ENVOYS to the United Nations (UN) climate talks handed down a 31-page document on Saturday outlining their boldest steps yet to rein in global warming. Here are the key points of the text, along with comment on why the decisions made in Paris matter:
AS A WAY to say thanks and spread the holiday cheer — and to show off its high-brightness projectors — Epson Philippines is celebrating its first Christmas as “the brand of choice in projectors” and “the dominant projector brand in the Philippines” (according to a company press release) by doing a 3D-projection mapping show at the Capitol Commons Park in Pasig City.
LOS ANGELES — Star Wars actress Daisy Ridley smiles on the cover of Glamour magazine, stormtrooper necklaces are on sale at Kay Jewelers, and commercials for the new film The Force Awakens are running during Kim Kardashian’s reality TV show.
It’s that time of year again, when you drag home a tree, unwrap your ornaments, and schlep out to the store to buy replacement bulbs for the lights that mysteriously broke over the summer. It’s a hassle, but it’s nothing compared to what’s gone into the construction of some of the most extravagant Christmas trees on the planet.
Television
Cash Cab
Tuesdays, 8:50 p.m.
AXN
By Joseph L. Garcia, Reporter
IF YOU’VE ever raised your fist at the heavens when a cab driver has refused to take you to where you need to go, here’s something very different: a cab that will take you in and pay you money. All you have to do is answer some trivia questions. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Cash Cab.
The show’s concept originated in the United Kingdom, and incarnations of it have appeared from Brazil to Slovakia. Here in the Philippines, the cab driver asking the questions is bespectacled actor and host Ryan Agoncillo. The cab has been going around Metro Manila, with the host/driver quizzing passengers as they make their way through traffic. Each correct answer corresponds to a cash prize, while every incorrect answer constitutes a “strike.” Three strikes, or three incorrect answers, means passengers are kicked out (not literally, we hope) of the cab.
The game ends when passengers strike out or have arrived at their destination.
Passengers, according to a press release, have two “shout outs” where they can call a friend or ask a stranger for help in answering a question.
“The traffic jams here in the Philippines works both ways for the Cash Cab and for the passenger. The longer you stay in the cab, the more chances of you winning, right? Also, the longer you stay in the cab, the more chances of you striking out: so it’s a risk you have to take,” said Mr. Agoncillo during the Dec. 9 launch in Aracama restaurant.
“You can either tell me… to bring you all the way where it’s two hours from where I picked you up, or you can choose a shorter journey. My role is to make sure I bring you safely to your destination, asking you questions, but if you strike out, I’m going to pick a safe place, hopefully bright enough [and drop you off]… if you strike out,” he added.
‘You can get rich in traffic’
Judging from Mr. Agoncillo’s stories, his passengers could be anyone.
“[There were] these two married guys, who, at that point — you know, I’m just… [not sure] if their wives knew that they were out that night.” He described them as “two burly guys” with tattoos, and the pair won about P13,000 that evening said Mr. Agoncillo. After their game was over, one of them approached Mr. Agoncillo and asked for a selfie. “Para alam ng asawa ko bakit ako na-late nauwi (So my wife will know why I went home late).”
There are no maximum number of questions, said Mr. Agoncillo, and you can keep playing until you reach your destination, or until you get kicked out.
“We had a MENSA dude,” said Mr. Agoncillo. “He played us out.”
Cash Cab premieres with a double episode on Tuesday, Dec. 22, at 8:50 p.m. on AXN.
THE HOLIDAYS are great and all. In December. But come January you’re going to be wishing for something a little less manic. And a little more exotic.
LOS ANGELES — The new Star Wars: The Force Awakens opened in theaters this week. Here is a brief description of the main characters in the saga that takes place in a fictional galaxy.
SAVING the world isn’t going to be cheap. If you sell oil, coal or old-fashioned cars, that threatens disaster. For makers of stuff like solar panels, high-tech home insulation, and efficient lighting, it’s a potential miracle.
By Jasmine Agnes T. Cruz, Reporter
THEATER
Children’s Plays for Adults
Presented by Bit by Bit Company
Ongoing until Dec. 20
PowerMac Spotlight at Circuit Makati City
Maniacal
Presented by Egg Theater Company
on Dec. 20, 2 and 7 p.m.
Pineapple Lab, 6071 Palma St,, Makati City
PLAYS abound this Christmas and one can choose from a variety of shows. If one prefers tragic stories with complex emotional arcs then head over to the PowerMac Spotlight at Circuit Makati and watch Children’s Plays for Adults. If one prefers to laugh, one can watch Maniacal, an offering from a new player in the theater scene called the Egg Theater Company.
