'Girl Most Likely To' Brings Filipino Culture & Transgender Youth Issues to the Stage at LATC
http://laist.com/2012/04/30/girl_least_likely_to_at_latc.php (http://laist.com/2012/04/30/girl_least_likely_to_at_latc.php)
Michael Premsrirat's gender-questioning drama The Girl Most Likely To is playing at Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC). The music and dance-filled work focuses on issues of gender identity, self-love, Filipino culture, and the challenges of post-immigration life in the United States through portraits of unique central characters. The play is a bubbly staging that honors very under-represented demographic groups through excellent direction and capable performers.
Like two sides of the same coin, The Girl Most Likely To reveals two story lines that span generations and continents: Half of Premsrirat's script takes place in the Philippines during the 1950s where the audience is introduced to Mama Cid (Ramone de Ocampo), a self-assured gay man who identifies with the Filipino notion of "bakla" -- a loosely defined notion of a third gender specific to the Philippines. Mama Cid is in an unexpected relationship with an American soldier from Texas. The other half of the play depicts a young Filipino-American teenager, known only as The Boy (Tobit Raphael), at the crux of his transformation from male to transgender. The Boy's narrative is propelled by his understanding mother (Fran De Leon) who is worried that her son will become a victim of a hate crime and his only friend, The Girl (Mandela Bellamy), a self-depreciating Judas.