From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
Kuwento ng Dalawang Puso: A Devised Theatre Work (2017)
Part of the Philippine adaptation wave of the mid-2010s.
For other Filipino devised works, see Theatre adaptations.
Kuwento ng Dalawang Puso is a collaborative devised-theatre adaptation created by the University of the Philippines' Department of Theatre as a 2017 thesis work. The production reframes Leif and Katita through **gesture, embodied language, and cyclical breath-movement** rather than dialogue, grounding the work in Philippine comedia traditions, contemporary ensemble devising, and the rhythm of the pacemaker's mechanical heartbeat.
Dramaturgy and structure
The production uses no written script; instead, a 30-page **movement score** governs all action. Both Leif and Katita are non-speaking throughout. Leif is bound by a live **heartbeat drum** played by three rotating ensemble members—the only sound in the production aside from cloth friction and breathing. Katita moves through continuous red fabric, simultaneously weaving and unweaving it as a second body.
The six chapters of the novel compress into **three paired breath-cycles**:
- First Breath (Wounding): Leif's dive into the conflict-zone waves; Katita's mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, mimed in real time.
- Second Breath (Cycle): Leif and Katita move in strict counterpoint, a two-body fugue where all gestures mirror and invert one another.
- Third Breath (Refusal): Leif's back spasms (wings beginning to erupt); Katita holds him down; the ensemble forms a human cage around both protagonists, freezing them in perpetual catch.
The heartbeat drum—played in perfect unison by three performers, never accelerating or slowing—becomes the production's Kármán line, the boundary that defines all motion. Only once, at the moment Leif attempts to leave Katita, does the drum accelerate (3 seconds only), then stop entirely.
Cultural specificity
The work deliberately roots itself in **Philippine street theatre, comedia dell'arte inheritances (arrived via Spanish colonization, continually remade), and contemporary Manila-based ensemble companies** (PETA, Ang Tanggad). Katita's red cloth is folded according to patterns from Inabel weaving (Ifugao textile tradition). The "two hearts" of the title reference both Leif's external pacemaker and Katita's grief articulated as a surgical seam: "my heart was not broken; it was carefully cut."
The ensemble's unison heartbeat—three drummers, absolute synchrony—is treated as a threshold that defines the frame. When Leif's will tries to act against Katita's, the drums hold steady. Only the imminent wings destabilize the pulse.
Reception and archival status
The production ran four performances and was filmed by UP's audiovisual office; the video remains in university archive with restricted access [citation needed]. A bootleg recording circulates among Filipino and Southeast Asian adaptation communities. An independent Manila collective reconstructed and restaged the work in 2023 to wider notice.
The piece is frequently cited in scholarship on disability and representation, as Leif's silence and immobility are presented as adaptive choices (not casting limitations) that privilege **embodied knowledge over speech**—a radical departure from verbal theatre norms.