Entablado

Theaters and Performances

in the Philippines

S I R A N R I L P I N E DA T I AT C O

The University of the Philippines Press

Diliman, Quezon City
THE UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES PRESS
E. de los Santos St., UP Campus, Diliman, Quezon City 1101
Tel. no.: 925 3243, 926 6642/Telefax no.: 928 2558
E-mail: press@up.edu.ph
Website: http://www.uppress.com.ph

©2015 by Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, and/or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the author and the publisher.

The National Library of the Philippines CIP Data

Recommended entry:
ISBN 978-971-542-760-9

Book Design by Lara Gotis

Printed in the Philippines

Contents

List of Figures ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

Theater Studies and the Philippines 4

The Passage to Performance Studies in International Academia 9

Theater Studies and Performance Studies: The Philippine Context 11

Itinerary of the Book 18

CHAPTER 1

Positioning Philippine Theaters:

A Question of Cultural Homogeneity 25

Foundations, Categories, and/or Conditions on the

Asian-ness of Asian Theater 28
Asian Theater: Other Recurring Concepts 32
A Critique: The Philippine-ness of Philippine Theater 35
Postscript: Asian-nesses, not Asian-ness;
Philippine-nesses, not Philippine-ness 39

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 Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines

CHAPTER 2

Komedya, Heritage, and National Theater:

The University of the Philippines Komedya Fiesta 2008 43

From Comedia to Komedya: Brief Historical Overview 44

The Festival 50
Discoursing the Content of Komedya 57
Komedya and the Notion of Heritage 59

Komedya and the Concept of the Nation 63

Institutional Nationalism vs. Critical Nationalism 65

CHAPTER 3

Imag(in)ing St. Peter: Performing Catholicism

and Community Narrative 71

Apung Iru, Apalit’s St. Peter 73

Celebrating in the Waters and Frolicking with St. Peter 75
Whose Authority Is It Anyway? 82

The Paradox in Performing Intimacy 84

Concatenation of Spectacles 88

CHAPTER 4
Performing Ambivalence: Nailing on the
Cross and the Fluvial Procession 91

Performing the Sinakulo in Cutud, Performing the Libad in Apalit 92

Panata: Axiom of the Performances 98
Apung Iru and the Cross: Actors in the Performances 101
Negotiating Catholicism in Performance: Ambivalences Surfacing 104
Catholicism as Performance of the Particular(s) 105

vi
 Contents

CHAPTER 5

Protest Performance, Social Theater,

and the National Artist Awards in 2009 109

Naming Names: CCP/NCCA versus Malacañang 111

The Funeral for the National Artist Awards 116
Protest Performance and the Making of Social Theater 120
On Noticing Injustices, Creating New Allies, and Moving Ahead 126

And So? 130

CHAPTER 6

Familiarity and Ambiguity, Dislocation

and Relocation: The Theater of Josefina Estrella 139

Dislocation and Relocation; Familiarity and Ambiguity:

The Case of Recoged Esta Voz and Sepharad 141
Onstage: War and Peace 152
Ethics in the Face of the Stranger: The Cosmopolitan Stage of Estrella 159

AFTERTHOUGHTS

The Future of Theater and Performance

Studies in the Philippines? 166

Is it a Cosmopolitan World? 170

The Cosmopolitan Proposal 173

References 183

About the Author 199

vii
List of Figures

2.1 Kick-Off performance of a komedya in Palma Hall 51

2.2 Komedya ng Don Galo in the University of the Philippines Diliman 53

2.3 Dulaang UP’s Orosman at Zafira 54

3.1 Apung Iru displayed at the shrine in Capalangan 76

3.2 Limbon in Capalangan 78

3.3 Devotees in the pagoda 79

3.4 Apung Iru in a bigger pagoda 80

4.1 The Captured Christ 93

4.2 The Nailing on the Cross 95

4.3 Apung Iru being protected by an umbrella 96

4.4 Apalit devotees at the Pampanga River 97

5.1 National Artists in Protest 117

5.2 Veiled Women Mourners 118

6.1 An Episode from Recoged Esta Voz 142

6.2 Another Episode from Recoged Esta Voz 145

6.3 War Episode from Recoged Esta Voz 147

6.4 Opening Episode of Sepharad 149

6.5 Final Episode of Sepharad 154

ix
Acknowledgments

Writing an academic manuscript is not an easy task. It takes courage,

patience, and humility to put up all one's ideas together. This book was
conceived during a conversation with a good friend and a colleague at
the Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts. He gave me
the idea of collating some of the academic essays and lectures I wrote
or delivered and make the collection not just an anthology of academic
essays but as a summary and narration of the paradigmatic tradition of my
academic career. It was a challenge worth pursuing—hindi ba?! I thank-you
Oscar Tantoco Serquina Jr. for convincing me to start this sojourn despite
fears and anxieties.
Some of the essays here were previously published elsewhere. A
version of chapter 1 was originally published in JATI: Journal of Southeast
Asian Studies 16 (December 2011). A version of chapter 2 was published in
the Asian Theater Journal 26 no. 2 (Fall 2009). A version of chapter 3 was
first published in the Philippine Humanities Review 10 (2008), special issue
on Philippine theater and performance studies. A version of chapter 4 was
included in TDR: The Drama Review 51, no.3 (Summer 2010). I am thankful
to the publishers of these journals (University of Malaya Press, University
of Hawaii Press, University of the Philippines [UP] College of Arts and
Letters, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press) for granting me
permission to have the essays reprinted in a different format.
My acknowledgment is also extended to the editors of the said
journals—Hanafi Hussin (JAT I ), Kathy Foley (Asian Theater Journal ),
Ma. Corazon Castro and Galileo Zafra (Philippine Humanities Review ), and

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Richard Schechner (TDR ) for taking time in reading the first version and
the opportunity of having my research work published in their journals.
Of course, I should also thank the anonymous reviewers of these essays
who also contributed in substantiating my thoughts about theater and
performance.
I am also thankful to friends and colleagues who read, listened, and
critiqued my ideas. I am grateful to Hwang Ha Young of the Korea National
University of the Arts for helping me structure ideas on social theater
and protest performance. I am also indebted to Roselle Pineda of the
Department of Art Studies and National Artist Virgilio S. Almario for giving
me a piece of their time and enlightening me about protestations and the
Concerned Artists of the Philippines. Thanks also to Paul Alexander Rae of
the University of Melbourne, Shreyosi Mukherjee, Lim How Ngean, and
Matt Yoxall of the National University of Singapore for giving me valuable
criticism every time I presented my research on theater and performance in
the Philippines. Shanthini Manokara of the National University of Singapore,
thank-you very much for always listening to my rants and anxieties and
for not leaving me during my most anxious times in Barcelona, Spain. I
am thankful to Chim Zayas of the Center for International Studies and
Cecille de la Paz of the UP Department of Art Studies for their valuable
commentaries on panata and rituals. My students in Theater 161 and 162
at UP (School Year 2007–2008) are also instrumental in this academic
endeavor. They were my “guinea pigs” during the substantiation of my
arguments against national theater. My colleagues at the Department
of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts: Josefina Estrella, Vanessa
Banta, and Amiel Leonardia, thank-you for allowing me to talk about my
perspectives in your graduate classes. I am also grateful to Ramona Flores
and Carlo Garcia de Pano of the Speech Communication Division for making
me see how people from a different discipline may probably perceive, see,
or understand my theoretical assumptions.
My gratitude is also extended to my informants. I am thankful to the
Catholic communities in Apalit and in Cutud for their warm reception and
welcome. More specifically, I am thankful to the Bahdenhop family for the
trust. Nanay Ederlinda Bahdenhop (+), thanks for the fun memories and

