But now that it’s over, we can reveal the titles in this review. First up was M/ark St. G/ermain’s F/reud’s L/ast S/ession, directed by Jaime del Mundo, and featuring Del Mundo himself as the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud opposite Nelsito Gomez as C.S. Lewis, the famous author behind The Chronicles of Narnia and other tomes which have become classics of Christian literature. Both came to Dumaguete from Manila under the modest billing of a live reading. But modest is the last word one would use to describe what unfolded on the Woodward Little Theatre stage in the first weekend of September. What we were given was theatre distilled to its most essential, its most dangerous, and its most rewarding: two actors, two chairs, a script, and the raw electricity of performance.
The absence of theatrical spectacle—no elaborate set, no special lights, almost no blocking—was never a lack. In fact, it heightened the evening I saw the play in, forcing the audience to lean in, to listen, to wrestle with the very same questions the play poses: belief or unbelief, faith or despair, the stubborn human spirit against the inevitability of death. Del Mundo’s Freud was masterful: here was the old man, frail and dying, yet still wielding wit like a scalpel, each phrase honed with the authority of a mind refusing to surrender. Gomez’s Lewis was a supple counterpoint, all luminous conviction and trembling vulnerability, his belief not naïve but hard-won, tender, and full of ache.
What followed was no mere dialogue but a duel, ideas clashing and dancing in equal measure. And yet, in the pauses, in the shared quiet, there bloomed an intimacy that was profoundly moving. In that intimate space, Dumaguete was gifted not spectacle, but essence: words made flesh, thought turned theatre, performance stripped to its soul—and it was glorious.
These are nights in local theatre when we can see that spectacle can be unnecessary, when the simplest act of reading becomes revelation. Such was the case with the second play of Double Take—J/ohn P/ielmeier’s A/gnes of G/od, again directed by Jaime del Mundo, this time orchestrating a trio of actresses who are rightfully considered as among the finest of three generations of Dumaguete theatre—Dessa Quesada-Palm as Dr. M/artha Livingstone, Belen Calingacion as Mother M/iriam Ruth, and Anna del Prado as Sister A/gnes. What unfolded that second weekend of September was theatre in its most concentrated, unflinching form: three women, three chairs, and a story that dared to wound and enlighten at the same time.
The brilliance of the live reading lay in how these actresses localized the story, rendering its conflicts of faith, truth, and madness into something that felt disturbingly intimate for Dumaguete audiences. Dessa’s Livingstone was a force of skepticism wrapped in vulnerability, her lines haunted by betrayals of faith. Belen’s Miriam Ruth was fierce and evasive, her contradictions dangerous in their evasions. And Anna’s Agnes was astonishing—innocence curdled into menace, her fragile voice laced with something monstrous.
The clash of these three women unfolded like a storm, all of them armed with questions about divinity, about sexuality, about truth colliding in a crucible of pain and wonder. The silence of the appreciative audience spoke volumes, broken only by applause in the end rising like benediction. I noticed that among the crowd I saw the evening in were seminarians from nearby St. Joseph, a reminder of how close this story cut to lived lives of faith in our city. They loved the play.
And then, that same second weekend of September, came Salome, this time at the Luce Auditorium.
Oscar Wilde’s curious one-act tragedy, presented by the Silliman University Culture and Arts Council and staged Andrew Alvarez in Benjie Kitay’s brilliant Bisaya translation, plunged us into blood and desire with startling intimacy. Performed in the round, the audience encircling the stage like conspirators, this Salome found its full flowering in the precise lighting design by Keith Delgado, in the sensual choreography by Fionabelle Marie Cabe, in the hypnotic music by Jules Steven Josol, in the delightfully decadent costuming by Josip Tumapa, and in the minimalist set design by Eazel Savellino. I mention these members of the creative team, because their contributions truly heightened a masterful rendering of the play—an astonishing feat by first-time director Alvarez.
What unfolded for us on the Luce stage was as inevitable as it was shocking, the fantastic unfolding really the result of beautiful performances. Jade Mary Cornelia embodied Salome with revelatory nuance—playful innocence transforming into terrifying obsession. In the way she lilts her voice, we get childish, almost innocent, petulance curdling into corrupted desire for Jokanaan [John the Baptist], the prophet who spurns her, and who pushes her to make her fateful demand for his head in exchange for her dance for King Herod. Surrounding Cornelia’s tour de force performance are three veteran Dumaguete stage actors—Hope Tinambacan, Onna Rhea Quizo, and Benjie Kitay [all senior mentors from Youth Advocates Through Theatre Arts]—who gave the staging a much-needed gravitas: Hope’s Jokanaan was a force thundering with sanctity; Onna’s Herodias was deliciously imperious, commanding disdain in every gesture, in every line reading; and Benjie’s Herod was a different marvel altogether—witty, clownish, sinister, fully inhabiting Wilde’s paradox of depravity laced with comedy. [He also got the best lines, perhaps owing to the fact that the entire play is his fantastic translation effort.] On the other hand, Fort Narciso’s Naraboth, a new face in Dumaguete theatre, lent a handsome and tragic yearning in the play, which completed the fin de siecle tableau.
For me, what makes this Salome astonishing is its “completeness,” embodied by the efforts of the cast and the creative team, the daring use of the arena stage, and the pulse of Wilde’s words rendered in our own tongue. It’s just a different beast, seeing this play rendered in beautiful Binisaya. [Gorgeous lines like, “Gigutom ko sa imong katahum; nangala ko sa imong lawas; og bisan ang bino ug mga mansanas, dili makapawala sa akong tinguha,” sent shivers down my spine.] It feels like a perfect production—confident, sensual, unsettling, and absolutely alive. Wilde’s play, Alvarez tells us in his director’s notes, is about victims of circumstance making choices that define their becoming. I get that. Also, on the Dumaguete stage, Salome becomes more than revival of a classic play: it is revelation of current tribulations, a mirror of modern obsession and its terrible costs.
Taken together, these three plays—F/reud’s Last Session, A/gnes of God, and Salome—for me formed a triptych of anguish and faith that Dumaguete audiences were so very privileged to witness. Each play in its own way wrestled with belief and despair: men circling questions of mortality with reasoned eloquence, women clawing through madness and doctrine toward fragile truths, and a young princess spiraling from innocence into monstrous obsession.
They were plays that confronted the fragility of conviction, the dangers of desire, and the necessity of doubt. Staged with minimal spectacle or with ritualistic grandeur, they shared one thing: an unrelenting interrogation of what it means to be human, to believe, and to suffer. Theatre in Dumaguete, in these productions, became a crucible, where anguish was not hidden but laid bare, and where faith, whether affirmed, denied, or corrupted, became the trembling heart of drama itself.
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