People are funny. It takes a forceful situation for them to let their guards down.

Twenty Questions has a relaxed pace in tackling millennial issues, an interpretation of the Palanca Award-winning piece “20 Questions” by Christian Vallez (Juan Ekis). The play consists of only two characters, a room and the audience surrounding them as if they were eavesdropping on the leads.

Jigs is soon to be a researcher in a financial firm and Yumi is a commercial model. Both of them become victims of their barkada’s yearly tradition, which happened to have been invented by none other than Yumi to ship two of their friends.

Luis Sumera (Jigs) and Alyana Dalisay (Yumi) have good chemistry and contrast of character. When it starts, we see liberated Yumi teasing Jigs. Jigs is the stubborn conservative who likes to contemplate on things. Both of them toast to being the first failures of their tradition. We know they’re wrong about that upon confessing they were each other’s first crushes.

A lot of “Wine pa nga!” and laughter from the audience follow in between. The play moves smoothly through the subjects of marriage, virginity and abortion. Yumi sweeps through life with trial and error, while Jigs doesn’t like practice. Wine and a few hugs do not make their baggage any less, but the right bickering back and forth do.

I asked Juan Ekis at the end of the play why he went on with the stereotypical night-and-day characters. “Out of conflict comes a beautiful tension,” he says. Overall, 20 Questions proves that conversation done well can be a real gem.

Watch out for the sequel!

Twenty Questions

Written and directed by Juan Ekis

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/20qnijuanekis

Twitter: @20qnijuanekis #20Q #InVinoVeritas #JuanEkis

Instagram: @twenty.questions

Yumi’s twitter: @TheRealYumi

Jigs’ twitter: @JIGSsanity