Cry fest
Children’s Play for Adults is a twin bill of Si Maria Isabella at ang Guryon ng mga Tala (Palanca-winner Eljay Castro Deldoc’s adaptation of Dean Francis Alfar’s “Kite of Stars”) and Games People Play (written by Palanca-winner Glenn Sevilla Mas). Produced by Bit by Bit Company, both productions are imaginatively directed by Ed Lacson, Jr.
Maria Isabella is about a young woman who realizes that the only way the stargazing boy of her dreams will notice her is if she literally gets to the stars herself. She goes on a quest to get all the materials needed to build a giant kite to get her to the heavens, even if that means she’ll be searching all her life. Meanwhile, Games is about three childhood friends whose games together start out innocent, but they slowly reveal the characters’ desires and become ways for them to explore their sexual identities.
Both shows are exceptionally written, and, more than that, they have been well-conceived for the stage. For Maria Isabella, director Mr. Lacson allows one’s imagination to take flight through the use of papier-mâché puppets, shadow puppetry, and lights. For Games, his simple yet haunting set and the playwright’s creative use of blocking, brings new dimensions to the play.
Tickle your funny bones
Seems like straight plays are on the rise in a theater landscape long dominated by musicals. First came Red Turnip Theater, which vowed to do edgy English straight plays. Now it has a counterpart, Egg Theater Company, which will focus on straight plays in Filipino (original plays, translations, and adaptations).
Egg’s members are production manager Kristine Balmes (who also acts), actors Renante Bustamante, Martha Comia, and Paolo O’Hara, playwright George De Jesus III, director Mara Marasigan (who also acts), and producer Alvin Trono. Many of them have been involved in the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Tanghalang Pilipino.
This group — which boasts of 40 years of theater experience between the members — was formed in 2014. Its first project was Maniacal, De Jesus’s Palanca Award winning Filipino adaptation of Moliere’s The Learned Ladies, which was shown at the first Fringe Festival in Manila last February, then re-staged at the Opera Haus of the Philippine Opera Company. It is being staged yet again at Makati’s Pinneapple Lab. Directed by Mr. De Jesus, Maniacal features Via Antonio, Mayen Cadd, Martha Comia, Nel Gomez, Renante Bustamante, Mara Marasigan, Paolo O’Hara, and Jojo Riguerra.
Maniacal is set in present day Manila where a group of theater and film artists are rehearsing for Moliere’s Le Femmes Savant (The Learned Ladies). Drama ensues when some of the actors have to decide whether they should quit the show to be part of a Broadway musical, a diva begins making demands and dramatic admonitions, and actresses express their delusional assumptions about a co-actor.
Interesting and funny, the play mentions real local theater companies, actual Filipino theater actors and actresses, recently shown plays and musicals, and even the internal issues in certain theater companies and uses them as the butt of jokes. While these jokes are a treat for the avid theatergoer or someone who is part of the theater scene, audience members who are not might not understand them.
Egg Theater has a set of plays lined up after Maniacal. Scheduled for February is Schism, a satire about a playwright, appropriated from Moliere’s Le Misanthrope Ou L’Atrabilaire Amoureux. For April, there is the Filipino translation of The Pillowman by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, about a fiction writer who the police interrogate because his short stories are similar to the recent child murders in their town. Next September, Egg will present a trilogy of Moliere’s plays on hypocrisy entitled Moliere PMS — Praning (Le Malade Imaginaire/The Imaginary Invalid, a satire about directors), Maniacal (Le Femmes Savant/The Learned Ladies), and Schism (Le Misanthrope Ou L’Atrabilaire Amoureux/The Misanthrope).
For details about Children’s Plays for Adults, contact 0917-570-4359, 0917-886-0816, or TicketWorld at www.ticketworld.com.ph. For details about Maniacal, contact 0917-844-0520
Medicine Cabinet — Reiner W. Gloor
THE AUTHOR wishes all the readers a happy holiday season and is sad and perplexed that during these festivities, many children suffer from injuries due to fireworks, firecrackers and even bullets raining from the sky as people shoot into the air not thinking that the bullets will eventually come straight down and could possible hurt someone. I almost got hit like this once. I sat at my lanai and just after I left the chair I heard a strange sound hit the roof. When I checked it out, I found a bullet which pierced through the roof and landed on the chair I had just been occupying moments ago.
