STORYTELLING AS A BASIC INSTINCT: EGG THEATER COMPANY PRESENTS
THE FILIPINO TRANSLATION OF MARTIN MCDONAGH’S THE PILLOWMAN
After
the brief festival run of its productions, Maniacal
(Fringe Manila 2015) and Schism
(Fringe Manila 2016), Egg Theater Company presents its first full-run
production with a Filipino Translation of Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman.
Winner
of the 2004 Olivier Award for Best Play and Tony-Nominated in 2005 for Best
Play, The Pillowman is about a writer
in an unidentified totalitarian state being interrogated about his gruesome and
macabre short stories that has inspired a series of child murders. The Pillowman is a dark comedy that boldly
exhibits the riveting power of narrative and how storytelling and invention of
fantastical tales is a basic human instinct. With the coming elections and the incessant
specter of dictatorships and martial law, this production resonates with its
exploration of the fine line between the freedom of an individual to tell a
story and its impact on the security of society.
Palanca
awardee and Egg Theater Company co-founder, George de Jesus III in translating
and directing The Pillowman, remarks,
“In examining the dark side of imagination and creativity, the play probes into
how stories are created, the motivation that drives a writer to tell a story
and the responsibility of a writer on the impact of what he has written. Put
that against a totalitarian-state setting and we get a play that are by turns
disturbingly funny and emotionally shocking. Given that the play is set in an
unnamed totalitarian state, translating it into Filipino affords us not only in
making it somehow familiar but it also further fuels the idea of it possibly
becoming real.”
Egg
Theater Company co-founder and producer adds, “But beyond being political, The Pillowman will make us take stock on
the power of words and how it can affect other people. There’s a line by
Katurian that says, "It's not about being or not being
dead, it's about what you leave behind." I think it’s something that will
resonate to anyone in the creative field and it’s what we want to accomplish
with Egg Theater Company, to create Filipino productions that will linger in
the minds of our audience.”
Co-presented
by Pineapple Lab, The Pillowman features
Gabs Santos as Katurian, Paolo O’Hara and Paul Jake Paule as Michal, Renante
Bustamante as Tupolski and Acey Aguilar as Ariel.
The
production will also feature original music and animated graphics by Joee
Mejias.
The
play will run from April 8-10 and 22-24, 2016, 8:00 PM at Pineapple Lab, 6071
R. Palma Street, Poblacion, Makati City.
For
tickets and inquiries, visit Egg Theater Company’s FB Page or
contact 0917-844-0520.
PRESS
RELEASE
Ref:
Mr. Toots Tolentino
(m)
0947-2985003
---
OVERVIEW
The Pillowman is a 2003 play by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh. It
received its first public reading in an early version at the Finborough
Theatre, London, in 1995. It tells the tale of Katurian, a fiction writer
living in a police state who is interrogated about the gruesome content of his
short stories, and their similarities to a number of bizarre child murders
occurring in his town. The play received the 2004 Olivier Award for Best New
Play, the 2004-5 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best New Foreign
Play, and two Tony Awards for production. It was nominated for the 2004 Evening
Standard Award for Best New Play. (Wikipedia.com)
In the Philippines, The Pillowman had a stage reading by the Sandbox Theater Collective
in the 2014 Imaginarium Theater Festival at the PETA Theater Center and during
the first Fringe Manila Festival in 2015 at the Tanghalang Huseng Batute at the
CCP. This production is the first full staging of The Pillowman translated in the Filipino language.
SYNOPSIS
The play opens in a police interrogation room as two
officers, Tupolski and Ariel, question a man named Katurian. At first Katurian does not know why he is being questioned, and
thinks he is under suspicion of running political messages against the
totalitarian dictatorship through his stories.
Katurian is a writer of twisted stories involving
children, and several of the murders mimic ideas presented in his stories. Ariel leaves the room, and soon after Michal is heard screaming
in the next room. Ariel returns, his hand covered in blood from apparently
torturing Michal, and tells Katurian that Michal has just confessed to killing
three children, in association with Katurian. The first two children were
murdered according to the patterns of the stories "The Little Apple
Men" and "The Tale of the Town on the River." Katurian denies
the allegations, stating that although his stories are gruesome it is the job
of a storyteller to tell a story. 
