PILIPINAS CIRCA 1907
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THE PLAY
The play PIlipinas circa 1907, first staged in 1982, is described by its writer Nicanor G. Tiongson as a modern sarsuwela.
A sarsuwela “is a play with songs and dances that is usually written in colloquial prose. Containing from one to five acts, it presents typical Filipino characters moving within the framework of a love story and engaged in conflicts arising from contemporary social, political, economic or cultural issues.” Didactic in character, they typically have endings that affirm the status quo. Pilipinas circa 1907 retains features of the traditional sarsuwela, including the use of improbable coincidences, but it is also informed by more critical perspectives. For example, the women characters are relatively empowered, and the plays suggests that a “happy ending” is possible only when colonial structures are dismantled.
Pilipinas circa 1907 originated as an updating by Tiongson in 1978 of Severino Reyes’s Filipinas para los filipinos (1905). That led to his shifting from the original’s focus on the prohibition on interracial marriage to a critique of American control of the Philippine economy and politics and of the Americanization of Filipino minds. It was first staged in 1982, at the Dulaang Raha Sulayman in Fort Santiago, by the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) and was directed by Soxy Topacio; it was restaged, at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, in 1992 by Tanghalang Pilipino (TP) and was directed by Nonon Padilla.
This devised reading is produced by the School of Humanities, Ateneo de Manila University, through the Kwan Laurel Donation to the School of Humanities.
SYNOPSIS
The play is set in a mansion in Quiapo belonging to Doña Pilar, who with her brother Don Pardo, owns shares in a tobacco factory. Doña Pilar is a widow living with her daughter Leonor and her niece Pura. They have a servant named Juan.
On the eve of her birthday, after receiving a visit from her thoroughly Americanized friends (“the Girls”), Leonor discovers that her beloved, Emilio, is to marry another, one Patria Gatlaya, or so it is announced in the newspaper. Pura commiserates with her. They are visited by Robert, an American who has been courting Leonor and who is favored by her uncle Don Pardo. Emilio comes to visit, but the lovers end up quarreling: he reproaches her for going out with Robert, and she accuses him of infidelity.
Pura has a love interest of her own. Andres, the manager at the factory; he reciprocates her affection. He comes to tell Doña Pilar of Don Pardo’s campaigning for the pro-American political party (the Federalista) at the factory and even threatened to imprison the workers who disagreed with him. Doña Pilar expresses her partiality for the workers, and unlike her brother, she refuses to sell her shares in the factory to the Americans.
At Leonor’s birthday party, Don Pardo clashes with Emilio, Pura, and Andres. The party ends with Leonor and Pura distraught.
The following day, Leonor is visited by the Girls and Porong, a former suitor of Pura’s, who had left to make a living as a musician in the United States. He returns to the Philippines with an American named Dorothy, who seems to be interested in marrying him.
emilio later visits Leonor to explain that he is not due to marry another woman. Rather, Patria Gatlaya is simply name symbolism, signifying “country” and “freedom.” But the happiness of the lovers is short lived, for Don Pardo has had the factory workers who defied him arrested and has also ordered the arrest of Emilio (for having recited a “subversive” poem at the party) and of Andres. Doña Pilar disowns Don Pardo. Emilio is arrested and would be released only if Leonor agreed to marry Robert. She does, but during the ceremony she rejects Robert: Dorothy reveals that Robert is already married—to her.
Don Pardo repents. Leonor and Emilio are reunited, and Pura joins Andres and the rebels in the mountains to fight the American forces.
Nicanor G. Tiongson, Librettist
Lutgardo Labad, Composer
Lucien Letaba, Composer
Louise Pascasio, Composer
Chino Toledo, Composer
Vince Lim, Composer
Missy Maramara, Director
Jerry Respeto, Dramaturg
Vince Lim, Musical Director
Tata Tuviera, Production Designer
Aldrie Valmonte, Lighting Designer
Anyah de Guzman, Movement Designer
Austin Gonzales, Lights Boardsman
Aliyah Dy, Sound Engineer
Louisa Tagulinao, Production Manager
Emma Oranza, Head Stage Manager
Gabby Rosales, Assistant Stage Manager
Maxine Mostacho, Assistant Stage Manager
Rommielle Morada, House Manager
Julia Macuja, Costumes
Zero Candelaria, Costumes
Bea Bernardez, Documentation
CJ Ochoa, Documentation
Jonathan Chua, adaptation
CAST
Laura Cabochan as Leonor
Drei Sugay as Emilio
Gold Villar Lim as Pura
Bullet Dumas as Andres
Jef Flores as Robert
Thea Tadiar Everly as Dorothy
Lionel Guico as Pardo
Cynthia Guico as Pilar
Kaiser Cortina as Juan
Brianna Caranto as Eling
Marta Munoz as Partring
Teia Contreras as Itang
Nicole Chua as Dading
Tini Flores as Sening
Jelena Evangelista as Betty
Carlo Dano as Porong
Ron Balgos as Judge Sullivan
Jethro Tenorio as Narrator
Photograph by Salvador F. Bernal (used with permission)
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