Last July 5 (Friday), I
went to the Cultural
Center of the Philippines (CCP) to watch “Jun Ispater,” a staged reading by
Tanghalang Pilipino upon the invitation of a former student of mine, who I
shall refer to as Tinay. The event was part of “Virgin Labfest 9”, which
features “Untried, untested, unstaged plays.”
So right after my
class at Philippine
Christian University-Dasmariñas, I hopped on a bus straight from Cavite to
the CCP. I didn’t know where the Tanghalang Amado Hernandez is. It turns out
that to get to it, I had to take an entrance on the right side of the CCP, pass
through a warren of offices, and get into a relatively small room at the end. I
got there just in time for the Philippine National Anthem.
The experience was a
stark contrast with my watching of SOAR:
The Musical at De La Salle – Health Sciences Campus. A set of black curtains
hung on back of the low stage. There were six music stands on front and six
chairs where the actors will sit. The room contained around a hundred seats of
so.
The event is termed a “staged
reading” where the actors read their parts from a script. But far from being a
radio play, the actors occasionally leave their scripts on the stands and act
out their parts.
The play opens with
the three male characters. The title role is held by Jun Ispater (‘spotter’), a
hustler who makes a living
by conning out other people in billiards. His friend is a dim-witted buffoon
named Boying. The third character is Danny, a foul-mouthed, gun-toting security
guard. Jun is in a bind to find money to pay for the tuition fees of his
sister, April.
The female characters
are April (played by a lovely, chinky-eyed girl), Jun’s sister, who wants to
join a singing contest in order to have money to pay for her tuition. Her
friend is Grace, who encourages her to join and win the contest. The cast is
rounded off by my student Tinay, a “vocally-challenged” girl who works as a
cook and cleaner at the nightclub/billiards hall where Jun works. (In the play,
Tinay is described as “pipi”; but she
is not mute. Her Wookiee-like
vocalizations are among the comic reliefs of the play. I wonder what her lines
in the script look like?)
Danny hatches a scheme
to steal from the nightclub/billiards hall and enlists the help of Jun, Boying,
and even of Tinay. Jun is torn between engaging in an “honest” living as a
billiards hustler while Boying is sorely tempted by the offer so he could have
money to celebrate his anniversary with Tinay, his girlfriend.
Danny, Jun, and Boying
eventually carry out their robbery of the nightclub but they had to take Grace
because she was a witness to the crime. Danny eventually murders Grace.
Jun gives the money stolen
from Grace to April for her tuition, but she instead spends it to buy
medicine for their ailing mother. Blaming herself for getting Jun in desperate
straits just to have her finish college, April commits suicide. (The noose
lowered from the ceiling is the only prop in the play.)
“Jun Ispater” is a
story of the tensions within society. The conflict
is not so much as “Man vs. Society”, a picture that Danny wants to paint: rich
versus poor. The true conflict is “Man vs. Himself” as exemplified by Jun and Boying. In the face of human need, does one
remain in the path of “sipag at tiyaga”
(‘industry and patience’) or contemplate a life of crime?
* * *
The
soundtrack of the play is “Basta’t
Maghintay Ka Lamang” by Japanese singer Ted Ito (see YouTube video here). In the play, the
song is said to be a favorite of the father of Jun and April. It’s the song
that Jun plays in the billiards hall (“Eh
yan lang ang laman ng CD eh!”), the song in Grace’s cell phone, and April’s
entry into the singing contest. It exemplifies the ideals of Jun and his father:
no matter how hard things get, just wait.
No comments:
Post a Comment