THE RAW, bold, and gut-wrenching one-act play “Anino sa Likod ng Buwan” by UST alumnus Jun Robles Lana strips its characters and audience of any illusion of safety, as shown during a rerun at the PETA Theater in Quezon City on Oct. 17.
Set at the height of the conflict between the military and communist rebels in the 1990s, the story unfolds inside a makeshift hut in the middle of a remote village where the trio of Emma (Elora Espano), her husband Nardo (Ross Pesigan), and their army friend Joel (Martin del Rosario), grapple with a tension in their friendship that has grown too dangerous to ignore.
What follows in its 105-minute run is an intense, almost voyeuristic unraveling of truth and deception, highlighted by several bare and intimate scenes between Emma and Joel.
Beyond the physical intimacy, the characters’ exchanges between confession and accusation reveal how impossible it is to discern honesty from manipulation, especially when confronted with feelings, loyalty to duty, and ideology, and when all begin to collapse into one another.
This is particularly evident in Emma’s vacuous character. The way she spits out her words reveals as much as they expose, sometimes unguarded, but most of the time evasive and dissembling.
Her dialogue elicits a crisp confession and a confrontation all at once, drawing from her fractured sense of self as she seeks her “truth” amid the impunity of armed conflict.
Emma seems unredeemable and flimsy for nearly throwing away the ideals she once fought for, but her character is worth watching until the very end, leaving the audience rooting for her survival.
Joel oscillates between ally and interrogator. Beneath his political rhetoric and uniform is nothing but a prurient man who covets both power and Emma’s body.
By stripping her of her defenses, Joel, too, is stripped of his pretense and of the facade he had built around him to hide not only his sexual hunger but also his military motives.
The weaponization of sex in “Anino sa Likod ng Buwan” becomes another form of control and a language of war that ensnares both Emma and Joel.
In this sense, sex becomes a dissection of the human cost of power, where those in control use it as a tool to expose raw, painful consequences of power struggles and the fragility that comes with them.
Nardo, on the other hand, is a man of conviction, though not without contradiction.
When asked hypothetically by Emma if ever there would come a time when he would act gay to advance their so-called “collective fight,” Nardo’s refusal exposes the double standards that favor male autonomy.
The scenario implicitly reveals how women, more often than not, are expected to compromise their bodies, their identities, and even their dignity. At the same time, men like Nardo can preserve their pride intact and draw firm boundaries without question.
One of the striking lines, “May immoral pa ba sa gyerang ‘to?”, may force the audience to ponder: what part of ourselves are we willing to surrender, and what part of it do we betray in times of war?
At its core, “Anino sa Likod ng Buwan” delivers an unflinching exploration of how political systems can penetrate even the most personal spaces.
