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FROM Cavite my wife and I make occasional forays to
Metro Manila to sample the cultural fare offered at places like the
CCP complex in Pasay, the new PETA home and the UP campus in Quezon
City. Last month we watched three plays, each with its own
particular evocation for us, and Fiesta Musika featuring the music
of Lucio San Pedro as part of the Bamboo Organ Festival in Las Piñas.
At the CCP, Tanghalang Pilipino
presented Ang Mga Huwad, an ingenious adaptation (by Rody Vera) of
National Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose’s first novel The
Pretenders, where the Faustian character Tony Samson (who could no
longer abide the corruption in Manila’s society and live with his
own betrayal and complicity) chooses to throw himself before a train
in Sampaloc. The novel came out in the early 60s when existentialism
was in vogue—hence, the ending. Quite unlike the ending of the
sequel, Mass (first published abroad because of martial law
censorship) where Tony Samson’s bastard son, Pepe Samson,
transformed from a carefree student to an activist, joins his
comrades in the hills.
What the producers (from
playwriting to acting and directing) have done with the novel to
come up with a new creation Ang Mga Huwad (directed by Chris Millado)
is admirable—given the constraints/conventions of the theater. In
about three hours, we get the essence of the novel and the
timelessness of the message, suggesting that bourgeois society
crushes idealism and raising the question as to how the alienated
individual responds to an apparent impasse. The novelist has of
course followed a different nonexistentialist tack in Mass.
Belong Puti, produced by PETA
(Philippine Educational Theater Association) founded in late sixties
and nurtured during the years of repression as an alternative
theater group by dedicated artists, is also an adaptation of the
Filipino translation of National Artist for Drama Wilfredo Ma.
Guerrero.
The last play of Guerrero (whose
first controversial prewar play Half an Hour in the Convent is
embedded in Nonong Padilla’s adaptation) portrays the playwright
struggling with failing creativity in finishing a play about an
aging society matron consumed by her own vanity and amorous desires.
Guerrero is in his element
depicting the sosyal and largely middle-class characters in his
plays. His UP Mobile Theater has brought serious drama throughout
the archipelago.
In his early years as resident
playwright/director in UP Padre Faura, his plays were panned by a
Collegian writer. But starting 1950-51, our literary editor SV
Epistola began his regular review of the productions of
Guerrero—whose choice of four plays a year enabled the students to
watch the classics and modern plays in the Little Theater (named
after the playwright when he was still alive) in what is now Palma
Hall.
But while he was well-loved by
his former students, the administration and the arts community at
large were slow in acknowledging his achievement. I would
occasionally see him in the Diliman shopping center and we would
chat briefly, usually about housing (he was being evicted from his
cottage) and financial need. He could have used the stipend and
health care given to a National Artist—a posthumous award for him.
He must have written The White Veil during his last destitute years
in his cottage in Area I. Last performances of Belong Puti are
tomorrow 10 p.m. and 3 p.m.
At the Guerrero Theater in UP, we
watched Basilia ng Malolos, a zarzuela written by Nick Tiongson and
directed by Jose Estrella, about the “women of Malolos”
(inexplicably called “girls” in a history book) who wrote a
letter petitioning the Spanish governor general for a school where
they could learn Spanish and European subjects. They were praised by
Jose Rizal and Graciano Lopez Jaena in La Solidaridad for their
audacity—given the fact that Spanish colonizers particularly the
friars wanted to keep the natives ignorant so they would be
susceptible to religious dogma and superstition.
In his book, The Women of Malolos,
Tiongson traced the history of the women and the roles they played
before, during and after the Revolution. Basilia, played by Jenny
Jamora, became the founder of what would be the first feminist
association in the country at the turn of the century. The author
himself is related to some of the women and had direct knowledge of
their families and offspring. The play can still be seen tomorrow at
10 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Attending Fiesta Musika was a
double treat. Aside from seeing how St. Joseph’s Church in Las
Pinas with its famous bamboo organ was restored, the churchyard
festively lit up, and gracious usherettes in turn of the century
attire, we were treated to organ, instrumental and vocal renditions
of the music of another National Artist Lucio San Pedro. As with the
play performances, it was a feel good experience that has kept us
thinking that our artists are excellent curators of our cultural
heritage.
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