CdeO theater review - Recursos

Recursos: the Kagay-anon Hamlet

Why it is not only a good Hamlet adaptation, but also a timely social commentary

photo courtesy of The Xavier Stage FB page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Xavier-Stage/184957758224726)

I’d say that my 75 bucks was worth being transfixed by it for more than an hour and a half. As to what I was talking about “wasting” my time and money on, it’s the play “Recursos” – an adaptation of the Shakespearean play, Hamlet. Though retold for the present generation and made to fit the local social context, the essence of Hamlet is still there: the quest for vengeance spurred by a ghost, the hero’s purported “insantiy” and his eventual demise. It could’ve been perfect hadn’t they left out an adapted version of the scene involving Yorick’s skull (more on that later). So, how would I respond to it – rather, critique it – as one of the audience? (Some spoiler details up ahead – you’ve been warned…)

Was the plot internally consistent? Yes – every event, every scene that unfolded drove it along well. The play thankfully spared me from the temptation of going straight home to torture myself with the crazy storytelling of our local TV “teleserye”. It detailed the reason Eric had to come home (being the plot’s core) and how every event dovetailed to that reason, eventually leading up to the showdown between the hero and his father’s murderer. Thus, eliminating a scene from it would be like leaving out a piece of the puzzle, denying the viewer the whole picture of it. By the way, the plot structure was almost organized along Aristotelian lines. But it followed that of the regular Greek plays in having a late point of attack. In the case of Recursos, that happens midway in the story when Eric arrives in his hometown from Manila. That would begin to fulfill the play’s crisis: Eric’s task to avenge his father’s death brought about by his uncle.  It would have gone on smoothly hadn’t it been for two major complications: first, Eric’s doubts on his sanity and second, Rodolfo’s schemes to get Nina to break with Eric. (Nina is Eric’s love interest in the play, as Ophelia was to Hamlet in the Shakespearean original.) As to the first, it is unlike the original, where Hamlet had TO PRETEND he was insane. In the adaptation, the hero believed he was REALLY going insane because of the fact he’s seeing his dead father frequently. In our period, having visions of a deceased relative would mean two things to the modern day psychiatric community: either the person was smoking some serious crack or that it proves he’s an inbred offspring born with a serious mental problem. Add that up with the hero’s personal dilemma on whether he should bring his late father’s murderer to justice and it’s sure to make his belief in his craziness a lot worse. Regarding the second complication, Recursos’ scheming lawyer in the person of Rodolfo – Nina’s father – wants to ingratiate himself with the enemies of his employer and thus protect his interests. To do so, he is finding ways to keep his daughter away from the protagonist to make sure their relationship doesn’t get in his way.

If asked whether each character is active, interesting and consistent, I’d say “yes”. One only need listen to the dialogs and observe their interactions with each other. All the actors’ roles support each other’s characters: for example, Nina’s innocence brings out his father’s cunning through the latter’s outright flattery upon the former. Such interactions make the characters active or alive. The actors’ lines coupled with their emotions make their characters consistent with their roles. Rodolfo’s cunning is highlighted in his fatherly talk with his son, Rigor, where he gives the latter advice on how to outsmart his foes. Overall, each of them is interesting. The playwright may do away with Eric’s two hometown friends but without them, the hero would not be able to use their revelations as later clues to his uncle’s involvement in the murder. Nina could’ve been taken out to intensify the audience’s focus on Eric’s quest for vengeance. But that would also mean eliminating her family’s part in the play, which would later be crucial to highlight Enrique’s involvement in the death of Eric’s father. Rigor’s alliance with Enrique in the later part of the play would finally substantiate Eric’s suspicions on his uncle, helping to bring the story to a close.

Ideas of responsibility, loyalty and the value of family ties are evident in the play – Eric carrying out his obligation to fulfill his father’s wishes, the bonds between Eric and his hometown friends… That goes to show Hamlet’s universality though it is retold in a different time and place. Adding – or rather, enhancing – the play is its commentary on the issue of illegal mining and how it erodes the morals of those involved in it. Enrique’s greed made him kill his own brother (Eric’s father) to gain control of Recursos, the mining company they both founded. The desire to hold on to the power afforded by Recursos’ profits makes the company’s board bribe public officials look the other way in spite of (among other things)  the damage that the company is already making upon the environment. That was evident early on in the play, during the conversation between Jack-Jack and Pao on how their parents on the board manage to run things in an underhanded way.

What about the play’s language? For the sake of some foreigners who attended, the dialog should’ve been in English (the lines were in the Philippine national language). Nevertheless, no doubt that the dialogs were expressive and their delivery drew in my interest – especially the occasional comic dialogs. Referring to an emotionally-tense scene where Jack-Jack asks Pao whether Eric’s gun is loaded, its delivery didn’t fail to make the audience laugh. Same goes for the dialog between Carina, Eric’s mother, and Rodolfo after the hero rapes Nina. Carina’s gay-style sarcasm would be equal to that of Vice Ganda’s.

The musical cues timed in with specific events in the play, giving the audience clues as to what to expect in the next scene, thereby enriching and supporting both the characters and ideas as a whole. In spite of the minimalist setting, the overall visual theme it bore – that of a mining company’s surroundings – contributed much to the play’s spectacle, though I missed the iconic skull of Yorick in the adaptation. It could’ve been retranslated as the skull of a lowly miner very loyal to Eric’s late father. In the original Hamlet, there was a scene where the remains of Yorick, the late king’s court jester, was unearthed and his skull handled by the protagonist. The court jester was the late king’s loyal and trusted confidant. 

So, is Recursos worth another second viewing? Does it deserve an encore? Is it worth recommending to friends who haven’t seen it? Yeah, by all means – and they have up to the 30^th of June to catch it. Definitely, the 75-peso entrance fee is worth it.