My Heartbeat

My Heartbeat
Garret Freymann-Weyr

Ellen has been in love with James since the seventh grade. She loves her brother Link (James’s best friend) just as much. The three of them have a close-knit relationship, the boys sharing a special bond Ellen accepts she isn’t part of. Ellen has just started ninth grade at the school James and Link are about to graduate from. One of her new friends casually mentions that she thinks James and Link are a couple.

So Ellen wonders. Finally, she asks them, but still she doesn’t get a clear answer—because neither of them is sure.

My Heartbeat cover

As they each begin to understand further, an interesting point is brought up. James tells Ellen that she was their insurance. So long as she was around, they were safe—nothing that shouldn’t be happening would end up happening.

My Heartbeat is a story of fear and expectations, and what it means to really know someone. There are unwritten social laws yet to be understood, and a mind with a heartbeat yet to be formed. It’s a love triangle that you don’t even realize is there until you take a step back and stop to think. It’s a love triangle where each one truly loves the other two, and that, I think is something to be admired.

Together and apart, they deal with their own issues. From all sorts of rebellion, to music, to advanced math, running seven miles every morning, searching for happy endings, sketching strangers, and learning to see—to really see, the three of them develop subtly but beautifully.

James has experienced much more than either of the siblings, in terms of sex and life in general, and speaks with wisdom that he doesn’t acknowledge. Ellen and Link are both under the guidance of a pair of loving parents: a mother with the ability to understand what is unsaid, and a father who wants nothing more than for his children to develop their own minds (so long as they conform to certain boundaries).

There is no lack of love in this story.

In the words of one of the characters, a good book is a reflection of some kind of truth. This was a good book.

Bare: A Pop Opera

Bare: A Pop Opera
Jon Hartmere, Jr. and Damon Intrabartolo

Bare was being staged by Ateneo’s BlueRep at a time when I was developing a renewed interest in plays. Many cheap (as compared to those of Trumpets and Repertory in Meralco Theater) plays were becoming accessible to me as a college student. I almost missed Bare, because I was busy around the time it was showing. I just got lucky – the show was extended, and an insistent friend forced me to watch.

BlueRep’s run has long been over, but if this play is staged again, it shouldn’t be missed. It’s been seven months since I watched the play, but it remains fresh as ever because of its exquisite soundtrack. With its poetic lyrics and very up-to-date music, the soundtrack can stand alone.

I thought it was perfect that Ateneo staged it. It was very current, and so much in context. Peter, Jason, Claire, Ivy, Matt, and the rest are us. Theirs is a world that so many of us have lived in: one of strict Catholic values and conservative beliefs, and more than a little bit of secrecy.

We end up falling in love with both boys through their heart-rending words to each other. They go back and forth, unsure of their decisions, unsure of their identities, as they encounter reactions from the people in their direct environment. It’s frustrating to see how fickle they are, but even more frustrating when you so clearly see why it’s so difficult for them.

Bare is unique in that highlights how the people surrounding the couple are so much affected by them. While some stories only touch on the subject of homosexuality and focus more on the world around it, and others focus solely on it, Bare brings into discussion how the two worlds interact.

It’s a very problematic two worlds, where there is, as Peter describes, safety in falsehood. But well beyond the boundaries of private Catholic high school, this will always be a problem. This is exacerbated by them being teenagers. Peter struggles with the decision of whether or not to come out to his mother, although he ultimately knows that he has to. Jason worries “if they knew, my parents would die—they would die.”