“Unaccessorized” stripped

    I didn’t see him on TV in the program “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” nor did I hear of him in Philippine media saying “another Filipino made it to the TV screens of America,” or any noise that he could make. But Rich Kiamco made it to UP Mindanao the best way he could.
Allow me to borrow NYTheatre’s comment posted on those blue glossy flyers distributed to the viewers: sparkling, warm and funny are indeed the words fit to describe such performance, and a solo one at that. It was brilliant of him to interweave such characteristics that a typical Filipino seeks in an entertaining play. If every part of it is the accurate account of Kiamco’s life, then those best represented a warm story. Putting it in the Philippine context, his struggles, although mostly presented in a funny way, are the same struggles that a Filipino gay experiences. Families generally do not welcome such sexual preference from among their children, to think that it is basically the group of people whom a person should open up and be honest with. So people like Rich try to find it – the situation where they can come out totally and solicit openness from the people around – in other things and places. The same thing happened to Rich when he traveled to New York to fulfill his dream of becoming a fashion designer. Yet all throughout the play, it seemed that his family frequently intervenes in his life, trying to pull him back to who they want him to be.
This very part makes the story a “good story” since it presented the highlights of Rich’s life that would best represent the thought that it wanted to deliver. It grounded on his early years as an overachieving boy trapped in a traditional Filipino kind of rearing and unhappy with his family’s manipulation of his life. Aside from that , it relayed a real scenario, as I have added earlier, of a gay’s life. It doesn’t stray away from what a typical “Juana dela Cruz” (a name I started coining to Filipino gays when I took Anthropology 1) experiences. And as a character, Rich depicted the usual gay that we find nowadays, and was consistent about it. Analyzing further, Rich depicted the Dionysian character of the story who wanted to freely express himself and what he truly feels. And he did not somehow fail to grant his desires as he went to NYC and attended in a fashion school, began his career as fashion designer and other related jobs, had a love affair with an extremely wealthy man, and most of all, went public to come out. Of course, the Appolonian character was constantly depicted by none other than his beloved family who repressed him of his true self and tried to manipulate his whole life to become the ideal son that they wanted him to be.
Taking off from the Character aspect, the Diction or use of words in the story further elevated its rating. The lines were clear because of the use of simple and understandable words since most of it were conversational, adding to its closeness to reality. The thought, likewise, were in the same line since the personages’ thought were revealed through their lines and actions. Furthermore, they were consistent with the kind of character that they were, all persistent in their own way: Rich with his desires to freely express himself; and his parents with their manipulative attitude to change their gay son. Spectacle, then, seems in parallel with the preceding elements because, like Diction, it is also the venue for the audience to see through the characters’ minds. And since the element of thought was consistent in every character, the spectacle also showed the same quality in the story.
There was also this part of the story that I noticed. Rich included a scene in his play about his dream which he described to be peculiar and something that he could not figure out. And it’s the same description that Freud gave to dreams. Similar to how everybody would describe it, dreams are disjointed patches of events that do not make an overall sense. But significantly, these images are our drives that compete with each other to appear in our subconsciousness. And in Rich’s case, that image in his dream has a role in his real life, seemingly telling him that he will be in that place in the future. Such quality is also present in most people’s dreams, wherein we suddenly notice that a place or scenario seems familiar and something that we’ve been to or we have experienced, wherein we frequently use the expression “Deja vu!”    Well, if I am to assess Rich Kiamco’s “Unaccessorized” based on Aristotle’s requirement for a good play, it is undoubtedly good. But setting aside the standards for a good play, the word “unaccessorized” says it all. It is close to reality instead of fantasy, relaying Rich’s wanting to be true, to be himself, and to be unaccessorized.