It’s hard not to abandon one’s senses when grief is at its height. There is rot, havoc, and the most bitter taste of misery.
They say anger is the loudest emotion, but no one skips to angry without feeling grief first.
Lancelot turns grief into a weapon
In the stage adaptation of Jun Robles Lana’s 2022 psychological drama About Us But Not About Us, there is very little room to palisade the grief-turned-malice from Lancelot, played by Elijah Canlas (alternately Kobie Brown).
Elijah delivers the manipulative early twenty-something literature student so convincingly, that you initially mistake him for an unsullied sitting duck who fell prey to the system built by adults in his life.
We then see how wrong of a presumption that is further into the plot. We discover how Lancelot is brazenly crafty with what little resources he has, and obtusely arrogant about the things he gets from it.
Read: Elijah Canlas, mahigpit na kalaban ni Coco Martin as best actor sa 1st Summer MMFF?
Eric is neither villain nor hero
Through Romnick Sarmenta’s (alternately Tuxqs Rutaquio) Erickson, we find grief that festers into grudges and resentment. He is a character who gradually paints himself from being prone to suspicion, to becoming the anti-antihero of the story.
He is neither villain nor hero, perpetually stuck in the moral gray area that compels the audience to root for him. We see his struggles, his pains, his frustrations about knowing what he’s capable of becoming, yet being unable to become it.
Call it what you will—the plight of wasted potential, or the curse of unrealized greatness. Eric erupts and screams his way through his emotions, but we acknowledge how he got there in the first place.
Read: Romnick Sarmenta, emosyunal nang magwagi sa 47th Gawad Urian
Marcus falls victim to his own silence
The last thread of grief from the play comes from Marcus, portrayed by Epy Quizon (alternately Andoy Ranay), embodying the tragedy of pent-up grief with no outlet. If you shake a pressurized bottle for days on end, how long do you think it stays intact?
Marcus was a husband, but he was also an acclaimed writer and university professor. By all accounts, he was a stickler for rules and a nitpicker of improprieties. He avoids confronting things for as long as he can, until he breaks.
If the movie tells us competing versions of who Marcus was, the stage adaptation lets him reclaim the story taken from him. It allows audiences to witness the side of him withering away from utter neglect.
Read: Epy Quizon, ikinalungkot ang pagde-demolish sa Dolphy Theater
ABOUT US BUT NOT ABOUT US: AN UNINTERRUPTED PERFORMANCE
Director Tuxqs Rutaquio’s one-act play is a deliberate looming of grief that refuses to let its characters escape themselves.
It boils in Lancelot’s cunning, fuels Eric’s resentment, and consumes Marcus until there is almost nothing left of him to salvage.
With no intermission to break the tension, the audience at the Power Mac Center Spotlight Blackbox Theater is left to sit with these men and the wreckage they leave behind.
Read: Jun Robles Lana bags award at 26th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival