one notices, no one really cares. And then he reaches his breaking point.
Paul feels the pressure to be perfect.
"Selfish" is one word to describe the characters, and another is "depressing." Watching a show about self-centered teenagers will make you realize that there are more important problems in the world than your own.
But the show also tells you to grow up. It will make you realize that there's more to life than what you just want to see. The simplicity of the story and the direct-to-the-point lyrics drive home the point that whenever we fall at a hurdle in life, we need to pick ourselves up and recover.
Despite blocking and audio problems, the musical intelligently played with the audience's mind: you feel that you are the characters. The show's creator, Ejay Yatco, says a part of him is in all of them.
"They're my friends, but they also show the different sides of my personality or who I want to be, that I was, and that I am," he said. "I don't think I can write a song if I don't even have an idea of what they're going through."
Yatco added that he followed his instincts when he wrote the songs. "I'm not gonna lie, I was really sad when I wrote those songs. But then, at least I had an outlet and I used my songs as an outlet for my emotions. I'm kind of a very emotional person," he said.
The setting—it takes place not just in a school, but in the school's toilets—was also deliberately chosen.
"The toilet connects all of us... It's a public place, but we do our private things there," Yatco said.
"Toilet: The Musical" definitely knows how to tickle your funny bone with every word in every song. At the same time, it can touch your heart at the end with every emotion the characters (and you) go through. — BM, GMA News
Ateneo Blue Repertory's "Toilet: The Musical" runs until March 1, 2014 at the Gonzaga Exhibit Hall, Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City.
