The Virgin Labfest (VLF), the country’s pioneering festival of untried, untested and unstaged one-act plays, returns for its 21st edition with “Hubo’t Hubad,” a theme that turns its focus to layers of raw, unguarded and unflinching storytelling.
Within this framework, few relationships are as revealing — or as vulnerable — as that between parent and child, where the bonds of generation often surface unspoken truths, unresolved tensions and enduring emotional ties.
This year’s lineup at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP)-presented festival includes multiple real-life family pairings appearing either onstage or in creative roles, offering an added layer of context to works that explore generational ties, memory and emotional reckoning.
Among the featured participants is Dennis Marasigan, who portrays Gardo in Dustin Celestino’s “Elehiya” under Set C. Marasigan has worked across theater, film and cultural administration, with a career that includes roles in institutions such as CCP, Tanghalang Pilipino and the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board.
“Elehiya” is structured as a series of monologues or conversations between fathers and sons that, according to its framing, represent exchanges that should have taken place but did not.
His daughter, Mara Paulina Marasigan, is also part of this year’s festival. She returns to VLF as a director for Gab Mactal’s “Lualhati” under Set B, which follows the reunion of a nun and a former nun who confront unresolved questions of faith, love, loss and healing after two decades apart.
Also featured in “Lualhati” are Angel Aquino and her daughter Iana Bernardez, who portray different stages of the same character, Philosophy professor Jacinta and her younger self, Sister Jacinta.
For Aquino, VLF marks her first appearance in theater, while Bernardez previously performed on stage with PETA’s “Endo.” Bernardez has also worked in film, earning recognition for her ensemble performance in “Gusto Kita with All of My Hypothalamus” in 2018. She has previously expressed that performing alongside her mother was a long-held aspiration.
Another family pairing appears in “Elehiya,” where filmmaker Carlos Siguion-Reyna performs alongside his son Rafa Siguion-Reyna. Carlos has worked extensively in Philippine cinema and serves as chairman of the Competition and Monitoring Committee of the Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival, while Rafa works across television, film and theater as an actor, singer and host.
The father-and-son duo said during a press conference that while they have collaborated before, previous projects placed Carlos in a directorial role. “Elehiya” marks their first time performing together as co-actors, a dynamic that aligns with the play’s focus on fatherhood, masculinity and unspoken emotional exchanges.
The festival also features the O’Hara family. Veteran actress Pewee O’Hara appears in the staged reading “Manang,” which follows a man preparing for the return of the ashes of a caregiver he deeply cared for, exploring themes of grief, guilt and domestic labor.
Her son Paolo O’Hara directs the revisited play “Polar Coordinates” by Ade Valenzona, part of Set E alongside other staged readings.
Now in its 21st year, the Virgin Labfest has continued to position itself as a venue for new Philippine writing and performance, with this edition emphasizing vulnerability and emotional exposure as reflected in its selected works and collaborations.
The festival runs until today, June 28, at the Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez (CCP Black Box Theater), featuring 15 plays across three sets and a series of staged readings.