Jeremy Rafal is “a kid from the provinces of the Philippines obsessing over the music of dead Europeans”. His one-man show tells us his story – from cartoons to Brahms and from the Philippines to Hawaii to Indiana to New York.
With an old-school projector Rafal creates a love letter to Bantay, lulling us into a false sense of security before his rosy, nostalgic depiction becomes ruptured. Beneath Rafal’s cheeky stage presence and endearing jokes, we see him confront swathes of grief, rejection, and prejudice – and all to the soundtrack of the classical music he has loved for years. His staging and prop work is creative and deliberate, but most startling is his talent on the piano – perhaps where we see his raw emotion come through the most. The challenge of the one-man show is immense, and Rafal misses a fair few beats in his performance. Though the audience may not be always hanging onto his every word they are, however, hanging onto his every note.
Though Rafal’s poignant exploration of his own despair and loss could have been allowed to stew with the audience for longer, grief for him is, no doubt more realistically, handing in the shadows and not always looked at head-on.
The Boy from Bantay, theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall, until 16 Aug, 12.35pm