xii
 Acknowledgments

generosity in Capalangan. I would not be able to correct my assumptions

about the religiosity of the Apalit community without your guidance. Thank-
you, Fr. Larry Sarmiento for enlightening me about “dogmas” and Catholic
stands about spirituality and religiosity. I am eternally grateful to the
Navarro family and the “producers” of the nailing ritual in Cutud. Thank-you
for allowing me to participate in your “ritual and performance” even if I was
an “outsider.” Your kindness and hospitality reinforced my cosmopolitan
thinking. Thank-you for treating me not as a stranger even if sometimes I
intruded into your solidarity. Thank-you, Bishop Pablo David, for giving me
a piece of your time despite your busy schedule as then director of the
Theology Department of the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary in the City
of San Fernando in Pampanga.
My special thank-you is also expressed to my mentors in the
Philippines who have shaped my academic trajectories. Your “tough love”
and, of course, the sincerity of that love made me a better academic today.
Priscelina Legasto, Wendell Capili, and Neil Garcia—thank-you for reminding
me that the text is always “open.” Floro Quibuyen—thank-you for teaching
me that history is also a reinforcement of the community’s creative energy.
Michael Tan—thank-you for reminding me that the ethnographer is always
respectful of the community he observes. Amihan Bonifacio-Ramolete—
thank-you for always graciously reading my work and for guiding me as a
theater scholar.
To my Kent Ridge family in Singapore—Dazzie Zapata, Conrad
Pantuja, Chen San Pascual, and Gene Naverra—thank-you for the patience
especially during the conception of this project and the first phase of
writing. Thank-you also for allowing me to territorialize the dining table
when I started writing.
To friends, who continued to believe in me and continuously support
my research activities—Chielo Nakpil, Mercedes Planta, Victor Villareal,
Bryan Viray, Melanie Leaño, Eileen Kae Relao, TP de Luna, Hazel Maranan,
Mark Olvier Llangco, Eric dela Cruz, and Olive Nieto—thank-you for your
patience and encouragement.
My journey would never be complete without the love and support
of my family. I would never be able to excel in my academic endeavors

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 Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines

without your unconditional love. Thank-you very much Mom (Lynne), Dad
(June), Kayce, Ny, Jay, Daril, and my beautiful nieces—Ella and Meeka.
And finally, my special thank-you to Alonzo A. Gabriel. You have
always been there through thick and thin.

xiv
Introduction

In the 1970s, Filipino scholars in the arts and letters started looking at
theater as a site for discourse, knowledge production, and consumption. In
the 1980s, this scholarship was institutionalized as an academic discipline
in the humanities. Most theater scholars then were trained as literary
experts: Nicanor G. Tiongson, Amelia Lapeña-Bonifacio, Priscelina Patajo-
Legasto, Glecy Atienza, Rustica Carpio, and Doreen Fernandez among
others. Philippine theater scholarship primarily started as a reading of
dramatic text focused on narratives and representations. It was also in this
period that theater scholars focused on the concept of Philippine-ness in
Philippine theater or towards a theorization of a Philippine theater identity.
This theorizing posits a nationalist paradigm deeply rooted in the political
economy. This is not surprising because, during that time, the Philippines
was also experiencing political and cultural instabilities.
Ferdinand Marcos was then president of the Philippines. His
administration was accused of engaging in a neocolonial relationship with
the United States (Shalom 1981; Bonner 1987). James Paterson (1998)
explains that political activists referred to him as the American boy or the
puppet of the American government. Hence, nationalism and national
identity were the favored themes in almost all aspects of sociocultural
activities—including theater. The theater then vis-à-vis nationalism may
be illustrated as a form of strategic essentialism, or the carving out of a
representative essentialist position. It is a strategy for the “oppressed”
to make a clear stand for agendas of identity and emancipation (Llana
2010). In this way, scholars and artists alike were speaking of a necessary

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 Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines

“theoretical fiction” which enabled them to critique imperialism. Gayatri

Spivak (1987) would read this as “a strategic use of positivist essentialism
in a scrupulously visible political interest” (202). These intellectuals and
artists strategically took shelter in essentialism as a master plan for the
oppressed or the silenced voices to speak out during the administration of
Marcos.
The project of essentialism was very significant because the Filipino
people encountered common threats to the national psyche: the Marcos
administration and his neocolonial engagement with the United States.
In this case, scholars and cultural workers aimed to de-center hegemonic
forces in the development of a national culture. Political activists and
members of the opposition (especially Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.) heavily
criticized the strong presence of the United States in different policies
drafted by the administration. Social scientists appraised the administration
negatively for Americanizing Philippine culture (Bonner 1987). In spite of
achieving Philippine independence from the United States in 1946, the
country was still under the influence of United States because of the
presence of its military and naval bases. Militants and activists (including
artist-activists) heavily disapproved the continuing presence of American
armed forces.1 Strategic essentialism was a significant tool in this
decolonization of American ideology in this vision of a national culture. It
was a strategy to assert an anticolonial and an anti-imperialist Philippine
nationalism by creating narratives, myths, and ideologies of a pure,
indigenous, and homogenous Philippine culture.
In theater practice, many companies also took part in this strategic
nationalism. This nationalist disposition encouraged artists to develop a
national theater aesthetics using “silenced voices” as foundation. The
Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA), for example, envisioned
a people’s theater as the foundation of a national theater. Many theater
scholars also joined in this advocacy for a national theater. This advocacy
of a people’s theater may also be read as an attempt to de-center a
mainstream practice in the theater and to involve the Filipino masses in
every production. Mainstream theater was strongly promoted by the
administration to distract the people from the real condition of the society

