In a new play, Dubai Metro becomes stage for Filipino migrant stories

The National

2 days ago

What does it mean to belong to a city that may never belong to you? To live in a place built on transience, where presence feels conditional and time always borrowed? How do you hold on to identity when your life is shaped by visa renewals, shift work, and long-distance calls home?
These are the questions posed – not always answered – by Metro Diaries, a resonant piece of devised theatre staged by 63Kolektib, a Filipino community theatre group based in Dubai.
The play had its debut in June at NYU Abu Dhabi, where every show sold out – a sign that audiences may be hungry for stories rooted in the UAE's lived social reality, rather than imported spectacle. More performances are planned.
Told through a series of vignettes set figuratively aboard the Dubai Metro, the production offers a poetic portrait of the migrant condition: constant motion, silent observation and a city rushing past before you've had the chance to claim it.
There is no central plot – instead, Metro Diaries unfolds through monologues and movement sequences. We meet a man fighting anxious thoughts while commuting to his nine-to-five, residents shifting from one overcrowded apartment to another, and a stream of characters whose lives pass in and out of view like stations on a line. The minimal alley-style set invites immersion, but it's the intimacy of the material that resonates.
Part of what gives Metro Diaries its urgency is its authorship – a play about migrants, written and performed by migrants. The script doesn't feel observed; it feels lived. There's an ease in the code-switching between English and Tagalog, in the cultural references left unexplained, in the subtle gestures that speak volumes to those who recognise them.
The second half of the play carries some of its most affecting moments. In one sequence, a dancer moves through a voice-over narrating the arc of a Filipino migrant's journey – from leaving home, to job hunts and visa runs, to carving out space within the UAE's fast-paced demands. Later, three women deliver overlapping monologues that reveal the quiet emotional tolls of survival: housing insecurity, tight budgets, and the pressure to appear strong for family back home.
At times, the rawness of the performances tilts into melodrama, and certain lines articulate their themes a little too explicitly. These are minor stumbles – common in devised community work – and reflect the weight of lived experience pushing up against theatrical form. With tighter pacing and polish in future stagings, the show could reach an even deeper impact without losing its authenticity.
While the production is grounded in the Filipino experience, its themes will resonate widely. The sense of impermanence – of building a life between legal frameworks and personal aspirations – is shared by many who live and work in the UAE.
That's what makes Metro Diaries feel important beyond its two-day run. While large-scale international productions dominate the local theatre scene, this production proves there is both talent and appetite for home-grown stories. Its success suggests that audiences are ready – perhaps overdue – for theatre that speaks to life as it's lived here.
The hope now is that more doors open, more lights stay on, and more stories – quiet, complex and true – find their way into the national conversation and on to the stage.