The World Happened to Me...

The Dulaang Sibol, Ateneo de Manila University High School theater group, presented its 302nd production of Sinta, a musical play adapted and transplanted from the Fantasticks of Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones. It was my second time to watch the musical and I really enjoyed watching it. It's very rare that a literary piece (a musical one at that) can make you laugh out loud yet in the end make you really cry.

The genius of the play, and I guess the translator's (Onofre Pagsanghan aka Mr. Pagsi) genius as well, is its ability to play with your emotions. One time you see yourself laughing with the entire audience and another time you quietly notice that you are actually shedding tears. The music, the superb acting and the minimalist approach of this play makes its truly an event to watch and an experience to relive again and again.

This play makes no bones about baring the truth about love: that it is so sweet at the beginning yet it can be so cruel at the end. But just the same, it's the bitterness, the pain and folly together with the secret triumphs, the little sacrifices that we make that render this world a little more bearable.

In a very touching scene between the estranged young lovers Sinta and Narding, the young lady asks her betrothed, What happened to you? The young man replied haltingly, full of pain and sorrow, wisdom and understanding, What happened to me?...The world...the world happened to me...

Plays like this is a testament that boldly declares that despite the suffering that comes along with loving, it is finding each other and the Other, that makes our lives and our loves truly meaningful.