2
 Introduction

(Legasto 1994). Thus, scholarship in Philippine theater was linked to a

theorization of a national theater: toward the discourse of national theater
via the concept of a people’s theater. It was also a discourse for a cultural
identity based on the needs of the so-called “Filipino masses.” In 1983,
there was even a congress of Filipino theater experts to discuss how
theater might contribute to Philippine nationalism and the construction of a
national cultural identity.2
During these two crucial decades in the history of the Philippines,
these were the research activities of Filipino theater scholars in mapping a
discourse about Philippine theater. But what happened to theater research
and scholarship after this era of strategic essentialism? Were these
academic works able to establish a foundation for a discipline known in the
international academia as theater studies? The author's impression is that
informally a theater studies discipline was forged during the 1983 meeting
where most participants, initially identified as experts in literary studies,
began to be recognized as experts in Philippine theater studies. If so, how
did the discipline evolve? What is the theoretical direction of this discipline?
At that time, nationalist fervor was very necessary. Not that a nationalist
paradigm is asserted as irrelevant today, but one must recognize that the
Philippines is now participating in a new epoch: that of globalization. Has
the field engaged in discourse implicating this new epoch?
Ulrich Beck (2000) explains that “the social cement has grown
porous through the secular trend of individualization, that society has been
loosening its collective self-consciousness and therefore its capacity to
political action” (8). Globalization is always attributed as the era of world
power of the world market. Although the world market is always pushed as
the heart of the phenomenon, Beck asserts that talking about globalization
is also a discussion of ecology, culture, politics, and civil society. In this
sense, it is a good starting point to ask how the discipline of theater
research in the Philippines responded to the phenomenon of globalization.
More than this, it is also relevant to critically assess if indeed theater
research in the Philippines has evolved into a self-sustaining discipline. Can
it be asserted that the discipline has already gone beyond the ontology,

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 Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines

epistemology, and methodology of literary studies and the nationalist

framework of the 1970s and 1980s?
In this book, it is not the auhtor's intention to define Philippine
theater. This was already problematized in the past decades, albeit relatively
unresolved. As indicated in the first chapter of this book, defining Philippine
theater as a singular and monolithic entity is denying the complexity of the
performance traditions in the archipelago. Thus, to ask what the Philippine-
ness of Philippine theater begs the question. Identifying Philippine theater
in its totality is both an oversimplification and an over-generalization. The
author does not also intend to investigate the evolution of the discipline
of theater research in its totality. What he intends is to present here is
a provisionary (re)direction and preliminary conversations about related
topics in theater studies (whether or not it is a discipline) in the Philippines.

Theater Studies and the Philippines

Theater studies in the Philippines is relatively young as compared to the well-
institutionalized disciplines in the humanities such as comparative literature,
arts studies, and Philippine literary studies. The discipline of theater studies
in the country is often associated with practical and creative works such as
acting, directing, playwriting, etc. Since the 1970s, scholarly theorizations
and inquiry into theater have been the research domains of other disciplines
in the humanities such as art studies, comparative literature, and Philippine
literature. For instance, in the University of the Philippines, the Department
of Filipino and Philippine Literature has produced a body of research on
Philippine theater comparable to the research produced by the Department
of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts (DSCTA). Theories on drama
are given more emphasis in the Department of English and Comparative
Literature than in the DSCTA. Theorization on aesthetics of performance
is more dominant in the Department of Art Studies. The DSCTA, as one of
the most important theater institutions in the Philippines, boasts of a roster
of faculty members who are also mostly theater practitioners than theater
scholars3. However, this does not mean that the DSCTA does not produce
relevant research work in the field.4 Nonetheless, research production

4
 Introduction

is very minimal as compared to the bulk of production work produced

regularly on a season basis.
Arguably, the “theater” as an academic program in the Philippines is
not necessarily synonymous with “theater studies” as used in international
academic institutions. In the University of the Philippines, the DSCTA offers
an undergraduate program in theater arts—not in theater studies. The
program aims to provide for the study and training in the different practical
areas of theater arts: playwriting, acting, directing, lighting design, stage
design, costume design and makeup, theater management, technical
theater, dramaturgy, and pedagogy. More importantly, the program aims
to mold the theater student into becoming a sensitive participant in theater
productions.5 In the Ateneo de Manila University, the theater arts program
is tied up with the Fine Arts Program of the School of Humanities.6 The
school’s official website states that the students in theater arts are exposed
to the range of theater activities, onstage and off, all of which require
collaboration, intelligence, and passion—but not necessarily theorization.
On the whole, the program is seen as a way to increase the number of
trained individuals to sustain theater activities in the present and future;
to provide another venue for the training of theater professionals; and to
prepare students to apply their knowledge of theater craft for work in film,
radio, and television.
This is why the curriculum of the undergraduate theater program,
for example in the University of the Philippines, concentrates on practical
works similar to a fine arts degree program in the Western academia.
Compare this, for example, to the National University of Singapore (NUS)
where the undergraduate curriculum of theater studies trains its students in
the “critical understanding and practice of theater.”7 NUS’s undergraduate
program offers a balance between theories and practice as almost 50
percent of the modules (or courses in the context of the Philippines)
required for graduation are theoretical and the remaining half is “practice-
based.”8 The students, according to the official website of NUS’s program,
are not only expected to be practitioners at the end of their undergraduate
course but are also expected to be independent researchers.

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 Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines

Nonetheless, the graduate program of the DSCTA is a different story.

A student is expected (at least in the Plan A or thesis track program) to
finish a research work in theater and/or performance. Most of the graduate
theses are critical examinations of some cultural spectacles. In this
research activity, there is an attempt to intersect various disciplines. Most
methodological frames are borrowed from anthropology (ethnography)
and other social scientific tools (survey, interviews, etc.). Theoretical
frameworks are most often borrowed from literary studies. A favorite
concept constantly examined is the panata, a religious sacrificial act usually
based on Catholicism.9 It is in this program that “theater arts” becomes
“theater studies” of some sort. In this research activity, the approach is
more directed towards a performance studies method of analysis although
performance studies as a discipline is also nonexistent in the country,
a matter which will be discussed later. But the research works of these
graduate students are stored in the shelves of the graduate studies office
of the College of Arts and Letters (where the DSCTA is housed). Hence,
they remain reports or research notes. What commonly happens is that
after a student obtains his or her master’s degree, he or she does not
continue research work. The author has observed that graduate students
do not intend to be academics (theater researchers) in the strictest sense
of this term, but intend to be practitioners (theater artists) instead.
In international academia, theater studies have a strong focus on live
performance, in all its artistic, cultural, and generic variety (Balme 2008, 3).
In the Philippines, the study of theater is commonly scrutinized through the
centrality of drama. Even in theater criticism, the efficacy of a performance
is drawn towards the efficacy of dramatic language. In most cases,
“theater critics” talk about the validity of direction and/or the effectivity of
a performer through the motif of the dramatic text. In this sense, theater
studies and theater criticism are branches of literary studies. Arguably,
Philippine Theater Studies is a theater of dramas. Philippine theater studies
is framed under the “categories of imitation and action/plot as much as the
virtually automatic intimate connection of the two” (Lehmann 2006, 21).
The theoretical assumption about drama as the seed for theater to become
whole is an embracing end-all in Philippine theatrical analysis. Philippine

