The Sandbox Collective strips the spectacle for Duncan Macmillan’s ‘People, Places, and Things’

This production marks the company’s third collaboration with Duncan Macmillan, following its successful stagings of Lungs in 2018 and the subsequent run of Every Brilliant Thing, which was later translated into Filipino as Bawat Bonggang Bagay. “He has been an amazing collaborator for many years,” Jose-Gregorio noted, admitting that the team was “very excited but very nervous to bring this landmark play to the Philippine shores.”

While the actors remained technically “on their books” with scripts in hand, they transcended the limitations of a typical rehearsed reading. Far from merely reading their lines, the cast members fully imbibed the characters they portrayed. Each performer successfully built multiple, distinct and highly recognisable characters on stage, which is particularly vital given the ensemble nature of the show. They demonstrated a meticulous command of the text, knowing their lines by heart and delivering them with precise rhythm, vocal-beat variations and timed pauses. Every movement, silence and build of emotion and tension is executed with rehearsal-born cadence, guiding the audience seamlessly through their characters’ arcs.

Read more: ‘Bawat Bonggang Bagay’, a fab Filipino adaptation of Duncan Macmillan’s ‘Every Brilliant Thing’

First premiered at the National Theatre’s Dorfman Theatre in London in September 2015, People, Places, and Things is a searing and darkly humorous examination of addiction, mental health and the arduous process of rehabilitation. The narrative follows a successful actress whose life spirals out of control, forcing her to enter a rehabilitation centre where she must confront her dependency, her memories and the shifting boundaries of her own identity. Through the protagonist’s journey, Macmillan raises sharp questions about truth, performance and what it means to recover when the boundary between real life and acting begins to dissolve.

To heighten this thematic blur, the show consciously layered in complex ideas about the nature of performance. The staging’s deliberate choice of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull as the play-within-a-play was particularly notable. Because Chekhov’s classic is itself preoccupied with the lives of artists, writers and the performative quality of their relationships, it constructs a meta-theatrical hall of mirrors for the protagonist—and the audience—exposing the porous boundary between her performance as an actor and her struggles as an individual.

To bring this complex character to life, Jose-Gregorio assembled a star-studded, efficient and captivating ensemble, featuring two acclaimed performers who share the role. Alternating in the lead were Bela Padilla and Gabby Padilla.

Bela Padilla, best known for her prominent screen roles in television and films such as 100 Tula Para Kay Stella and Meet Me in St Gallen, made her professional theatrical debut with this production. She is joined by Gabby Padilla, an award-winning theatre and film actress recently acclaimed for her lead roles in the film Kono Basho and stage productions of Tiny Beautiful Things and I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.

In portraying Emma/Nina/Lucy, Bela Padilla brings a striking, layered complexity to her character’s psychological disintegration. Having recently returned to acting with renewed focus after a temporary hiatus, she brings a palpable familiarity and emotional depth to both the text and the character’s deep-seated frustrations. Her stage presence is incredibly precise, building a character whose lies and inner struggles are so convincing that the audience, like the recovery patients surrounding her—except Mark (Jake Cuenca)—is drawn entirely into her narrative. By the play’s final moments, she leaves the audience questioning their own perceptions, unsure of what is real and what is fabricated.

The surrounding cast featured a strong ensemble of Philippine theatre veterans and emerging performers. Jake Cuenca, who previously starred in the company’s production of Lungs, returned to the stage as Mark, a fellow recovery patient.

In a major casting coup, the roles of the Doctor, the Therapist, and the protagonist’s mother were portrayed by Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo, widely regarded as the First Lady of Philippine Musical Theatre. Lauchengco-Yulo, whose extensive credits spanned iconic roles in Evita, Sweeney Todd, and Masterclass, was last seen on the Sandbox stage as the Adult Woman in Spring Awakening.

Opposite her was Audie Gemora, the “King of Philippine Musical Theatre” and current president of Philstage, who portrayed the protagonist’s father. Gemora also returned to the Sandbox stage following his performance in Spring Awakening earlier this year.

The production was completed by a seasoned supporting ensemble, including director and actor Robbie Guevara as Foster, Gawad Buhay winner Reb Atadero as T, and Brian Sy as Shaun (while also serving as the understudy for Mark). Mariella Laurel appeared as Laura, Pamela Imperial as Charlotte and Miel Abong as Jodi, with the production’s dramaturg, Salve Villarosa van Schoonhoven, acting as the Narrator.

The physical space of The Blackbox at the Proscenium Theatre (located on the sixth floor) played an integral role in shaping the production’s psychological world. The venue was arranged with a central ramp stage, forcing the actors to deliver their scenes with the audience seated on both sides. Overhead, curtains served as projection screens, flashing key trigger warnings and thematic disclaimers before the show started, alerting the audience to the heavy subject matter.

This layout, combined with a stark lack of set design aside from chairs arranged in a circle resembling an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, created a deeply foreboding and clinical atmosphere. There was a quiet, sinister tension that crept along the sidelines of the performance, refusing to become aggressive or overtly hostile, but constantly reminding the viewer of the protagonist’s psychological entrapment. It was a production handled with remarkable care, yet one that constantly teased the audience with the dark realities of what lay ahead.

For The Sandbox Collective, presenting People, Places, and Things was not merely an artistic exercise but a continuation of its core mission of social engagement. “Since our inception, advocacy theatre has been at the heart of The Sandbox Collective’s identity,” Jose-Gregorio explained. By tackling Macmillan’s uncompromising text, the company sought to foster open, constructive conversations surrounding mental health and substance dependency, normalising topics that were frequently sidelined in public discourse.

“We really want to produce theatre that is not only interesting to watch, but theatre that really moves people and that makes a difference in the social, and I guess in the greater scheme of things,” Jose-Gregorio said.

By stripping away the scale of traditional production, this staged reading invited the audience to sit intimately with the performers, confronting the characters’ vulnerabilities without the protective distance of theatrical spectacle. It was an invitation to engage with the reality of the human condition, making People, Places, and Things one of the most anticipated and urgent theatrical offerings of the season.

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