Startup (A Message from the Playwright/Director)

(as printed in the souvenir programme of Science & Progress, February 10 2006)

Quite honestly, it had all begun with comic books.

Before I had steeped myself in the discipline of the Theatre, I had grown up with a love for the written word. When I was about 8, I had discovered the beauty of the written word juxtaposed with visual art stimuli resulting in a new narrative form: the comic book. Later, as I grew and discovered novels and puberty and boys, I also stumbled on Arnold Arre’s The Mythology Class, my first serious graphic novel. Amazing piece of work, and made on Philippine soil, at that. I learned comic books did not simply stop at slapstick or ribaldry that’s worth loose change, but could also ascend to nobler, more serious, more human ideals. The drawn and written panel had as much story-telling power and potential as the printed text, and as I’ve now come to believe, the stage.

The Mythology Class was set in the University of the Philippines. That’s why I set my high-school heart on entering the University, whatever the cost. That’s telling, really.

I’ve now reached my senior year in College, about to step out of its portals into the real world; I now know better. But the wonder of Arre’s opus still stays with me, and serves at certain times to be the still voice inside me that says magic and heroes still exist in this day and age. All we need do is look closer and see, no matter how simple, no matter how unlikely.

But enough fandom for now.

I also discovered the thrill of Science Fiction through the likes of Kurt Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury in my later college years. (How can I ever forget Welcome to the Monkey-House and Fahrenheit 451?) Through the careful guidance of Sir Emil Flores, I was introduced to the myriad facets of the genre. I eventually had to take STS and my last six units of Science, and recalling what Sir Flores taught me, I was hooked. All the possibilities went whirring in my head, and I just had to let them out, one way or another.

Then there was my Playwriting class.

Science-Fiction on Stage? But why?

Why not?

I present to you, dear audience, the Petri-dish love child born of my imagination. It’s not perfect, it’s not spectacular, and it’s definitely not impeccably outright high-brow, but it’s honest. It’s an honest attempt at doing the genre justice, and by god, I hope I did.

What, really, is the goal of Science Fiction? If there’s anything I remember from our brief consultations, Sir Emil taught me that Science Fiction is the constant attempt at defining what makes us human in the age of the atom, quantum physics, and the Internet. Science Fiction is perhaps the call to look beyond Nagasaki and Hiroshima, beyond Anthrax and other bio-weapons, beyond the many injustices committed in cyberspace and see instead how such knowledge can teach us how it is to treat each other with much more kindness and compassion. Science Fiction teaches us what it is and how it is to be human, in the best sense of the word.

Looking back at the billions and billions of years since we first crawled up from the water and learned to breath with lungs, we’ve definitely come a long way. Kamusta na? Getting along fine? I hope so.

The two major abilities that set humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom are (1) the ability to laugh, and (2) the ability to have compassion. To love.

Advanced happy heart’s day, everyone.