READING my Tic-tac-toe play here is Stephen B. Alayon, Head of the Library and Data Banking Services Section, Training and Information Division, Aquaculture Department of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC/AQD) located in Tigbauan, Iloilo. An award-winning librarian who has held positions in librarian community organizations in the Philippines, he is also a part-time faculty member of the University of San Agustin, and the Central Philippine University in Iloilo City.
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Language, Conformity, and “Playing” in a PSN Play
A review of “Tic-tac-toe”
by Stephen B. Alayon
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“Mama Mia Spaghetti Sauce!”is one of the phrases you will exclaim again and again after reading, or watching, Peter Solis Nery’s play Tic-tac-toe, first prize winner in the One-act Play category of the 2016 Palanca Awards. The hysterical play revolves around the plight of a playwright and how his artistic work was subjected to comments, suggestions, and revisions. The use of informal and slang languages, cliché, and jargon was a central theme of the play. While the play presents a controversial setting, a taboo, and a scathing commentary on censorship, the playwright quite successfully sends his audience, or reader, laughing and cursing—not in the coarse language of the streets, but in veiled vulgarity.
Audience sensibility, mass appeal, and business profitability are some standards considered as barriers for artists to express their ideas. The dilemma of a creative artist lies in balancing censorship, saleability, and mass appeal. Does an artwork’s quality and originality need the approval of certain people? Should the playwright stick to his original idea, or should he allow himself to be swayed by the whims of the audience, director, or producer?
Very much like in scholarly communication, a manuscript is submitted for peer review, scrutiny, and validation. And similarly today, peer pressure or social pressure is common among teenagers. One needs to conform to her group of friends or barkadas, or else she does not belong.
The play highlights the struggle between masa appeal, and literary or academic aspirations; and between the brutally honest, and the less vulgar or obscene. A question arises: Should someone’s worth, or his work’s worth, be subjected to validation or scrutiny?
In a conservative and judgmental Filipino society (not to mention Ilonggo culture), where does individuality come in? If someone is angry, she expresses words ranging from the subtle and pleasing to the verbally foul. You don’t want to be called out, “Your road [You’re rude]!” And people say ‘road’ instead of ‘rude’ (even if they actually mean rude) as they try to please, to be friendly, and not to offend anyone.
To relate to a current trend, do we really need to be funny, famous, or trending in social media—from Facebook, and Twitter, to Instagram, and Tiktok, all for the sake of ‘likes’, views, shares, popularity; and lately, for the sake of income? Many netizens create stories, videos, posts, and try to make it “trending” in social media. This, of course, is subjected to the acceptance and judgment of the viewers. Different reactions can be received: some viewers would be satisfied, happy, or entertained. However, a few will feel angry, disappointed, or insulted. Most of the time, a post gets bashed. And if you add the paid trolls in the scenario, your emotions, attitudes, values, and sensibilities are triggered. And you end up feeding the trolls. At the end of the day, not everyone is pleased.
Nery’s play presents a rich vocabulary, and lots of idioms for the readers to enjoy. Uncommon words such as ‘berserk’, ‘abomination’, ‘despicable’, ‘swearing’, ‘cussing’, ‘riveting’, ‘tweak’, ‘filthy’, ‘vicious’, ‘noxious’, ‘cobbled’, ‘crass’, ‘crux’, ‘pretzelized’, ‘pederast’, ‘smut’, ‘sour-puss’ were introduced. Idioms such as ‘gift of gab’, ‘in a huff’, ‘happy camper’, ‘pushing boundaries’, among others, were presented as well. The rich vocabulary of the play would make the readers, especially students, run for the dictionary or thesaurus, or to Google search, to find their meanings or synonyms. As a result, readers would realize that their vocabulary is enriched and improved by the irreverent play.
The setting of the play is in a theater in Bacolod (or Iloilo, depending on the production). Ilonggos, who are known to be sweet and affectionate, have a crisp way of cussing. Changing or tweaking the words will be futile as it changes the meaning of the whole thing. The play does not aim to teach students how to swear or speak bad words. The intention is not to promote profanity, or even homosexuality (a funny subplot in the play). While the genre of the play is comedy, Tic-tac-toe’s main objective is to make the audience think.
I happened to watch the play performed in Iloilo, but reading the original play made me laugh even more hysterically. After watching or reading the play, a happy reader will remember, not the coarse language and vulgar words, but the hilarious “substitute words.” And who can judge Nery writing on his top form?
The game Tic-tac-toe has different names such as Oughts and Crosses, and Xs and Os. Although tic-tac-toe is a simple game, there are 255,168 possible unique games to be played; and as a famous quote in the movie War Games goes, “The only winning move is not to play.” In a “war,” no one really wins. Nery’s play attempts to show this. So, does changing the words in the script help the play? The playwright rests his case by not “playing.”/PN