6
 Introduction

theater studies is subordinated by the primacy of the text. In a sense, the

study and analysis of theater in the Philippines is predominantly dominated
by “the imagination of a comprehensible narrative and/or mental totality"
(21; emphasis provided).
It is also the narrative, in the Aristotelian sense, that drives any
theater research project in the Philippines. Many theater research materials
in the graduate office of CAL are framed under the paradigm of analyzing
the narrative or the text first, before the actual analysis of the performance.
Research works are usually formal reading of drama, only, the emphasis is
more directed toward the effective interpretation of the text by the theater
director. The analysis includes “the bringing about of effective recognition
and solidarity by means of the drama and the affects represented and
transmitted to the audience within its frames” (21). In this paradigm, the
emphasis is also largely consisted of the analysis of the “declamation
and the illustration of written drama” (21–22). The method includes
investigation of dramatic characters, particularly their psychological and
political dimensions in the analysis of the illusion vis-à-vis the understanding
of a cosmos. It also includes the analyses of the theme and the setting as
supported by the intention of the dramatic author.
Even in the praxis of theater or theater making, the text is the
primary foundation. Students and “professional” theater practitioners alike
“construct a fictive cosmos and let all the stage represent—be—a world …
abstracted but intended for the imagination and empathy of the spectator
to follow and complete the illusion” (22; emphasis provided). A colleague
of mine in the department once critiqued a direction of a friend in the Virgin
Labfest project of the Tanghalang Pilipino10 by stating that “you need to
go back to storytelling.” His statement invokes the dictum of the narrative
being the driving force of any theater production.
One crucial criticism against this dominance of text in the discourse
of theater research is the old cliché in the Western theater studies
backlash: a text is different on the stage than it is on the page. Janelle
G. Reinelt and Joseph Roach (in McKenzie 2001, 39) argue that “theory
has done so principally by radically questioning the idea of what a text is

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 Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines

... Perhaps most important, performance can be articulated in terms of

politics: representations, ideology, hegemony, resistance. In a way, theory
gives theater back again to the body politic.” In this sense, theater studies
in American academia and even in the European tradition primarily focus
on the theatrical body, the efficacy of embodiment, and the impact of
presence or the idea of liveness.11 Theater Studies, in a sense, is critical
but not totally against textuality. Reinelt and Roach (in McKenzie 2001, 45)
continue:

The history of the discipline of theater studies is one of fighting

for autonomy from English and speech departments, insisting on
a kind of separation from other areas of study. It was necessary,
politically necessary, to claim this distinctiveness, even at the
expense of becoming somewhat insular and hermetic—a result
that unfortunately became true for many departments of theater.

This is almost true in the case of the Philippines since many English
departments also handle theater and drama courses, except that in the
University of the Philippines, the theater arts program is tied up with the
program of speech communication. The division of theater arts in this
department acts independently from the division of speech communication
and vice versa. But there are courses in speech communication that are
categorized as performance courses (i.e., oral interpretation, chamber
theater, performance of world literature, performance of folk literature,
performance of poetry, etc. It is in this crossover, that theater arts and
speech communication become either mutually engaged or mutually
in opposition. But, separating the theater arts division from the speech
communication division to prove its disciplinal independence is not a case
in point in the Philippines. Even though there are isolated theater research
activities, these activities possess the same methodological approach as
that of independent theater studies disciplines in international academia.
More so, as earlier mentioned, theater studies research in the DSCTA is
similar to performance studies approaches abroad.

8
 Introduction

The Passage to Performance Studies

in International Academia

Today, theater studies in international academia gave birth to another

discipline known as performance studies. The development of this
discipline emerged from the separation of theater studies from various
English departments and then went on to marry the social sciences. Jon
McKenzie 2001 explains:

Theater thus provides the human sciences with metaphors

and tropes which are developed into conceptual tools for
analyzing other activities, and those tools may then pass back
to humanities scholars and become applied anew. From theater
to metaphor to analytical concept and back to theatre and other
performances. (35)

In addition, the linking between anthropology and theater studies

is cited as the relevant birth of this discipline. In particular, the dynamic
engagement of Victor Turner, an anthropologist, and Richard Schechner, a
theater studies scholar, in their research projects paved the way for this
intermarriage. In its development, McKenzie adds:

Theater provided anthropologists and ethnographers with a

model for studying how people and societies embody symbolic
structures in living behavior. Social actors, role playing, the
scripting and rehearsing of interactions, the importance of
gesture, costume, setting, and dramatization in maintaining
and transforming social relations—all of these concepts were
explicitly developed from the study of theater and applied to the
analysis of ceremonies, festivals, and rituals. (35)

Thereafter, new theoretical concepts emerged that are equally shared

by both performance studies scholars and anthropologists: performativity,
liminality, and efficacy, among other concepts.

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 Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines

In the Philippines, Performance Studies is not (yet) an institution

unlike various Performance Studies departments worldwide. However,
these conceptual concepts have reached the local academia. Perfomativity
is a favorite concept in Philippine gay studies. J. Neil Garcia, a literary
and queer theorist, is a prolific scholar whose research projects are often
framed within the concept of performativity.12 Most graduate theses of the
theater arts program in the University of the Philippines attempt to look
at Philippine cultural performances such as Catholic rituals through the
concept of liminality. Often, liminality is contextualized within the Catholic
concept of the panata, as in the discussion of the fluvial parade in chapter 3
and the nailing ritual in chapter 4. The concept of efficacy is also a dominant
concept in Philippine cultural studies, particularly in the context of social art
and literary studies. The concept of efficacy is understood in performance
studies as embodied transgression and discursive subversion (McKenzie
2001). Following the same contextualization, in the Philippine context,
efficacy is most of the time articulated in postcolonial literary studies. In
the context of theater, the concept is linked to the study of political theater,
similar to the discussion of the 2009 National Artist Award protest in
chapter 5.
However, It is worth mentioning that in international academia,
the establishment of performance studies did not really transform from
one discipline to another. There are universities which retained theater
studies as the core discipline in the studies of theater and performance.
If in the past decades the disciplinal divide was drama vs. theater, the
institutionalization of performance studies paved the way for the theater
studies and performance studies divide. Stephen J. Bottoms (2003)
explains that the divide may be illustrated as the dichotomy of effeminacy
and efficacy, the former belonging to the theater studies and the latter to
the performance studies. Bottoms argues that theorists in the performance
studies discipline subtly implies the end of theater discourse as theatricality
is oftentimes associated with entertainment and not in the discourse of
society and culture. Theater Studies scholars insist that the discipline of
theater research is always centered on the aesthetics of embodiment. If

10
 Introduction

there is something that both disciplines probably share, it is the dismissal of

text as the central spine of research inquiries. In professional associations,
theater studies scholars converge together through the International
Federation for Theater Research (IFTR) while Performance Studies scholars
converge together through the Performance Studies International (PSi).

