SandBox Fest 2023 Blurs the Lines Between Audience, Performer, Friend

Three years after Sandbox Fest 2020 came to an abrupt halt, The Sandbox Collective returns with a twin-bill experience featuring Duncan Macmillan's plays “Every Brilliant Thing” and “Lungs”, underlining the inherent intimacy of live theatre.

Written by Rommielle T. Morada
Photos by Rommielle T. Morada, Andy Avila, and SandBox Collective
June 26, 2023

Reb Atadero and Sab Jose in Act 1, Lungs

In 2023, almost every event in the Philippine theatre industry feels like a reunion. Following almost three years of online theatre due to the pandemic, post-pandemic shows feel more like a gathering of friends, and nowhere else is that more apparent than in Sandbox Fest 2023. Directly picking up from where they left off after preparations for Sandbox Fest 2020 came to a halt, this year’s festival returns with Duncan Macmillan’s Lungs, pairing it alongside Macmillan’s one-person play, Every Brilliant Thing. 

Though marketed as a twin-bill experience, nothing could prepare audience members for the intimacy of Sandbox Fest 2023. There’s something so human about being able to, first, bear witness to a couple trying and failing and trying to deserve parenthood, and second, be part of a seven-year-old’s life story as narrated by her list of things to live for. 

With its stage smack-dab in the center of the Zobel de Ayala Hall, even the act of finding one’s seat blurs the line between audience and performer. Theatre in the round is not anything new, of course, but when the stage itself is merely composed of eight boxes strategically placed one step away from the closest seats, there emerges a refreshing sense of voyeuristic warmth between the audience and the performers, with the latter inviting the former in until nothing much separates the two. 

LUNGS

Directed by Gawad Buhay Awardee Caisa Borromeo, Lungs certainly does not wait for the audience to catch up — and that’s a good thing. Throwing the audience into a high-speed, high-tension, high-stakes conversation between a couple regarding the idea of having a baby (in the middle of an IKEA!), there is little to no context given regarding the characters, their relationship, and their identities. With no transitions between settings or scenes, the audience is left peering into a sped-up preview of the rest of a young couple’s life.

The life set to start is performed exceptionally well by returning cast member Sab Jose, a Gawad Buhay nominee for Female Lead Performance in a Play during Lungs’ original 2018 run, and Gawad Buhay-nominated theater actor Reb Atadero, last seen in Breakups & Breakdowns. Both are simultaneously in sync and disjointed, with neuroticism and pride causing each conversation they have to intersect and then veer off in two different directions.

Again, the play itself does not take the time to immerse you in its varying settings — instead, it forces you to listen to intimate conversations that the couple themselves can barely follow. The irony of conversations being the backbone of both the play and their relationship is not lost on us, with much of the heartache the play pulls out stemming from the fact that neither of them really listens to the other. In a pivotal scene, Atadero’s character admits, tearfully, to both Jose and the audience: “There’s this sheet of glass and I can’t reach you.”

Beyond the heartache of their conversations is the internal debate of whether or not they are good people, with the question repeatedly asked throughout the play. There’s something not being said, of course, and it’s the question of whether they are good enough people to deserve parenthood, especially given the state of the world they find themselves passing down. Jose’s character is more prone to catastrophizing than her partner, and her openness mirrors so many anxieties amplified by the pandemic. An outright acknowledgment of the play’s genius lighting design by Miggy Panganiban is warranted — the lightbulbs set directly above the small stage reflect the doubt plaguing the characters’ minds. Whenever either Jose or Atadero’s characters get cold feet, there’s the slightest flicker of lights, destabilizing their resolve. It’s a blink-or-you’ll-miss-it moment, much like most of the play, and, in the larger scheme of things, much like most of life.

Every Brilliant Thing

Kakki Teodoro in Act 2, “Every Brilliant Thing”

If the non-conversation conversations of Lungs made us feel like we were on the outside looking in, Jenny Jamora’s direction of Every Brilliant Thing forces us to look from the inside out. The play fully erases the boundaries between audience and performer, and as a result, the audience plays multiple parts: family, friends, doctors, lovers, a therapy group, a collection of memories, and, perhaps most importantly, a list of things that make life worth living.

Technically a one-person show, the interactive play demands more from its lead than simply acting their hearts out — they must also manage and direct the audience every step of the way. Kakki Teodoro’s illustrative performance, which landed her a Gawad Buhay award for Female Lead in the show’s 2020 run, never falters. Embodying her character throughout various ages, Teodoro works masterfully with the material she’s been given, whether it comes from the script or from the audience. After directing the audience member turned Dad/Vet/Principal, Kakki looks into their eyes and explains herself, indoctrinating the audience cast into a new role once more — that of a friend being told one’s life story with the softness and pain of hearing its most excruciating details.

The play is littered with quick emotional transitions, from dissociative comedy as a coping mechanism to one’s immersion in the tragedy of having a parent struggling with mental health. Needless to say, its execution is no easy feat, both for the performer and the audience. The transition of emotions cannot be forced and cannot be rushed. But Teodoro is every brilliant thing — a riot all on her own, she has the audience eating their hearts out from the palm of her hand. What Kakki feels, we feel. What Kakki experiences, we experience. What Kakki loves, we love. And what a joy it is to see life through the eyes of Kakki Teodoro.

With conversations regarding mental health still being slowly tempered in Philippine society, Jamora’s commanding contextualization of Macmillan’s play into Filipino society certainly makes sure that the conversation is worth exploring. After all, as Teodoro’s character admits: “There are other people who feel the same. [...] If you’ve lived a long life without being crushingly depressed, then you haven’t been paying attention.”

Sandbox Fest 2023 will run at the Zobel de Ayala Recital Hall, 2/F Maybank Performing Arts Theater at BGC, Taguig, from June 17 to July 15.

For tickets, visit bit.ly/Sandboxfest2023.

ERRATUM: While Miguel Panganiban is billed as Lighting Designer for the show, the lightbulbs flickering during “Lungs” was a directorial choice made by Caisa Borromeo, executed with the aid of Kiefer Sison. In addition, the lightbulbs hanging over the set itself were also a directorial choice made by both Borromeo and Jenny Jamora, who directed “Every Brilliant Thing.”