Written and performed by Leon Aureus, Rose Cortez, Nicco Lorenzo Garcia,
Christine Mangosing and Nadine Villasin. Directed by Nina Lee Aquino.
Presented by the Carlos Bulosan Theatre. To May 11. Tue-Sat 8pm, Sun 2:30pm.
$15-$25, Sun PWYC. Theatre Passe Muraille, 16 Ryerson. 416-504-7529.
www.artsboxoffice.ca.
Don’t be fooled by the spartan set design, minimal amount of props and small cast, People Power manages to epically cover a quarter century of the Philippines’ history and follow the lives of close to two dozen characters in the later years Ferdinand Marcos' rule.
Using short, intertwined vignettes that show the daily life of Filipinos in the years leading to the street protests that eventually overthrew Marcos and the ascendancy of Corazon Aquino as president of the new democracy, the spectator gets a feel for what it must have been like for common citizen and elite alike to eventually come to the realization, at their own speeds and for their respective reasons, that change was imperative after two decades of US-backed dictatorship.
That five people can portray taxi drivers, street beggars, soldiers, politicians, journalists, students, prostitutes, exiles and socialites convincingly is impressive in itself but to add to that, they get the audience to participate, turning them into rioters or presidential hangers-on and making a story we are separated from by geography, culture and the passage of time something much more immediate.
At times funny but mostly very moving, the story should be one that all of us could relate to — be it as new Canadians who left a similar situation or those who see international trouble just by turning on the TV and watching the news.