Theater Studies and Performance

Studies: The Philippine Context
As earlier mentioned, although theater research is not yet institutionalized
in the Philippines, it is an emerging discipline nonetheless, meaning there is
now a new breed of scholars in the humanities and cultural studies whose
research interests focus on the study of theater and performance following
the paradigmatic traditions of theater studies and performance studies in
the international academia where the dramatic text is no longer the primacy
in research activity but rather the tissue of embodiments and theories of
enactments onstage. And, since there is no disciplinal institution, these
scholars are from various art disciplines: art studies, theater arts, literature,
and area studies. Looking at the various new research works on Philippine
theater, these scholars have focused their analysis using the theater studies
model that oftentimes intersect with the performance studies paradigm.
In 2008, the UP College of Arts and Letters published a special
edition of the Philippine Humanities Review (PHR ) which focuses on
Philippine theater and performance. This volume includes new scholars
(or emerging scholars) whose research works attempt to theorize and
historicize varieties of theaters and performances in the Philippines.13 The
essays in this volume scrutinize Philippine theaters and performances
using various lenses—from anthropology, aesthetics, literary theory,
and sociology, among others. Thus, the interdisciplinary model of the
Schechnerian “broad spectrum” is very much alive in this PHR issue. The
publication of this special edition is indeed a very promising start for the
discipline that has just started to get recognized.

11
 Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines

The following year, PHR came up with another special issue focusing
on two traditional theater forms in the Philippines: the komedya and the
sarsuwela.14 In this special issue, these theater forms are theorized vis-à-
vis the conception of a national theater. The opening piece, a short essay
by Elena Mirano, talks about memory and nostalgia in the context of
Philippine art history. The essay is followed by Virgilio S. Almario’s piece
contextualizing memory and nostalgia in nation building as manifested in
both the komedya and the sarsuwela. The proposal for the institutionalization
of a national theater is Almario’s necessary step to recuperate nationalism
overpowered by the impingement of globalization.
Looking at the two volumes, the former may be inferred as studies
in theater and performance at a microcosmic level. On a more theoretical
level, this issue may be inferred as the theorization of the politics of
difference through performance. The essays transcend a territorial form of
nationalism, more popularly known as methodological nationalism in the
social sciences that was used during the heyday of theater research in the
1970s and the 1980s. The former is a collection of theater research works,
continuing the tradition of nationalism. By logical inference, Philippine
performance research (or the research on theater and performance
using the performance studies paradigm) is an attempt to historicize
and recuperate performance traditions of the nation beyond the center.
Theater research (or the research on theater and performance using the
theater studies paradigm), on the other hand, is dominated by a nationalist
perspective. If in the international academia of performance and theater
scholarship the scholarly divide is linked with what Bottoms (2003)
identifies as effeminacy and efficacy, the divide in the Philippine theater
scholarship is the culturalization of difference and essentialist nationalism.
In the essentialist nationalist strand of Philippine theater research,
nationalism is oftentimes interlocked with “methodological nationalism”
(Beck 2000), a critical enterprise pertaining to the concepts of nation
and state as natural entities of the modern world. This is the same with
“perennialism” or the belief that a nation exists through a continuous
national history and “primordialism” or the belief that the nation is part of
natural history (Holdsworth 2010, 11–12). Beck also identifies two important

12
 Introduction

limitations of this position: the essentializing character of nationalism and

the misreading of cultural plurality based on territory.
Nadine Holdsworth (2010) argues that the nation has always been
used as an entity to distinguish the “us” (the citizens) from the “them”
(the foreigners). In most instances, the distinction is based on bloodline,
territory, language, and religion. Like methodological nationalism in the
social sciences, Holdsworth explains that this form of territorial nationalism
suggests that “all citizens naturally gravitate towards and accept a singular
national rhetoric and that there is a singular national language to convey
this” (13). If we are to accept this, how can the rhetoric of a nation be
expressed in the case of a nation such as the Philippines, which has 171
languages, eight of which are considered as major and official (Tagalog,
Cebuano, Ilokano, Bikol, Kapampangan, Pangasinense, Hiigaynon, and
Waray)? Does the language of the center—in the case of the Philippines,
Tagalog—represent the national rhetoric of the Philippines?
Broadly, nationalism refers to a process or formation of a nation. It
may also be understood as a sentiment or a consciousness of belonging
to a nation. It also refers to a social or a political movement of a nation.
Above all, it is a doctrine or an ideology of a territorial and political
community known as the state (Smith 2001). Summing up these broad
descriptions, nationalism is oftentimes used to inform a sense of “place-
ness” in the world. Benedict Anderson’s (2003, 7) infamous theory of the
nation as an “imagined community” is an image of communion and an
image of comradeship providing a sense of belonging: “Regardless of the
actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is
always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship.” As a doctrine and
as an ideology, nationalism is used as a frame to define culture. Through
nationalism, one may be able to understand elements of values and
traditions in forms of stories, myths, and histories. As a defining element
of culture, it may also be used as a frame towards understanding identity.
Nationalism may provide a sense of character and a sense of consciousness
that may define the self in relation to others. In this sense, nationalism may
also invoke a very powerful emotional pull oftentimes difficult to explain.

13
 Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines

Using nationalism, the theater also presents perspectives of identity,

community, and other imaginings. Theater enhances “national“ life “by
providing a space for shared civil discourse, entertainment, creativity,
pleasure, and intellectual stimulation” (Holdsworth 2010, 6). In the turn
of the twentieth century, many theater performances in the Philippines
were living newspapers—entertaining and at the same time educating
the general public about the state of the country. It may also be argued
that theater is a useful tool in the construction of myths and imagined
narratives. For instance, Aurelio Tolentino’s Kahapon, Ngayon, at Bukas
(Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, 1902) constructs an imagined Philippine
community prior to the coming of the colonizers and provides an image of
an ideal Philippine community without the colonizers.
The other strand of research in Philippine theater and performance
is what may be invoked as postcolonial. Postcolonialism is a doctrine or
a theory to decolonize Western philosophy and historiography. Arguably,
postcolonial criticism is a process of decolonizing the ideologies inherited
from the West (or the colonizers). Postcolonial criticism implies a direct or
indirect critique of imperialism. Debatably, postcolonial criticism provides
processes of “canonical counter-discourse through which the imperial texts
are no longer automatically privileged at the expense of other discourses”
(Gilbert and Tompkins 1996, 6). A postcolonial theater artist or a postcolonial
theater critic “unveils and dismantles the basic assumptions of a specific
canonical text by developing a ‘counter’ text that preserves many of
the identifying signifiers of the original while altering, often allegorically,
its structures of power” (16). Utpal Dutt, a Bengali actor, director, and
playwright, revolutionized theatrical approaches to Shakespeare in India
during the 1950s by translating Shakespearean plays like Macbeth in
the context of rural masses, “dispensing with the conventions of the
proscenium stage and infusing his productions with the ritual traditions of
jatra, the folk theater of Bengal” (21–22). In this example, contextualization
is an important contribution of postcolonial criticism in theater studies. It
provides reflections about difference—religion, gender, ethnicity, etc.
Anibal Quijano (in Mignolo 2007) argues that coloniality constructed
“totality” which negates, excludes, and occludes the difference and the

