October 15, 2024
When the first announcements about this play starring Lea Salonga and Dolly de Leon came out four months ago, everyone was abuzz was excitement. We would soon learn that they won't be sharing the stage at all. This was actually a one-woman play without any spoken lines. This meant that the actress would only have to use her facial and body language to tell the central character's story. Watching this play promised to be a very different experience.
When you go into the theater early, you would be seated in a waiting area first, where you saw huge metal shipping containers stacked up. About 30 minutes before showtime, the viewers were led into the main staging area inside the containers. They arranged the seats theater-in-the-round, surrounding a fully-furnished studio unit with no walls, which we will later see had water faucets and electric outlets that worked. At almost exactly 7 pm, she would enter, and the play began.
It would be best to watch the play with a clean slate, without knowing anything about what was going to happen. The next paragraphs would have spoilers so you may want to stop here and continue reading after you watch the play.
Upon entering her house and taking off her coat, the first thing she did was to go to her kitchen and prepare her dinner. This was not pretend cooking -- she prepared all the ingredients and turned on the appliances, which all worked. After a few minutes, we see the steam coming out of the rice cooker and the saucepan on the stove. She would later eat the very rice and viands which she cooked in front of us. This all happened in real time.
Since she did not say a single word, we can only deduce things about our central character's life by context clues. We knew she was in a foreign country, because she wore a thick coat in February. She wore a scrub suit, so she is in the health care industry, likely a nurse. She is a Filipina who missed her home country, because she listened to a radio program that featured Filipino pop songs, and her favorite song was "Hallelujah" by Bamboo.
We surmise that she was an obsessive neat freak, because we saw her wash the dishes, cookware and even the toilet right after using them. She also sharpened her colored pencils right after using each one. So basically for the first 1 hour and 10 minutes, we see her puttering around her studio unit mundanely -- cooking and eating dinner, bathroom rituals, her artwork hobby, prayers to her Sto. Nino, bedtime and lights out.
However, something unexpected happens in the last five minutes that put everything that transpired in the last 70 minutes in a different light. If at first you thought that watching our character do her nightly routines had no point, or a case of much ado about nothing or "The Emperor's New Clothes," the last five minutes will give you pause and make you reflect on everything you've just witnessed and how they actually made sense.
The show I watched featured Ms. Dolly de Leon. Based on the plays and films I have seen her do before, there was no doubt in my mind that she could pull this challenging project off. As expected, she was riveting, not a dull moment, even if it felt like I was just peeping into the private life of a next door neighbor. With her sad eyes and hunched stance, De Leon made us feel the loneliness of the character, but not without hints of her sense of humor.
Lea Salonga may have the more stellar name on the marquee, but we know her more as a powerful singer and articulate speaker. Acting alone in a wordless hour-plus-long one-act play is way out of her usual comfort zone. Her fans would be very curious to see her in another form of theater other than a musical. I may not be able to see a Lea Salonga show any more, but knowing her work ethic, she will surely give her performances her 100%.
Director Bobby Garcia and co-producer, set and costume designer Clint Ramos devised Franz Xaver Kroetz’s 1973 play "Request Concert" in the point of view of a Filipina nurse overseas, living alone and exhausted from work. This made the character's sadness feel more organic for local audiences, so that the ending did not feel random as it reportedly did during its original German run. It would also have been interesting if an alternate actor was male.
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"Request sa Radyo" runs for 20 shows only from October 10 to 20, 2024, at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater in Circuit Makati. Tickets cost P9000 and P8000, available on Ticketworld via this LINK. Those seated in the F section seemed to have the best view.
The ticket prices are formidable, but this 7 pm show I watched on a Tuesday night was almost full house. Latecomers will not be admitted anymore once the show has begun. It has themes, issues, and references that may be triggering to some audience members, so rated R-15.
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