In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, the Greek tragedy first staged in Athens more than 2,400 years ago, the city of Thebes is dying of a plague. King Oedipus swears to find whoever brought the gods’ anger down on his people, and spends the play learning that the man he is hunting is himself.

De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde’s new adaptation keeps that shape and changes the disaster. In REX, the city is drowning. Torrential rains have killed more than a hundred people, and at the center of the story is a family that runs a construction company.

REX runs November 12 to 22 at the Power Mac Center Spotlight Blackbox Theater in Circuit Makati. Benilde’s School of Arts, Culture and Performance (SACP) is producing it, with veteran actors Eula Valdez and Martin del Rosario leading a cast of professionals and Theater Arts students.

A Family Business in Tebes

The play is set in Tebes, a stand-in for Thebes, and follows the Po family and their firm, St. Paul the Apostle Constructions. As the death toll rises, the household closes ranks to protect the business, and the truths it has buried for years start to surface. In place of the original’s divine plague, the play deals with failed flood control, questionable public works and the political dynasties that profit from both.

Filipino audiences will recognize the territory. The flood control scandal broke open in 2025, when Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearings put contractors and public works officials on the stand over ghost and substandard projects. Among the firms named were saint-named companies such as St. Timothy Construction and St. Gerrard Construction. Benilde hasn’t said whether the Po family is modeled on anyone in particular.

The scandal has been finding its way into Filipino art all year. Earlier this month, KZ Tandingan and Gloc-9 released “Luha ng Buwaya”, a single about floods and the crocodile tears of officials who profit from them. This also isn’t the first local Oedipus to go political. Tanghalang Ateneo’s online staging in 2021 made Oedipus the president of a country in the middle of a pandemic. REX moves the story out of the palace and into the contractor’s office.

The Playwright and the Director

The adaptation is by Joshua Lim So, who teaches in Benilde’s Digital Film program and is a Hall of Famer of the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, the country’s longest-running literary prize. His one-act play “Walang Maliit na Bagay” is also among the 12 works picked for Puregold’s Teatro Panalo festival next February.

Tuxqs Rutaquio directs. He chairs Benilde’s Theater Arts program and works as a set designer as well as a director. Theatergoers have seen his work in the same blackbox this month: he directed IdeaFirst Live!’s About Us But Not About Us, which closes there on October 25, less than three weeks before REX opens.

The design team comes from Benilde’s own faculty and alumni: movement designer Christine Crame, lighting designer Jose Joaquin Aranda, sound designer and engineer TJ Martinez, costume designer Phillip Domingo and projection designer Ces Valera. Students from the Production Design, Dance, Music Production, Multimedia Arts, Photography and Creative Industries Management programs also work on the production alongside them.

Back Together, 12 Years After Dagitab

Valdez and del Rosario last worked together in Dagitab, Giancarlo Abrahan’s 2014 Cinemalaya film, in which Valdez played a wife who had lost the spark in a long marriage. Both performances won at the 38th Gawad Urian in 2015, the awards given by the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino, the country’s circle of film critics. Valdez took Best Actress and del Rosario took Best Supporting Actor. For each of them, it was a first Urian.

REX reunites them, this time onstage. Del Rosario also returned to Cinemalaya this year as a lead in the queer family drama Tayo Lang Ang Nakakaalam.

The rest of the professional cast includes Bong Cabrera, who teaches in the Theater Arts program, Sheryll Ceasico, Theater Arts alumnus Emilio Macabantad and EJ Jallorina. Jallorina, an alumna of Goin’ Bulilit, the long-running ABS-CBN gag show cast entirely with child actors, plays a trans woman. She has long pushed for authentic queer representation and against stereotypes in Filipino media, and this role continues that work. Students from Benilde’s BA Theater Arts program fill out the ensemble.

Where and When

• Venue: Power Mac Center Spotlight Blackbox Theater, Circuit Makati
• Dates: November 12–15 and 19–22, 2026
• Opening night: Thursday, November 12, 7 PM. Gala night: Friday, November 13, 7 PM
• Two shows a day (2 PM and 7 PM): November 14, 15, 21 and 22
• Evening only (7 PM): November 19 and 20
• Running time: About 1 hour and 45 minutes
• Seating: 300 seats in three sections: Trono ni Rex (elevated center bleachers, VIP), Tanaw ng Tebes (front, floor level) and Sa Gilid ng Lihim (side seating)
• Tickets: On Ticket2Me.net, open to the general public and to Benilde students, faculty and alumni. Ticket claims open an hour before showtime; doors open 30 minutes before.
• Updates: Benilde Arts on Facebook (facebook.com/benildearts) and Instagram (@benildearts)

Production team: Written by Joshua Lim So. Directed by Tuxqs Rutaquio. Project manager Baha Vergara, production manager Irene Romero, deputy production manager Hazel Gutierrez-Marges, marketing and promotions manager Erri Rojo, stage manager Kate Loreno, deputy stage manager Axl Fernandez, technical director Renz Sevilla and assistant technical director Dexter Sy. Presented by De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde and its School of Arts, Culture and Performance.