Katurian then tells of his childhood, how loving
parents, who encouraged him to write, raised him and for many
years he wrote very happy stories. However, at night he began to hear sounds of
torture from the next room, and as a result he began to write more disturbing
stories. One night, a note is slipped under the door, claiming that Katurian's
brother has been tortured nightly for seven years as part of an artistic
experiment to get Katurian to become a great writer. Katurian breaks down the
door, only to find his parents, who were playing a trick on him, just
pretending to be torturing a child. However, when Katurian returns years later,
he discovers his brother's dead body hidden under the mattress, clutching the
manuscript of a beautiful story, better than any of Katurian's, which Katurian
burns. Katurian then interrupts his narrative to say that this ending was
fabricated when he wrote the story: actually when Katurian broke down the door,
he found Michal still alive. Katurian then smothered his parents with a pillow
that very night in vengeance for his disabled brother and the pain they had put
him through. He then took over care for his brother. 
ACT 2
Katurian, just having been tortured,
is left alone with Michal. Michal reveals that he had not
been tortured, but rather cooperated entirely with Ariel, even screaming when
Ariel asked him to. At Michal's request, Katurian tells him the story of
"The Pillowman", about a man made of pillows who convinces children
to kill themselves so they can be spared a horrible future.
Katurian, who has maintained both his and Michal’s
innocence, is shocked when Michal admits to having killed
the children, claiming that Katurian told him to do it by telling his stories. Michal
also admits that the third child was murdered following the story "The
Little Jesus", one of Katurian's most violent tales. Michal tells Katurian
that he had read the written version of "The Writer and the Writer's
Brother", and resented the changes from the real version, wishing instead
that Katurian had written a happy ending for the two brothers. Katurian lulls
Michal to sleep by telling him the story "The Little Green Pig", and
smothers him. Katurian calls to the detectives, announcing his
intention to confess to the crimes on the condition that his stories are
spared.
ACT 3
Katurian, in the interrogation room with Ariel and
Tupolski, is writing his confession, recounting the three child murders as well
as the murders of Michal and his parents. Ariel explains his hatred for
child-murders as he is preparing to torture Katurian with an electric battery. Tupolski
prevents Ariel from torturing Katurian in order to question him. Katurian is
unable to answer to whether the third child victim was still alive when she was
buried, leading the detectives to consider that she may still be alive. While
Ariel runs out to find the girl, Tupolski tells Katurian his own story about a
deaf boy saved from being hit by a train because of the unseen efforts of a
Chinese wise man in a tower; Tupolski sees himself as the wise man, protecting
the innocent without getting personally involved with them. Ariel then returns
with the girl, who was found quite alive, having been cast by Michal not in
"The Little Jesus" but in the benign tale "The Little Green
Pig." The detectives question Katurian and discover that he is actually
ignorant of the details of the child murders, because he was not involved.
The hot-tempered Ariel, who was abused as a child,
struggles with the fairness of it. The detectives execute Katurian
for murdering Michal and his parents. Just as Ariel is about to torch the
papers, however, Katurian stands up and tells how he used his last seconds to
tell himself a story about how the Pillowman came to Michal when he was young. When
he visits Michal, he declines and agrees to be tortured by his parents so that
Katurian will become a great writer. In the end,
Ariel secretly saves Katurian’s manuscripts instead of burning them.
---
KATURIAN, A writer of gruesome short stories
often involving children. His disturbed imagination was the result of having
heard his brother being abused when they were younger. Consequently he killed
his parents and looked after his brother. He is shocked by his arrest.
The role will be portrayed
by GABS SANTOS.
Gabs’ theater
credits include I Love You Because,
Mulan, Fiddler on the Roof, Love’s Labour’s Lost for Repertory Philippines;
N.O.A.H. (No Ordinary Aquatic Habitat) and
The Little Mermaid for Trumpets, Lulu and Orosman at Zafira for Dulaang UP, and Bona for PETA.
MICHAL, Katurian's brother, who is "slow to get things" following his years of abuse at the hands of his parents. He is also taken into jail along with Katurian.
PAOLO O’HARA and PAUL JAKE PAULE will portray the role.
