‘Dogsblood’, One-Night-Only Staged Reading About the Drug War, Set for March
Scene Change and Mad Child Productions team up to stage a one-night-only performance of Guelan Varela-Luarca’s Dogsblood, a play that envisions a drug war stretching till kingdom come.
The company says, “Dogsblood was written in 2022 after the Marcos-Duterte Uniteam was elected to the two highest positions in the land, succeeding Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s 6 years of impunity and extrajudicial killings under the guise of a war on drugs. This performance is an immediate response to the ICC’s arrest of Duterte for crimes against humanity.”
“It’s an adaptation of Ajax—an imagined future, post-Duterte. Very bleak. [It’s about] a policeman whose eyes are slowly opened to the realities of the drug war; and how it’s a war against the poor, and it’s a political tool to neutralize the enemies of the administration,” said Luarca in an online interview with Philstar Life back in 2023.
The staged reading will feature actors Jam Binay, Ron Capinding, Zoë de Ocampo, Missy Maramara, Gabby Padilla, Brian Sy, and Marco Viaña.
Dogsblood won First Prize at the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards in 2023 for the Full-length Category. It made its debut as a staged reading at the Frederick Leowe Theatre in Hunter College, New York on May 16, 2023. It is also featured as the first play in Luarca’s recently launched book, Natal/National: Three Plays by Guelan Varela-Luarca.
This one night only performance is happening this Thursday, March 27, 8PM at the Tanghalang Onofre Pagsanghan (Dulaang Sibol Theater) in Ateneo de Manila High School. All slots have currently been exhausted.
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