When I saw Meet the Filipinos in the NZ Improv Festival line-up, I remembered how much I’d enjoyed Potluck in the 2021 Fringe, so grabbed the chance to review it. Both involve the families of a young couple meeting each other but while the well-wrought play by Kiya Basabas is cross-cultural, the Australia-based Fillow Talk  show is fully improvised by an entirely Filipino cast. 

Pamamanhikan (which means supplication, request) is the Filipino custom whereby a man’s family meets his girlfriend’s parents for the first time and seeks permission to marry their daughter. Happy Feraren introduces her co-players, who in turn tell us where they were born and where they now live (most in Sydney, one in Brisbane). Happy then reveals that what the lovers feel for each other doesn’t matter, it’s what the wannabe bride’s extended family decides that counts.

Furnished with either green (yes) or red (no) flags, we get to decide such things as who will be the prospective bride and groom. Thus Andi Magpulong becomes ‘the bride’, whose name is eventually revealed as Jennalyn Mercado, and Jeff Mesina becomes ‘the goom’, Eduardo Rodrigues.

Happy Feraren plays Heidelynn Yulo Mercado, Jennalyn’s mother, and Ronaldo Rivera plays her father, Roberto Mercado. With a cast of five there are not enough to bring Eduardo’s parents into the picture. When questioned, he explains their flight from Canada has been delayed. Meanwhile Janette McBride steps in as Angelica Cuneta-Panganiban, Eduardo’s best friend. [I’m indebted to Janette for giving me all the names, after the show.]

The keyboard Musician is Jed Dalangin, who is married to a Filipino who’s in the audience, among many other Filipinos and partners thereof. The Wellington-based couple beside me tell me they’re great fans of improv, which is very strong in Manila. Local luminary D Woods on lights completes tonight’s Fillow Talk team.

A couch, a table and three chairs adorn the stage. The table is strewn with Flilipino confectionary – known as Nips and Flat-tops, my neighbours inform me – and also features an open red box containing slips of folded paper – which players have secreted in their pockets, too. They turn out to contain snippets of sage advice which are randomly inserted into conversations as the drama unfolds, to intensify the improv stakes.  

Having bonded with the audience by asking us what we’d bring to a potluck dinner, the players endow their characters with food-related qualities: gooey chocolate cake, pig on a spit, crispy chicken that’s also a bit oily, desserts that are hard or crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle. Set-ups complete, Fillow Talk embarks on the pamamanhikan scenario.

Happy’s Heidelynn Yulo Mercado is formidable in her attempts to determine the suitability of Jeff’s initially arrogant Eduado – formed by the advice he received as a boy: “Always say yes then do what you like.” Accordingly, he now owns a McDonald’s franchise. Ronaldo’s Roberto Mercado supports his wife and when he admits to being part of the politically powerful Mercado family, Janette McBride’s Angelica Cuneta-Panganiban overdoes the kissing and forehead-to-the-hand obsequies.

Somewhat sidelined as the interrogations proceed, Andi Magpulong’s Jennalyn Mercado remains staunch in her commitment to getting married. In response to the advice, “Stay in a relationship for the sake of the kids,” she balks at the idea and shocks her Catholic parents by insisting, “My body, my choice!” It emerges she hasn’t yet slept with Eduado while his relationship with ‘Angel’ Angelica seems a bit suspect, despite their having heeded the advice to “Always sleep with separate blankets” when in the same bed. What’s more, Eduado’s pet name for Jennalyn is also Angel!

We get flashbacks to key moments, e.g. the father-son and mother-daughter ‘sex talks’ – “Did they tell you about the blankets?” – and replays of when Jennalyn and Eduado then Heidelynn and Roberto first met. Requests for private conversations invariably turn out not to be, giving rise to the running gag: “I have overheard your entire conversation and …” So the ever-enriched story continues to build.

Eduado proves Jeff’s mime skills by climbing through a hatch to go on a date. “Never tell your partner deep secrets” makes people want to know all the more, like “What is the most embarrassing thing about you?” At a judicious moment D Wood illuminates the Dome to prove “God is watching us!” A confession scene ramps up a notch when the Priest also needs to confess …

Eduado’s dual loyalty to Jennalyn and Angelica provokes a ‘Holy Trinity’ proposition. But the discovery that Eduado and Angelica have matching clothes and tattoos on their buttocks leads to Jennalyn declaring Angelica is totally in love with Eduado, and confronting her fiancé with the immortal line, “She’s seen your arse and I haven’t!”
   His assertion that “She’s dead to me,” overheard by Angelica, earns him a resounding slap on the cheek, and another. (Good stage combat skills, there.)

My notes get a bit scrambled at this point – or have I taken to heart the household saying, “In one ear and out the other”? Jennalyn knows how to fly that flag to avoid her mother’s demands.

Anyway, the drama progresses through twists and turns until Eduado has to choose – and ‘nek minnit’, he and Angelica are dancing and singing ‘Lovin’ It’ then the Mercado family also expresses its collective disappointment in song, each getting a verse and joining in the ‘Not in Our House’ chorus.

Ronaldo finds a last piece of advice to comfort his daughter with: “During fights, pretend your partner has bad breath.”   

Meet the Filipinos has played out with a refreshing boost of creative energy. Tonight, Saturday, offers the final four improv shows: The Royal Fakespeare Company; Improv Masala; Closing Night Show! and the double-billed Ex-HusbandsWilliams/That 90s Sitcom. Book now if you haven’t already.

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