14
 Introduction

possibilities of other “totalities.” Quijano explains that other totalities

under the colonial discourse “move toward and inverted ‘recognition’:
they had to recognize that Western languages and categories of thoughts
and therefore, political philosophy and political economy, were marching
and expanding without ‘recognizing’ them as equal players in the game”
(Mignolo 2007, 451). Postcolonial criticism is the assertion of agencies
that have been suppressed and oppressed by colonial structures of power
(Garcia 2004). Politicization and contextualization of difference are sites
of resisting oppressions and hegemonies either from colonial structures
or the inherited colonial structures of a postcolonial community like the
Philippines.
Helen Gilbert and Joanne Tompkins explain that a postcolonial agenda
is a political practice which “dismantle(s) the hegemonic boundaries and
the determinants that create unequal relations of power based on binary
oppositions such as ‘us and them,’ ‘First World and Third World,’ ‘white
and black,’ ‘colonizer and colonized’” (3). Gilbert and Tompkins suggest
writing (and staging) postcolonial texts that contribute to the “continued
destabilization of the cultural and political authority of imperialism” (3).
In addition, they assert that postcolonial criticism has “an affinity with
feminist and class-based discourses” (3). In general, Gilbert and Tompkins
give us an overview on how to determine postcolonial performances:

Acts that respond to the experience of imperialism, whether

directly or indirectly; acts performed for the continuation and/
or regeneration of the colonized (and sometimes pre-contact)
communities; acts performed with the awareness of, and
sometimes the incorporation of, post-contact forms; and
acts that interrogate the hegemony that underlies imperial
representation. (11)

By this we can conclude that theater performances in Manila after

Martial Law were, therefore, postcolonial. It is in this line of argumentation
that the postcolonial may be asserted as an extension of, if not a substitute
to, the nationalist sentiment.

15
 Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines

A special emphasis in the definition of Gilbert and Tompkins is the

third provision referring to the “acts performed with the awareness of,
and sometimes the incorporation of, post-contact forms.” In theater, this is
more popularly known as interculturalism. Patrice Pavis (1996) asserts that
intercultural theater is the creation of hybrid forms “drawing upon a more
or less conscious and voluntary mixing of performance traditions traceable
to distinct cultural areas. The hybridization is very often, such that the
original forms can no longer be distinguished” (8). In Pavis’s description, a
sense of celebratory hybridization of theatrical forms is invoked. However,
not all postcolonial theater scholars are enthusiastic about this practice.
Rustom Bharucha (1993), for instance, accuses some Western intercultural
theater practitioners of exoticizing and exploiting other cultures (particularly
the cultures of developing countries), in the same way that multinational
corporations exploit materials and labor of developing countries for the
purpose of capital. This line of postcolonial inquiry has not reached maturity
in the Philippine theatrical discourse. However, there are similar but
isolated studies like those of Judy Ick’s (1999, 2008) whose contributions
to Philippine literary (and theater) studies are directed towards the analysis
of how Shakespeare is localized on Philippine stage.
Resistances to oppression, the addressing of diversity, and the
nostalgia of Filipino immigrants abroad paved the way for a new paradigm
towards understanding Philippine culture and society. In general,
postcolonial outlook in the Philippines may be summarized as the plight
against neo-imperialism, the recuperation of the indigenous through the
discourse of hybridity or mimicry, making subaltern voices be heard and,
interestingly, the discourse about transnationalism and Filipino diaspora as
well. Postcolonial writings are always about going back to the indigenous
and the experience of “othering” and “worlding” (Legasto 1994).
Filipino social commentator and lawyer David Martinez does not
claim to be a postcolonial critic. His book, A Country of Our Own (2004),
suggests a postcolonial interpretation regarding the current state of the
Philippine nation. Martinez substitutes Manila as the new colonial master.
He accuses the central government (which is in Manila) of exemplifying
the same colonial enterprises experienced under the Spaniards and the

16
 Introduction

Americans and states that Manila is an ally of foreign capitalist brokers.

It exploits the resources of other regions, according to him, and criticizes
national and postcolonial discourses as propaganda of the Tagalog
community—the General Manila Area since the Philippines established its
independence in 1898 (from Spain) and in 1946 (from the US).15 He adds
that Manila has been dictating what the other regions should become. As
the constructed center, it has asserted its history, language, religion, and
culture as the homogenous characters of all the other regions when in fact,
these regions do have their own history, language, religion, and culture.
David Martinez’s proposition is the separation of the different
“nations” (understood as imagined communities) within the Philippines.
This, for him, is necessary as the central government has been manipulating
and dictating what other regions should become. Initially, the same
response was this author's position because his argument states that the
self-serving opportunity of the center homogenizes without recognizing
the specificity and historicity of other cultures in this “multicultural”
archipelago. However, this is no different from what Arjun Appadurai
(2006) argues in discussing the claim for superiority of a national ethos. A
multicultural outlook as a conceivable politics of difference and an embrace
of relativity is “conceived and practiced in absolute terms,” explains Ulrich
Beck (2004). The proposal of Martinez to separate the nations in the
Philippines embraces this bliss of “irremediable mutual ignorance.” In other
words, Catholics and the Muslims, Tagalogs and the Cebuanos, or the
Ilocanos and the Kapampangans in the Philippines can never be mutually
dependent on each other in this call for separation. “Politics of difference
are naturalized and neutralized into cultural differences,” says Slavoj Zizek
(2008, 660). As explored in the essay on komedya and cosmopolitanism,
culture is posited as something given and “something that cannot be
overcome, but merely tolerated” (660) in this culturalization of difference.
Tolerance implies that something else is better than what is tolerated, that
one culture is superior and another inferior. Following this argument on
“irremediable mutual ignorance,” it appears that dissents, confrontations,
and debates do not in any way contribute to a convivial community. It
seems that a global coexistence and a common humanity are not possible.

17
 Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines

When tolerance is practiced, the recognition of other perspectives is

unnecessary.

