MANILA — In “Angry Christ” the prolific playwright Floy Quintos sought to imagine how the Fil-American painter Alfonso Ossorio created the controversial mural, “The Last Judgment,” and in the process created his own masterpiece that has been gloriously brought to life by the University of the Philippines Playwrights’ Theater and Dulaang UP.

The play arrives amid belated interest in Ossorio, who is considered among the first artists from the school of abstract expressionism. In fact, just days before “Angry Christ” debuted at UP DIliman, Leon Gallery opened “Grazing Light,” an exhibit of 19 of Ossorio’s works, which runs until May 12.

“The Last Judgment,” which was completed in 1950, is arguably Ossorio’s biggest work. Considered “a landmark in the history of liturgical art,” the mural, also called “Angry Christ” for the stern expression on Jesus’s face, is permanently displayed as the centerpiece of the St. Joseph the Worker Church in the sugar plantation of the Victorias Milling Corp. in Negros Occidental, which also serves as the setting of Quintos’s play.

The stage of the Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero Theater of the UP Palma Hall has been transformed into the sanctuary of the then newly constructed church. Despite the bare concrete walls, Gino Gonzalez’s set already hints at the church’s modern design, which served as the blank canvas for Ossorio’s dramatic vision.

The play centers on Ossorio’s brief stay in Victorias in 1950, the last time he set foot in the Philippines. By that time, the Harvard-educated scion had already held solo exhibits in New York. Yet despite his achievements, Ossorio was saddled with both doubt and Catholic guilt.

Quintos admits invoking artistic license as he delved on Ossorio’s personal struggles at the time, a period of reconstruction after the devastating World War II. Indeed, two key characters in the play — Ossorio’s young sakada assistant Anselmo and the parish priest Padre Nunelucio — are fictional, and one of the play’s key turning points — a meeting between Ossorio and the labor leader Jose Nava — didn’t happen.

But to Quintos’s credit, “Angry Christ” always felt real and not merely plausible, and the conflicts in the play innately dramatic. Despite his aristocratic demeanor, Ossorio (a well-cast Nel Gomez, fresh from his acclaimed performance as another artist in “My Name is Asher Lev”) was aware of the great wealth divide between his landed family and the workers who toil in the sugar plantation. He knew that his preference for the modern clashed with the traditional and simple needs of the parishioners. More importantly, Ossorio struggled to reconcile his Catholic faith with his homosexuality.

While his collaborators in the Victorias project – Ade de Bethune, who was in charge of the mosaics in the church’s exterior; and local artist Benjamin Valenciano, who carved the statues – were making headway, Ossorio seemed stuck. Act 1 brilliantly ends with the unveiling of Valenciano’s statue of St. Joseph as a Filipino laborer that immediately connected with the community – and all the more rankled an insecure Ossorio, afraid of how he would be judged when it was his turn to present his art.

The project – and Ossorio himself – is saved by his own faith as he fulfills his divine task.

“Angry Christ,” as the title suggests, is really more about the story behind the work and Quintos throughout the nearly three-hour play beautifully ponders on its meaning. Instead of a theatrical narrator, he created instead the character of a lecturer, who opens the play by introducing the titular artwork to the audience in TEDx fashion.

Quintos allows more than glimpses of the mural during these well-placed talks, which also act as breaks for the main story. This structure not only allows for a deeper discussion of art and its context but it also helped build the excitement for the grand finale.

And what a finale! As “The Last Judgment” finally comes to life through video projection, beautifully explained by Ossorio himself, one is left awestruck. Even those who have seen the work up close and personal in Negros are not fully prepared for this stirring theatrical moment when every detail – from the set to Monino Duque’s gorgeous lighting, Krina Cayabyab’s haunting score and Gomez’s poetic narration -- came together so perfectly under director Dexter Santos’s expert staging.

At that instant one is convinced that, just like the mural itself, “Angry Christ” must have been guided by a divine hand and that we are so blessed to have witnessed it.

"Angry Christ" goes on its final week of performances at UP Diliman with 7 p.m. performances on Wednesday to Friday and 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. shows on Saturday and Sunday.