As mentioned in yesterday's post-flat tire blog post , Our main highlight for the day was catching The Sandbox Collective's staging of Side Show, a musical loosely based on the life of conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. I knew little about the story, given I really don't like to read up on musicals and plays before I watch them. But the premise seemed interesting, and Sandbox has put on some pretty solid shows.
The play was staged at the Power Mac Spotlight theater at Circuit Makati, which automatically meant some sort of theater-in-the-round experience, given the venue's layout. We've watched a number of shows here, and a lot of times I'd feel uncertain if the production really made good use of the venue's unconventional stage. But this ended up being some very, very different indeed.
First, I feel like the creative team really put a lot of thought into how to stage this production, given it had the audience on opposite sides of the venue. They arranged the blocking of the characters to ensure that everyone had something to appreciate based on their view of things, while a quick head turn could afford you a glimpse of what you might be missing, especially when that had pairs of actors speaking to one another from across the way. They also had projectors on both sides showing supplementary videos, including occasional live videos featuring the performers in different backstage areas and such. It was all very creatively done - down to the lighting that made sure any character was well-lit regardless of which side of the audience they were facing.
Then there's the singing - oh the singing. I'm sure all iterations of the cast are competent, but I'm very happy with the combination of performers we got on Sunday afternoon. Our headlines were Marynor Madamesila as Daisy and Tanya Manalang as Violet. Each are talented on their own, but as the twins with their many, many shared numbers, they were phenomenal. CJ Navato had great presence on stage as fueled by his singing voice, and he worked well with Tim Pavino as Buddy. Jon Santos was absolutely Jon Santos, and I'll never get why they made him carry the camera around so much. But the truly standout performance was Marvin Ong as Jake. We had seen him perform in Repertory Philippines' I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change last year, but that production did not provide him with the sort of range he got to explore in this show. His solos allowed him to really fill the venue with his singing, and it was just amazing.
The show as a whole was just great on so many levels, and the ensemble helped to bring things to life beautifully. And since we sat in the front row of our section, we also had the added benefit of really being able to feel the performers singing and not just hear them through the venue's sound system. And that just elevated things even further.
So yeah, we really enjoyed the show. I lost count of the number of times I'd turn to Tobie right after something magical happened on stage and we'd just smile at each other. We recapped so many things that we found clever and unique during the intermission, which is when we got to explore the "Odditorium" featuring the circus costumes of the case. And we continued to rave about the show all the way home and then some.
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