Original Cebu Play ‘Stay a Little Longer’ Explores Dementia, Memory, and Identity
2TinCans Philippines Inc. is set to stage Stay a Little Longer, a full-length play written by Sarah Mae Enclona-Henderson and directed by Shifrah Bouchikhi-Enclona.
Stay a Little Longer follows a woman whose memory moves fluidly across the many stages of her life. One moment, she is a child grieving the loss of her brother. In another, she is a young woman fighting to be chosen, a wife and mother, a physician, or an elderly woman trying to understand the unfamiliar room around her.
But for HER, each moment is real.
As time collapses and identities overlap, the people who love her are forced to confront a difficult question: Do we insist on the reality we know, or do we enter the reality of the person we love?
The play features Sarah Mae Enclona-Henderson as HER, Charlene Virlouvet as DAUGHTER, Shiella Pestaño-Gemperoa as DOCTOR, Rio Delizo as NURSE, and Jonathan Tadioan as HUSBAND. Tadioan is the only Manila-based actor in a company of Cebuano artists. It also features production design by Louie Carlo Basalo and stage management by Benjun Yu.
Rather than portraying memory loss as disappearance, Stay a Little Longer explores it as a shifting way of moving through time. The woman at the center of the play does not vanish, but remains whole, even as her access to memory changes.
At the heart of the play is a question that reaches far beyond dementia: If memory fades, what is left of us?
For playwright Sarah Mae Enclona-Henderson, Stay a Little Longer began with the realization that memory loss affects not only the person experiencing it, but everyone who loves them.
“In a world that values clarity, accuracy, and coherence, dementia disrupts not only the individual, but everyone who loves them. It asks us to reconsider what truth means, and whether being right is more important than being present.”
The play asks audiences to consider the persistence of identity, dignity, and selfhood, even when chronology begins to dissolve.
For director Shifrah Bouchikhi-Enclona, directing Stay a Little Longer is an opportunity to approach the story with both emotional honesty and restraint.
“Stay a Little Longer is about the things we cannot control and the things we choose to hold on to. Memory can be fragmented, confusing, and unpredictable, but there can still be moments of peace within it. Rather than trying to make everything clear, I want the audience to experience the shifting landscape of the play with HER, to feel the confusion, the tenderness, the frustration, and the quiet moments of recognition.”
For Bouchikhi-Enclona, the production is not about imposing order on a world that is constantly shifting.
“I want the production to be simple but honest, quiet but sincere, chaotic but serene. I want us to learn to trust that sometimes the most powerful moments are the ones that do not need to be explained.”
Set within a single hospice room, the production uses lighting, performance, sound, and minimal shifts in space to transform the setting into a psychological landscape where past and present exist simultaneously.
Stay a Little Longer is part of Kulukabildo II: Stories in Direct Light, a program that brings original stories into the light through the distinct voices of emerging Cebuano directors. The production will have a limited engagement on August 29 at 7 PM and August 30 at 2 PM and 7 PM at The Kabilin Center in Cebu. Tickets are priced at ₱558.67 and are available via the group’s ticketing site.
2TinCans Philippines Inc. is a Cebu-based theater company founded in 2014 by Sarah Mae Enclona-Henderson.
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