Romulus D’Grayt

2:30 PM, October 13, 2007 at the PETA Theater
What is the play all about?
Adapted by Jerry Respeto from the English translation of Gerhard Nellhaus, and directed by PETA artistic director Maribel Legarda, Romulus D’Grayt is the story of Romulus, the last emperor of Rome, who, instead of ruling an already crumbling empire, is seen raising chickens in his farm. The play opens with Captain Ispurio Tito Mamma arriving in Rome to tell Emperor Romulus that the Teutons have won over his forces in Pavia. The emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, Zeno, is also seeking assistance from Romulus because Constantinople has also fallen to the Teutons. War is breaking out and the Teutons want to take over. Malaya
The show
I’m not really a huge fan of straight plays but we were required to watch this for class. And so, I really had no choice.
The idea of an all-male cast was very interesting so I was excited to watch this eventually. And I haven’t been to the PETA Theater (very cool, by the way) so I was also looking forward to it.
The story is too complicated for me to appreciate and remember. The acting was decent though. The raspy voice of the actor who played Romulus was tolerable at first but after 30 or so minutes it gets annoying. The men who played women’s roles were perfection. I really enjoyed the campness of it all. The costumes and props were clever too, with the Spongebob and Elmo patterns as their togas and walis tambo (brooms) on their headgears. Or helmet. Whatever it’s called.
The material is foreign but the message and the themes are applicable to the Philippines. A corrupt government official, people wanting to overthrow the government blah blah. The dialogue was very Filipino too, with all sorts of references to Filipino popular culture here and there. The jokes and hirits (side comments) provided the much needed comic relief whenever the play would get monotonous and boring.
Just a small and insignificant comment though. It was too long. Especially the scenes where they blabbed on and on about… I forgot but it was the scene in the bedroom.
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This entry was posted at KISLAPMATA on on Sunday, October 14th, 2007 at 8:18 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