Paolo, a
graduate of BS Mathematics, is a former member of Tanghalang Pilipino’s Actors’
Company. His theater credits include Ang
Mga Huwad, Bakaretta, Godot: Wer Is U?, Magno Rubio, Merchant of Venice, Orfeo
sa Impyerno, Rhythm Method, Crime and Punishment, Ang Sinungaling, Ang Ulo ni
Pancho Villa, Insiang, Carmen, Makbet among others. Paolo also acts for
movies and television and teaches in colleges, workshops and networks. Other
productions include Dulaang UP’s Amphitryon
and just recently, Tisoy Brown: Hari ng
Wala, both directed by Jose Estrella.
Paul Jake is an actor,
director and workshop facilitator. He was a former member and training director
of PUP Sining-Lahi Polyrepertory.
For Film, He appeared in
KAPATIRAN directed by Pepe Diokno, Mula Sa Kung Ano Ang Noon(From What is
Before), HELE SA HIWAGANG HAPIS a film of Lav Diaz, THE GIFTED directed by
Chris Martinez REquieme directed by Loy Arcenas and Ang Lagda entry to
CINEBERDE 2015 wherein he won Best Actor.
He has also performed for
Dulaang UP, Dulaang Laboratoryo, HeroesSquare Intramuros,Young Artists
Production, Teatro Expedicion de Filipinas, Pro.Pro., Dulaang Kalay, Treehouse
Theater Company, Theater Artists
Organization, and UP Theater Council wherein he won “Best Actor” for the play
Room 4 Rent during the 2007 Curtain Call Play Festival.
He recently earned his
first Best Stage Director non musical nomination for Artist Playground's The Riddle of the Sphinx
in the 2015 ALIW AWARDS.
TUPOLSKI, The lead detective and the
"good cop" in the interrogation. Cold and uncaring, he sees himself
as detached from the people he aims to save, shocking his younger partner
Ariel.
RENANTE BUSTAMANTE will portray the role.
Renante was
among the select students of Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York from
2006 to 2008. He played Omar in John Patrick Stanley’s The Big Funk at the Stella Adler Studio marking his New York stage
debut. He also played Wes in Ryoji Kajiwara’s Home. He is the founding Artistic Director of Tanghalang Tatsulok,
an active community theater in Bataan and has appeared in PETA’s production of Haring Lear and Noli/Fili Dekada 2000.
ARIEL, A brutal and violent detective who
has a vendetta against anyone who commits crimes against children because of
abuse in his own past. He ends up being more sympathetic towards Katurian and
his stories than Tupolski.
ACEY
AGUILAR will portray the role.
Acey is a
Theater Arts graduate of the Philippine High School for the Arts. He has worked
with Dulaang UP, Tanghalang Pilipino, Tanghalang Ateneo and Sipat Lawin
Ensemble, and among his theater credits are lead and supporting roles in Orosman at Zafira, Sala Sa Pito, Batang Pro,
Pragres, Shock Value, Lulu, Kafatiran,
Waiting for Godot and Ang Goldfish ni
Professor Dimaandal
Aside from television and theater, he has also appeared in several indie
films including Rekrut, Colossal, Lugaw, Kawal, Melodrama Negra, Islands, among others
and most recently, the CineFilipino entry Star
na si Van Damme Stallone.
---
MARTIN McDONAGH -
MARTIN McDONAGH -
BIO-BRIEF
Martin
McDonagh is a playwright, screenwriter and film director, born and raised in
London with both British and Irish citizenship. He has been described as one of
the most important living Irish playwrights.
He
worked in a London-area supermarket as a shelf stocker in the late 1980s, and
for the British Department of Trade and Industry as a part-time administrative
assistant. His first play to be produced is The Beauty Queen of Leenane. It opened at the Druid Theatre,
Galway, Ireland in February, 1996. It also became his first play to appear on
Broadway in April, 1998 at the Walter Kerr Theatre. He wrote and directed the
short film Six Shooter in 2005, which won an Academy Award for Best
Short Film (Live Action). Other film credits include the full-length feature
films In Bruges in 2008 and Seven Psychopaths in 2012.
Other notable works include the Tony
Award nominated The Lieutenant of
Inishmore, The Pillowman, and most recently Hangmen in 2015.
Photo Site: http://cdn.bigissue.com/sites/bigissue/files/styles/bigissue_main_half/public/martin_mcdonagh.jpg?itok=J2TKkEgq
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