Jun Lana’s ‘Anino sa Likod ng Buwan’ returns to its roots, over 30 years after premiere

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This year’s restaging of Jun Robles Lana’s three-hander psychodrama Anino sa Likod ng Buwan boasts a history stretching back to over three decades ago.

Sometime in 1993, at age 19, the Filipino director wrote the one-act play for the playwriting competition hosted by Bulwagang Gantimpala, where it won the grand prize and went on to be adapted on stage by Bulwagang Gantimpala and Artistang Artlets of the University of Santo Tomas.

The material saw another revival in 2015 as Lana, in an attempt to stray away from the soap operas and arthouse titles he was churning out at the time, reworked it for the big screen. Marked by its long, uninterrupted take and monochromatic visuals, the result premiered at the QCinema International Film Festival in the same year and eventually toured the international film festival circuit, including the Pacific Meridian International Film Festival of Asia (where it copped both the FIPRESCI and NETPAC prizes), Kerala International Film Festival, and Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

The movie, which last screened at ENLIGHTEN: The IdeaFirst Film Festival in April 2024 and briefly appeared on Vivamax, starred LJ Reyes — whose arresting portrayal led to an Urian win — Adrian Alandy, and Anthony Falcon.

Now marking the 10th anniversary of its screen counterpart, Anino sa Likod ng Buwan returns to its theatrical roots as the maiden production of the newly formed IdeaFirst Live!, the stage performance arm of Lana and producer Perci Intalan’s film studio The IdeaFirst Company.

Leading the show, which is set to run at the PETA Theater Center from March 1 to 23, is the trio of Elora Españo, Ross Pesigan, and Martin del Rosario (in his first foray into theater). Denise Esteban, Vincent Pajara, and Edward Benosa are also part of the staging as understudies.

Set around a rickety hut in Marag Valley in the early 1990s, the narrative centers on a refugee couple, Emma and Nardo (played by Españo and Pesigan, respectively), and a soldier, Joel (played by del Rosario), whom they befriended since relocating to the town a year ago — a town eroded by the armed struggle between the state military and the revolutionary left. What begins as a literal game of cards among the characters soon careens into an erotic game of secrets and deceptions, arriving at the inevitable pulling of the trigger. It’s a claustrophobic retelling of a country still trying to outrun the specters of its past.

“Sana marami pang makaalam at makapanood nitong dula na ito dahil I think it’s very relevant right now dahil sa nangyayari sa atin, not just here but also around the world,” said the show’s director, Tuxqs Rutaquio, in a talkback after the show’s special preview at the Ateneo De Manila University recently.

When the project was offered to Rutaquio, reuniting him with Españo and Pesigan after working together in the 2011 Filipino stage adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, he said that it was a no-brainer for him. “Because I’m really an advocate of original Filipino plays, especially straight plays, that talk about a certain period of our history and something that has power and depth and grit. It was already complete in my mind because it was so well-written.”

Rutaquio also shared that he approached the material in a more psychological manner, given the differences in form from the material’s 2015 iteration. “So I really studied how to put it on stage without compromising the essence of what Jun did. The cinematic language is really different, of course I won’t be able to do close-ups and all that. The challenge was how to equal that same effect from the film to the stage,” he explained.

Past this, the director noted how everything has to be heightened, and the task became easier because of Españo and Pesigan’s exposure to theater. “It really helps that the two are theater actors; it affects Martin in terms of discipline, being on time.”

“With Martin,” Rutaquio said further, “I was surprised because he auditioned for this role, and I immediately liked his voice. I said, ‘I think he can manage doing it on the stage.’ So, it’s a matter of just fine-tuning it and really finding the right way to say all the lines, the kilometric lines in a way that will not tire him. There are techniques but at the same time it’s [about] looking for the truth in their characters, so a lot of it was really hard work from them.”

When it comes to the staging’s sensual juncture, Rutaquio highlighted the importance of comfortability and trust between him and his actors, who all went through grueling auditions and have been rehearsing for four months now. “Hindi kami natatakot magsalita about the material, about our insights.” (We weren’t scared to talk about the material.)

For Españo, the sex scenes are in fact not a huge challenge. “Actually, the complexity of the character is more challenging. Because in the intimate scenes, it’s just choreography, understanding why we are doing that. It’s still more challenging to build the character for me,” she said.

Del Rosario, meanwhile, noted how they were more focused on reacting to each other on stage more than anything else. “Ang naging challenging for me dito, ‘yung character ni Joel. Gandang-ganda ako sa character ni Joel. Napaka-complex din niya. Paano mo made-deceive ‘yung mga taong nanonood na may ganito pala kasamang tao na akala mo lover boy nung second act? Ano ‘yung mga intensyon niya? Ba’t niya ginawa ‘yun? Andaming ganun.”

(The challenge for me is Joel’s character. I’m very impressed with the character. He is very complex. How do you deceive the audience that there’s a really evil person behind what you thought was a lover boy in the second act? What are his intentions? Why did he do that? There’s so many instances like that.)

In terms of the staging’s overall vision, Rutaquio also had more leeway as Lana tried to distance himself from the adaptation. “When we decided make it into a stage play, I was hands off because I really wanted to surprise myself and to re-experience… the way it was really meant to be seen as a stage material.”

In fact, it was only a week prior to the preview when Lana finally saw what Rutaquio and his stars were working on. “Alam ko naman kung ano ‘yung kalidad at galing ng mga tao.” (I know the quality and talent of the cast.)

The playwright added, “It’s the film but at the same time it’s not the film. It’s the exact lines but somehow different. The actors have a separate take, the director has a separate take. That’s why it’s so different. You can watch the film and then you can watch the stage play, and you will get something different from each. And I think it’s a testament to the power of storytelling regardless of the medium.”

Next in IdeaFirst Live!’s pipeline is the stage musical adaptation of Lana’s 2016 queer comedy-drama Die Beautiful.

But why did the theater arm open its season with Anino sa Likod ng Buwan? “We just wanna be very clear about who we are and what we stand for as a company, even if we are going into live productions,” Lana said. – Rappler.com

Note: Some quotes in Filipino have been translated into English for brevity.

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