A Play Inspired by People Living with HIV
By Icarus and Iscariot
Direction Pat Valera | Choreography Katte Sabate, Al Bernard Garcia | Music and Sound Design Teresa Barrozo | Lights Design Meliton Roxas, Jr | Set Design Sigmund Pecho | Costume Styling Lhenvil Paneda | Original Song Fitz Bitana | Stage Management John Mark Yap | Cast Celine Fernando, Camille Hernandez, Gry Gimena, Paul Jake Paule, Jules Dela Paz, Nicolo Magno, Elora Españo, Al Bernard Garcia
It’s difficult to sum up the Pulses experience in just one theme. I was talking to B during the intermission, trying to weave the pieces of the story into one of the linear plots I’m accustomed to, when I realized the show wasn’t meant to be taken as a package. Like Pulses, as in those beats in people’s wrists which indicate life, the stories featured in the play are short, quick, but all important. They all mean something.
The stories I liked best – or, in reflection paper format, the stories which struck me most – were those of Christine and Bo. Both are around my age, probably watch the same shows I do, go to the same places I do, and if these characters existed in real life, we might even have mutual friends. That’s why their stories got to me. I love how Christine maintained her positive, strawberry-tinted outlook despite knowing she was dying a little every day. There were so many black and purple bruises on her body that even though I knew the actress was only smudged with makeup I could tell how much each must hurt. And with Bo, I could relate to his opening lines, as he introduced his character to us. I was so sure only OFWs and sex workers could get HIV. But I’m not either, and I’m from a good school, a good family. It can’t happen to me.
The story featuring the mother – which, if I understood the post-production forum correctly, was based on real life events – who had passed the virus on to her child after acquiring it from her sea-based husband was the one that seemed most real. As in, it could happen anywhere, to any normal household in the Philippines. And I really hated it, when I found out that in Region 3 a community had wanted to burn two orphans whose parents had died of AIDS. I don’t hate the neighbors because I know how much something alien and different can frighten you. What I hate is how much we, as a supposedly nurturing country – hospitality, bayanihan and all that – do very little to educate our people about AIDS. I, for one, didn’t know HIV couldn’t be transmitted by kissing. [But I suppose I know a bit more now.]
The story for which I almost cried was that of Tita D. It’s strange, because the actress who took on that heavy role was a former classmate of mine, and in PI100 she had always given me the impression of being forever perky. But when she transformed into Tita D, an AIDS counselor, I was amazed. More than impressed, I was moved. I don’t presume to know anything vital about AIDS, or the lives of the people who live with it, because I don’t know if any of my friends have AIDS, and I’ve never met people who are aware that they have it. The most enlightening thing I’ve seen about life with AIDS is RENT, and even that might have been a watered down version of reality. But with Tita D’s story, I found I could still relate to part of her suffering. How you see people around you being helpless, and how you can’t do anything at all to help them. How you start losing the people who matter to you, one by one. It must suck. More than that, it must hurt. How you can only watch people you’ve become attached to succumb, one by one.
After the show, there was a short discussion on HIV/AIDS. Some nice people from Take the Test talked about AIDS awareness, and I realized I wanted to write about the experience for my blog. I had stopped writing here because I felt nothing was going on in my life anyway. Just a loop of school, work, Arashi – nothing had broken the monotony for months. But watching Pulses, somehow, I felt it was an injustice that I was seeing my life as something boring. Watching stories about people struggling to live, despite knowing they don’t have as much time as most people, it kind of gives you a feeling of responsibility. Like, you have to live, you can’t begrudge yourself the opportunity to be alive, not when thousands out there are dying to live a life like yours. So yes. This is me, writing again. Because I want stories like this to be written down, for people who care to see. If I can’t write about my life, I suppose I can write about the lives of the people around me.
The stories I liked best – or, in reflection paper format, the stories which struck me most – were those of Christine and Bo. Both are around my age, probably watch the same shows I do, go to the same places I do, and if these characters existed in real life, we might even have mutual friends. That’s why their stories got to me. I love how Christine maintained her positive, strawberry-tinted outlook despite knowing she was dying a little every day. There were so many black and purple bruises on her body that even though I knew the actress was only smudged with makeup I could tell how much each must hurt. And with Bo, I could relate to his opening lines, as he introduced his character to us. I was so sure only OFWs and sex workers could get HIV. But I’m not either, and I’m from a good school, a good family. It can’t happen to me.
The story featuring the mother – which, if I understood the post-production forum correctly, was based on real life events – who had passed the virus on to her child after acquiring it from her sea-based husband was the one that seemed most real. As in, it could happen anywhere, to any normal household in the Philippines. And I really hated it, when I found out that in Region 3 a community had wanted to burn two orphans whose parents had died of AIDS. I don’t hate the neighbors because I know how much something alien and different can frighten you. What I hate is how much we, as a supposedly nurturing country – hospitality, bayanihan and all that – do very little to educate our people about AIDS. I, for one, didn’t know HIV couldn’t be transmitted by kissing. [But I suppose I know a bit more now.]
The story for which I almost cried was that of Tita D. It’s strange, because the actress who took on that heavy role was a former classmate of mine, and in PI100 she had always given me the impression of being forever perky. But when she transformed into Tita D, an AIDS counselor, I was amazed. More than impressed, I was moved. I don’t presume to know anything vital about AIDS, or the lives of the people who live with it, because I don’t know if any of my friends have AIDS, and I’ve never met people who are aware that they have it. The most enlightening thing I’ve seen about life with AIDS is RENT, and even that might have been a watered down version of reality. But with Tita D’s story, I found I could still relate to part of her suffering. How you see people around you being helpless, and how you can’t do anything at all to help them. How you start losing the people who matter to you, one by one. It must suck. More than that, it must hurt. How you can only watch people you’ve become attached to succumb, one by one.
After the show, there was a short discussion on HIV/AIDS. Some nice people from Take the Test talked about AIDS awareness, and I realized I wanted to write about the experience for my blog. I had stopped writing here because I felt nothing was going on in my life anyway. Just a loop of school, work, Arashi – nothing had broken the monotony for months. But watching Pulses, somehow, I felt it was an injustice that I was seeing my life as something boring. Watching stories about people struggling to live, despite knowing they don’t have as much time as most people, it kind of gives you a feeling of responsibility. Like, you have to live, you can’t begrudge yourself the opportunity to be alive, not when thousands out there are dying to live a life like yours. So yes. This is me, writing again. Because I want stories like this to be written down, for people who care to see. If I can’t write about my life, I suppose I can write about the lives of the people around me.
24 September 2011
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