Igkas: A Review

Igkas- pandiwa; tumalon sa paglilibot, paghahanap.

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of seeing Igkas: A Cyberbullying Play on stage, performed by
Teatro Aliento de Ateneo at the Richie Fernando Hall. This play was sponsored by the Office of
Student Affairs in lieu of their Anti-Cyberbullying campaign, and it was written and directed by
my Introduction to Literature professor, Ms. Elsie Albis. The play was riveting to watch for
numerous reasons.

The plot of Igkas explored on the emotional trauma that bullying victims experience to its bitter
ends. The story revolves around Janice, as she relays a past bullying experience from her high
school circle of friends to Ms. Santos, a blogger, who wishes to use Janice’s story as the frame to
which her next blog post will work on. Janice begins to recall this traumatizing experience, and it
was presented by using the element of flashbacks, where the stage is divided between two
dimensions: the world of the present Janice, who was telling this story to Ms. Santos in a coffee
shop, and the world of a younger Janice, and her high school friends, namely Ann, the character
who lived by the charming-yet-unlearned stereotype, Bogs, the quirky tomboy, and Justin, the
overly flamboyant and sassy gay friend. Janice narrates vividly how these three friends of hers
betrayed her—by making her feel as if a boy named Raul liked her & wanted to court her when
in reality, her friends were fraudulent enough to stage an act by pretending to be “Superman” in
their occasional texting. The actual Raul, now guilty of being aware of the deception and not
having to do anything, decided to come clean about the whole thing to Janice. Janice, in anger,
drops all her emotional baggage to her friends, and resorts to releasing this in social media. This
was where she was harassed by social media engagements. The play ends with Janice being
heartbroken not only about being deceived by her second grade crush, but also by her friends,
and she ends up not attending Graduation Day in light of the verbal abuse she received from her
batchmates.

I liked how the overarching value of the play was presented from start to finish—it was clear
how the play wanted to convey the message that words mean so much more than we think, and
how sometimes, they could affect a person’s resilience to various situations. I also like how the
play explored the different perspectives of each character, and how it wasn't inherently Janice’s
story to tell, but also Justin’s as well. However, I do feel like the one thing left a bit unexplored
by the play was how abuse on social media translates to emotional trauma. It would've been
better if there was a step-by-step analysis on how young people like Janice have issues like
image focus to work on, and that’s why cyber bullying hits them bad. I think plays that want to
raise awareness like this should be able to present the process of the abuse extensively. Most
audiences are aware of what causes cyberbullying, and how it affects victims, but they aren't
aware as to how the medium of a simple social networking site could do wonders to a person’s
wellbeing. Most of us are unaware that we're already oppressing a friend on Twitter or Facebook,
so I guess the emphasis on the act would've made the play better. Generally, for me, the
production was okay; the actors were amazing to watch, and the stage design as well as other
factors contributed well to the success of this performance.

Patricia Mae H. Cabaña II- BS BA Legal Management

Cheers to everyone bullied on social media who lives by the standard that is igkas: to recoil and
spring back from a moment of emotional oppression.

Patricia Mae H. Cabaña II- BS BA Legal Management