Itinerary of the Book

What has been presented so far is a provisionary discussion on the direction
of theater and performance scholarship in the Philippines. A collection
of essays, this book attempts to continue the conversation on theater
and performance studies in the context of Philippine scholarship. In the
discussions, the trope of entablado is used as a central idiom. Here the use
of entablado is twofold. First, entablado refers to its literal meaning, as a
space on which a performance takes place. The space of the performance,
however, is not only confined to the walls of an auditorium. It may also be in
a street, a foyer of a huge cultural landmark, a river, or a school auditorium.
Also, the space may not necessarily be a location exclusively for an artistic
performance. It may also be a space where people gather for the Divine,
for entertainment, for a political protest, or for an academic conversation.
Second, entablado is used here as a signpost for both ambivalence
and exact possibility. Borrowing the Hispanic origin of the term, entablar,
entablado may be translated into English as “to strike,” “to begin,” or “to
initiate.” The ambivalence is in the concept’s determinism, which also has
Hispanic origins, that seems to be suggestive of a need for an academic
discipline in Philippine academia where the starting point is this space of
entablado (theater and performance).
As stated earlier, theater studies and performance studies as
disciplines are emerging fields. By this emergence, an “initiation” for the
recognition of these disciplines as independent fields was thought about.
In this regard, the entablado is a link to the more traditional disciplines of
literary studies in which the stage is read as a cultural text. At the same
time, it is also a departure from the literary paradigm to read the entablado
as a cultural performance. Hence, this is where the possibilities of striking,
initiating, and beginning take place. The possibility of independence is
implicit in the chapters, that there is something in these performances
where the entablado (as a space) becomes a site for knowledge production

18
 Introduction

and consumption. In particular, the possibility of the Filipino entablado as

a starting point for sociocultural and art theory may finally commence.
Therefore, the possibility of entablado establishing a new paradigm in
the humanities and the human sciences is not trivial but necessitates a
reconceptualization of discipline: theater and performance studies.
In the chapter 1, entablado is used as a space for academic
interrogation. Here, engaged are the “forerunners” of theater and drama
studies in the Philippines who have already established a foundation
with regard to Philippine theater and performance. In particular, what is
being critique is a homogenized/essentialized Philippine theater identity
proposed by celebrated Philippine theater scholar Nicanor G. Tiongson in
his seminal essay “What is Philippine Drama?” an essay that has become
a canon in Philippine theater studies. However, this assertion is not
exclusively a Philippine theater scholarship articulation. Pieces of literature
on Asian theater studies (or in a microcosm level, the Southeast Asian
theater scholarship) oftentimes invoke a direct opposition of the West and
the East, with the East being a singular cultural entity. At the start of this
essay, the concept of “Asian-ness” implicated in Asian theater is being
critiqued. Here, the different concepts (e.g., communal, tradition, ritual,
spectacle, among others) invoked by most scholars in Asian theater studies
in this essentializing exercise is also is being scrutinized. What follows is
a discussion of how Tiongson’s essay engages in the same essentializing
exercise. However, the continuous theoretical discourse should not focus
on the construction of an Asian theater identity or in the case of the
Philippines, the Philippine theater identity. Instead, it should focus on the
affirmation of Asian theater identities or Philippine theater identities in the
Philippines.
Chapter 2 is the author's take on the komedya. It is not his intention
though to give a full-blown analysis on the performance practice of this
theater form. Instead, he focuses on the national komedya festival
sponsored by the University of the Philippines in 2008 and critique its
primary objective of institutionalizing the komedya as a national theater
form. In this essay, what is being described are the different activities that
occurred during the festival as part of the university’s centennial celebration.

19
 Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines

What follows is a preliminary critique against the institutionalization of

komedya as a national theater. Komedya puts Jesus Christ in the center of
Philippine culture whence the Philippines is not entirely a Christian (Catholic)
country. Thus, recognizing komedya as a national theater marginalizes
other performance traditions of the non-Christian communities, which are
as equally rich and colorful as the komedya.
Chapter 3 is a departure from the entablado of the theater to the
entablado of the Pampanga River. Here, an investigation of a performance
tradition seen through the lens of a performance studies paradigm
contextualized via the interdisciplinary approach of a Philippine performance
studies paradigm is being explored. Through the concept of the panata,
the chapter deals with the dynamism of a water ritual and festival locally
known as Apung Iru Libad (or Libad nang Apung Iru) in the small town of
Apalit, Pampanga. The chapter contends that in the three-day celebration
of the water ritual and festival, Apalit’s folk tradition enters into a series
of negotiations with the Catholic Church, a powerful structure influential
in the Apaliteños’ everyday lives. Amidst these negotiations, a particular
solidarity is performed even if the power struggle is manifested among the
social actors. In the end, the notion of a power struggle between the two
traditions is leveled if not inverted.
In chapter 4, the entablado of the river in Apalit is juxtaposed
with the entablado of the streets in Cutud, also in Pampanga. Here, the
focus is on the two Catholic rituals in this province: the libad (water ritual
and festival) in Apalit which is also discussed in chapter three; and the
pamamaku king krus (nailing on the cross) in Cutud. In this chapter, it is
argued that although these performances are borrowed from the dogmas
of Catholicism, they nevertheless present some ambivalences toward the
very Christian-Catholic religion on which these rituals are based.
Chapter 5 serves as a reflection and a preliminary insight into
the National Artist Award protest staged at the Cultural Center of the
Philippines (CCP) ramp in August 2009. Here, the entablado is transported
into the streets of Roxas Boulevard and the foyer of the CCP. The author
interrogates the protest using drama simbolico, the seditious musical
theater form against American colonization during the turn of the twentieth

20
 Introduction

century, and the political performances in the 1980s against the dictator,
Ferdinand Marcos, as tools of analysis. The National Artist Award Protest,
the author asserts, is a markedly political struggle whereby a non-violent
opposition to totalitarian and corrupted authorities was salient. The author
inquires whether or not this protest served as a microcosm of the Filipino
people’s disgust against imperialism using drama simbolico and the political
performances in 1980s as bases.
Finally, chapter 6 is a return to the entablado of the auditorium as the
theater of Josefina Estrella is being discussed. This chapter is a discussion
of cosmopolitanism as a possible critical frame in implicating globalization
in the discourse and practice of theater. A huge conceptual concept,
cosmopolitanism may arguably refer to an intellectual and aesthetic stance
of openness toward divergent cultural experiences in pursuit of imaginary
connections between the local or the self and others grounded by a vision
of conviviality. Here, what is being presented is a preliminary alternative to
the nationalist framework using two theater pieces of Josefina Estrella. In
this essay, the author looks at how war and perpetual peace are embodied
onstage in order to articulate a cosmopolitan disposition where the
stranger is not asserted as a foreigner.
From these discussions on Josefina Estrella's theater, and as the
concluding chapter of this book, the author propose for an archipelagic
methodology and a cosmopolitan outlook on the future for theater and
performance studies in the Philippines. The proposal is based on the
country’s archipelagic geographical position in the Asia-Pacific region and
based on an eagerness to engage theater and performance discourses
not only within the archipelago but also with the world (or the international
academia) as well.

