Anajean Jandayan November 29, 2013BSED –ENG

A Grim TaleA Reaction Paper on THE BOXES

Indeed a brilliant theatrical performance was what I've seen playing before my very eyes. Hats off to the director, Ricardo Abad, who have brought Rolando S. Tinio's masterpiece, The Boxes, to the possible hype of human creativity. The cast and even those who are behind the curtains have really shown exemplary showcase of their craft.

Well, The Boxes is a story about Joy and Bernie who have been tasked by an organization to which they're affiliated, to watch over two oversized boxes in an apartment of the Alberts (a couple they're perfectly clueless who). But then things wriggled out from sanity when Bernie tries to flee from the assignment. The organization finding out this treachery put the law in their hands. Death, a punishment as grave as it sounds, was rendered to the two souls who have breached the organizations protocol.

At first, I was expecting myself to get bored, to wait for the agonizing minutes to drag past with hopes of wakefulness diminished as I'm drowned by too many words and less action. Abruptly, tables were turned when little by little revelations started to unfold.

The play was truly dreadful. Just the mutilation scene right at the very beginning of the performance clearly warns that the show we’re about to witness is a grim tale. Watching the events fall in sequence, my eyebrows knitted as I try to decipher the purpose of Joy's religious spraying of air freshener on the boxes. Minutes later, Mandy came into appearance and their discourse gave me a clear answer--- air freshener was actually used to obscure the foul smell of rotting human carcasses confined within it. My eyes even seemed like it's going to plummet from its socket when I saw how the delivery men carried out the scruffy execution of Joy and Bernie and shut their icy cold corpses in the coarse surface of the box.

The play is notable for its poignancy, with the cold and dark Rodelsa Hall complimenting the atmosphere of the theatrical piece. It artfully shows how an impersonal organization blights the life of those who fail to live by their norms. It was not expressed, but I guess our apprehensions that another people shall be obliged to take responsibility of the boxes not knowing the gruesome destiny that awaits them once they make one false move.