29/04/2024
“Hi guys,
Won't be able to catch your final show. So please accept my thanks and congratulations on the completion of your thesis.
So proud of what you have all done!
Hopefully, I get to work with any of you soon in tbe future!!
Salamaaaat and congraats!!
FLOY”
The production team behind Ateneo Fluid 2024 mourns the passing of our beloved playwright, Floy Quintos. The fresh, Gen Z take of our staging of Fluid was suggested by Sir Floy himself during one of our first meetings with him, and he offered to rewrite it for us. Grateful, is an understatement.
Read his playwright’s notes for here:
March 19, 2024 | 5:35 PM | Sent via Email
The play you are about to watch is officially twenty years old this year. At least that is what I have been told by those who have bothered to keep count.
For some strange reason, I can't be sure. What I do I know for a fact is that this current revival is the third production of the play to be staged by Ateneo Fine Arts seniors, and the seventh production all in all , starting with the World premiere directed by Alexander Cortez for the UP Playwright's Theater, followed by a repeat run in Diliman, a production in Benilde , and a staged reading directed by Reb Atadero for Cast PH . This doesn't count the many requests I get to do classroom readings of the play. To all requests, I wholeheartedly give my permission. As much as possible, I try and show up to support these efforts. "Fluid" is my most oft-performed play, and judging from the nature of those requesting permission, the work that most resonates with young artists set to graduate and move onto the real world of Creativity and Compromise.
When I first met the cast, I was struck by how young and how seemingly naive they were. It was Arkel who pointed out that many of them weren't even born when the play received its world premiere ( the few who were were one year old! Arkel himself was a Freshman at UP when he first saw the play!) What struck me the most was that many of the play's issues seemed dated and could stand a re-think and re-write. The issues that Mira and Amir, Jom and Alben, Simone and Renata battled over in the original text have been changed by social media, high stakes artistic patronage and commercial interests, influencer culture , technology. It wasn't difficult to rewrite many parts to heighten current issues young artists face.
But the more things change, the more they stay the same. Underneath the layers of powerplay and exposure, changing values, language, technology , artistic commodification and self-promotion, the core conflict of the play remains as true and honest and unchanged as when the play was first written. Hopefully, this youngest-ever cast of "Fluid" will survive their Thesis production with a deeper understanding of what it means to nurture their creative spirits in a world of increasing compromise.
It will be easy to judge their efforts and compare this production with the fabled memories of yester-Fluids. But do acknowledge how brave and tender these hearts are. This Mira, this Amir, this Jom and Alben, this Simone and Renata are the first Post-Pandemic Ateneo Fine Arts students who have ventured to do a thesis prod. That alone makes this current production valuable, bold and risky.
Let me express my gratitude to you, Chiara, Gelo, Lawrence,Paul, Nathania, Noelle, Bea and yes, Missy and Arkel , for choosing to come back into the world with "Fluid". Let me send you off into your opening night as Renata's does at the end of the play,:
"Hurry up, guys. There's still so much to do!"
Floy Quintos
April 17 1961 – April 27 2024