NOTES

1. For instance, in 1976, in the film Minsa’y Isang Gamu-Gamo (Once a Moth),
Lupita Aquino-Kashiwahara tells the story of Cora dela Cruz (portrayed by Nora
Aunor), a nurse who dreams of a better life in the United States. Her application

21
 Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines

for migration has been approved but the night before departing for the US, her
brother, while playing at a garbage dump of an American base in Clarkfield, is shot
dead by an American soldier, Cora foregoes her plans of going to the US to bring
the case to court, only to realize that the accused soldier has been assigned to
another country. In 1991, American bases in the Philippines were still operating in
Subic and in Angeles City. PETA adapted the film to theater with the same title.
Nora Aunor reprised the role of Cora dela Cruz on stage.
2. In December 1983, PETA organized the First National Festival of People’s Theater
and Culture. Nicanor Tiongson acted as the overall chair of the symposium and
the conference components of the festival.
3. For a comprehensive list of research works related to drama, theater, and
performance, see Apolonio Chua (2012). Available souvenir programs of Dulaang
UP (the performing arm and laboratory for theatre students of the department)
boast of and highlight the production achievements of faculty members from the
theatre division.
4. The completion of both the undergraduate and graduate degrees in theater arts
in UP requires a thesis. Theatre 199 (for undergraduate) and Theatre 299 (for
graduate students) are introductions to research. In the undergraduate program,
most theses are illustrations and descriptions of the students’ creative work
(personal poetics on their creative work). The research work of graduate students
attempts to theorize the historicity of Philippine theater and performance.
Personal poetics on creative works are discouraged in graduate studies.
5. For details about the program of the Department of Speech Communication and
Theater Arts, see http://kal.upd.edu.ph/dsct_index.php?p=57.
6. For details about the Fine Arts program of the School of Humanities at the Ateneo
de Manila University, see http://www.ateneo.edu/ls/soh/finearts/bachelor-fine-
arts-major-theater-arts.
7. For details on the curriculum of the theatre studies programme of the National
University of Singapore, see http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/ell/undergrad3_3.htm.
8. Examples of theoretical modules are: Introduction to Theatre and Drama, History
and Theory of Western Theatre, Introduction to Asian Theatre, Southeast Asian
Performance, Crossing Boundaries in Performance, Major Playwrights of the
20th Century, Singapore English Language Theatre, Classical Asian Dramatic
Texts, Modern Drama, Intercultural Theatre, Stylistics of Drama, Theatre and
Postmodernism, Contemporary Theatre Practices, Praxis in Theatre in Performance
Theory, Performance in Social Space, Theatre Criticism, Practice Research in
Applied Theatre, Arts and the Law, Feminism and Theatre, Performance Research,
Applied Theatre, Performance and Popular Culture, Cultural Performance in Asia,
and Shakespeare, among others. The program also has an Independent Study
module where an undergraduate student is required to write a research paper

22
 Introduction

on a selected topic. On the other hand, practical modules include: acting, play
production, voice, screenwriting, internship, directing, and play production,
among others.
9. Apolonia Chua (2012) outlined these research activities. In his study, he provides
a general survey of the research works in the graduate studies office of CAL in
theater and performance. He also identifies the panata as a favorite topic and/or
theme.
10. Established in 2005, the Virgin Labfest project is a laboratory festival of new plays
by emerging and established Filipino playwrights held annually at the Cultural
Center of the Philippines (CCP) through the Tanghalang Pilipino, the official
theater company of the CCP and the Writer’s Bloc Inc., a group of Manila-based
playwrights.
11. In international theater scholarship, the issue of “liveness” is part of an old
debate, if not an obsolete theoretical issue. There are two important theoretical
positions: Peggy Phelan’s (1993) “ontology of performance” focuses on issues
of presence and absence in live performance but generally favors presence in
liveness. On the other hand, there is Philip Auslanders’s (1999) reaction against
“liveness,” arguing the importance of mediation in performance.
12. See for example his seminal opus on Philippine gay culture (Philippine Gay
Culture: The Last 30 Years: Binabae to Bakla, Silahis to MSM, 2008 [1996]) and his
collection of essays in Performing the Self: Occasional Prose (2003).
13. Ten research papers are published in this volume. Six authors represent the field
of performance studies: Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez talks about performativity and
power in the case of cockfighting; Cecilia dela Paz talks about the performativity
of Catholic icons, particularly the poon in Lucban, Quezon; Raegan Maiquez
theorizes about the relationship of modernity, place, folklore, and performance;
Sydney Gonzales-Villegas presents a phenomenological analysis of the Maytinis
ritual in Cavite; Gloria Tamayo presents a discussion of tradition as performance
as embodied in the luwa ritual in Taal, Batangas; and the author's essay, included
in this book, is an attempt to theorize how Catholicism negotiates with folk
narratives through performance. The remaining four essays represent theater
studies: Nicanor Tiongson describes the sarsuwela in the contemporary times;
Glecy Atienza talks about improvisation in the history of Philipine theater; Carlo
Garcia attempts to theorize set design through the lens of semiotics; and Dexter
Cayanes provides a biographical sketch of Leo Rimando as a theater artist in Los
Baños, Laguna.
14. In this PHR issue, authors went back to the tradition of theater studies that focus
on dramatic literature as most of the works critique the narratives of various
sarsuwelas: representations, ideological constructions of the nation, cross-
cultural analysis, and histories based on narratives.

23
 Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines

15. On June 12, 1898, Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed that the Philippines was finally
freed from Hispanic rule. He was proclaimed the first president of the then newly
independent Philippines after that. However, the independence was cut short by
the arrival of the Americans that same year. Historians explain that the Americans
bought the Philippines from Spain for USD 20,000 under the Treaty of Paris
agreement. After that, the Americans during the revolution agreed to help the
Filipino revolutionists, without them knowing that an agreement had been signed
in Paris. Thus, the supposedly victorious battle that the Filipino revolutionists won
over the Spanish troops was a fraud. On July 4, 1945, after Japan surrendered to
the United States, the American government finally decided to leave the islands.
Although the actual independence of the Philippines from the colonizers is July
4, the official celebration of independence is June 12. July 4 was observed as
Independence Day only until 1962. On May12, 1962, former president Disodado
Macapagal issued Presidential Proclamation No. 28 declaring June 12 a public
holiday in the entire archipelago. Through Republic Act No. 4166, Philippine
Independence Day was transferred to June12 and July 4 was renamed Philippine
Republic Day. At present, Philippine Republic Day is not a public holiday.

24