SUMMARY
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MANILA, Philippines – “Lazy, shallow, abomination, self-centered, entitled, naïve… The list goes on, but ‘young’ is always there. Always young.” So opens No Filter, from experimental theater troupe The Sandbox Collective, against the tirades launched towards so-called millennials.
Joel Stein called us the “Me Me Me Generation” on a cover story of Time, and made a valid point up front: that whatever flak our young set is getting, shows history merely repeating itself. Old folks will always tend to grumble about the younger ones being obnoxious. No Filter flaunts thought pieces like these in the opening chorus like a press release for millennials. Crudely putting it: haters gonna hate. But the play also asks: what’s the difference and why does it matter?
It’s convenient to roll the eyes when it comes to the topic of millennials – or sneer at the prospect of listening to endless self-talk – as if on the defense. On the surface, No Filter appears to be a little apologetic due to many preconceptions – some of them valid, but some don’t even hold water. For the Sandbox Collective, the appropriate response was to keep it real. Unlike some hashtag-riddled Instagram posts you come across, No Filter isn’t begging for your attention. It’s unapologetic and raw.
“To merely defend would be dishonest. The larger goal is to be authentic, or at least try, in articulating a generation’s strength and weaknesses, and all the nuances in between,” notes head writer Jam Pascual in the show’s program. He adds, “Attempting to depict that means being critical about history moves, how technology and culture evolve with it, and how people born into a certain point in time adapt to, and are formed by these liminal conditions.”
‘They are their own text’
No Filter‘s cast includes Cai Cortez, Jasmine Curtis-Smith, Mikael Daez, Sarah Facuri, Kahlil Kaimo, Saab Magalona-Bacarro, Micah Muñoz, and Lauren Young. They play a motley crew of characters, but the show certainly goes beyond flat archetypes such as your garden variety hipster or a workaholic modern-day Peggy Olson from Mad Men.
“It’s so great because they’re all millennials, so they are their own text. So if it’s about the millennial experience, and whatever spews out of their mouth… actually informs or maybe transforms the play even,” says director Toff De Venecia.
Cast member Jasmine Curtis-Smith reflects on the play’s approach, “[It’s] also a way to mirror ourselves with the past generations in a way na although, yes, we are going through the same thing with different gadgets or – I guess – pastimes or activities, we’re still discovering the same thing that they were trying to discover when they were our age.”
Millennials, without pretense
No Filter takes an episodic approach; monologues form its backbone. Some of the writers who worked on this play include Jam Pascual, Wanggo Gallaga, Anna Canlas, Jace Espino, Jonty Cruz, B. P. Valenzuela, Paolo Lorenzana, Don Jaucian, Audrey Carpio, Anna Oposa, Luigi Gonzales, Ayana Camille Tolentino, Sam Lee, Regina Bemonte, Petra Magno, and Gabbie Tatad.
Set to music by Similarobjects, No Filter has multimedia and improvised elements as well. For instance, Silly People’s Improv Theater (SPIT) co-developed segments in the show, and it’s always fun to see the actors caught off-guard and stretching their imagination.
Sign of the times: when asked to “Paint me a picture of millennials eating their feelings,” the cast doesn’t depict themselves ungraciously stuffing their faces. Instead, they hover over the table with their smartphones, attempting to emulate Kinfolk in an Instagram #foodporn post. A video shows how retrograde we can be, when an emoji conversation can be perfectly intelligible – just like ancient hieroglyphics.
No Filter has its light-hearted moments – at least before you realize that you’re actually laughing at yourself (if you’re not part of the Titos and Titas of Manila, that is). You’re likely to cringe at how painfully familiar the characters are before you even get the chance to express your annoyance.
Cai Cortez will leave you guffawing with her non-failproof-swipe-right exploits in “Love Me Tinder.” You’ll wish that an app like “Fake It” (based on Jonty Cruz’s Young Star article) was actually available on the iTunes Store or Google Play, so “you can carry on a fake discussion about The Goldfinch, or about how Leeroy New’s artwork has transformed over the years.”
At times, the witty comedy gets pitch black. In “5 Millennials, 1 Instagram Photo,” Mikael Daez plays a closeted gay person who resorts to self-mockery, “Some people call it being weak. I call it having a substance problem – a problem with having to be a person of substance.”
But No Filter carries a lot of punch as well, thanks to a cast who has the chops to pull through heart-wrenching material like Petra Magno’s “Moving Out,” or the cast favorite “Connection/Disconnection” by Jam Pascual.
‘Always beginning’
With No Filter, there’s no scroll down, fast-forward, or close tab to escape. You’re also handling a double-edged sword if you come to the play with premature judgments. Ultimately, it’s an exercise in a forgotten practice: listening.
“I think what people can take from this is, ‘Shouldn’t we just listen?’ It’s more on people just keep on talking and talking and talking, but they never take the time to just listen to someone and hear them out,” says actress Lauren Young.
In the end, No Filter gets a tad philosophical when it tries to answer whether ‘millennial’ is just a label. By hearing these stories out, whether you’re a tito/tita or a millennial yourself, you’ll find that ultimately, only time and circumstance separates the generations. Everyone goes through a coming of age or possibly even a quarter-life crisis.
From the get-go, however, No Filter doesn’t seek to be the voice of a generation. It’s very self-aware that the characters are an upper-to-lower middle class bunch. Head writer Wanggo Gallaga explains, “It’s not so much speaking about a full-on generational thing… apparently… this whole millennial phenomenon is really just a subset.”
Toff de Venecia says, “I think the point really is that, sure, maybe the technology is very specific, and the language is specific – the hashtags, the YOLO’s, and the FML’s, and FMK’s, and all that. But there’s still a lot of universalities in the show that people can resonate with.” A conversation at the show’s close exactly makes this point:
“So we’re always beginning, always changing… That’s awfully millennial.”
“No, I don’t think it’s millennial at all.”
“I think it’s…
“Human.”
– Rappler.com
Remaining shows: August 1, 8 PM & August 2, 3 PM
Note: The photos that appear in this article feature the cast as a whole (without alternates) during preview night.
Paolo Abad is a film/television editor and motion graphic designer. He is also a self-confessed concert junkie – a perennial attendee at gigs of indie acts.
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