QUEZON City — “Gladiolas”, the 2014 first prize Palanca Award-winning one-act play in Filipino by Ilonggo poet and playwright Peter Solis Nery, got yet another staging on July 8; this time at Teatro Hermogenes Ylagan in University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman this city.
Chosen for its advocacy, gay sympathies, and LGBTQ+ representation by theatre major Juge Kyle Tagle of UP, who also directed the play as part of a theatre directing class under Prof. Josefina Estrella, “Gladiolas” was well received by both its audience and production.
“Reviving Gladiolas for a 2023 staging was not easy (the play was written almost 10 years ago), but we were very lucky to have committed actors who did not compromise. After the show, it was most satisfying to get all those positive feedback for the story that we wanted to tell, and for the story that needed to be told in our time,” enthused Tagle, who identifies as “queer, and a Manila transplant with Ilonggo roots”, during the cast and crew meet up with playwright Nery at Pop Up Katipunan in QC on July 22.
In the 2023 re-envisioning of the play for UP Dulaang Laboratoryo, “Gladiolas” starred Vinzar Percia Rubi as the gay Ilonggo poet Dennis Pajada; Matthew Gador as his bisexual lover Raymond; and Sol Eugenio as his homophobic father Federico.
Although nothing has yet been finalized, talks have been initiated to bring the said UP production to Iloilo./PN
