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A month after it won first prize in the Full-length Play in Filipino category at this year’s Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, Kanakan-Balintagos’ Mga Buhay na Apoy will open at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) on October 2 as Tanghalang Pilipino’s (TP) second offering for its 29th season.
Kanakan-Balintagos, who directed such films as Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros, Busong and Esprit de Corps, described the play—which he wrote in 1994, then hidden away and forgotten, and rediscovered in 2014—as a “Chekhovian” and “magic-realist” drama about a Manila-based family forced to confront “the harsh reality of extremely strained relationships resulting from the cowardly denial of some painful truth about their past and from the utter disregard for their glorious indigenous Palawan cultural roots and spiritual traditions.”
TP said in a statement that Mga Buhay na Apoy “is not just about the healing of the shattered relationships between a mother and her children in one specific Filipino family broken apart by domestic filial conflicts.”
It added that “[the play] theatricalizes the inevitable destruction, not only of the basic family unit, but of an entire human society that has been relentlessly ignoring its primary responsibility of caring for its earthly beginnings—the natural resources; the endemic inhabitants of ancestral lands; the intangible cultures of indigenous peoples; the unseen spirits that take care of the air, land and sea; [and] the ancient human values that have timeless relevance, that are all needed to save, not just one mother or one family, but beloved Mother Earth.”
The entire run of Mga Buhay na Apoy—which, Kanakan-Balintagos said, will feature Palawán chants, as well as dances such as the tarok and basal—coincides with the country’s celebration of October as National Indigenous Peoples Month.
The ensemble of Mga Buhay na Apoy boasts of strong and reliable actors, led by Irma Adlawan, who makes her first appearance in a play in two years.
At the play’s recent press conference, Adlawan said working with Kanakan-Balintagos was pure “joy,” adding that they first worked together in a Dulaang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas production of Rashomon in the 1980s, when the playwright-director was still known as Auraeus Solito.
Joining Adlawan are Peewee O’Hara, Malou Crisologo, Carol Bello, Russell Legaspi, Karen Gaerlan, Raymond Dimayuga, Kyrie Samodio, Jonathan Tadioan, Doray Dayao and Lhorvie Nuevo.
Equally strong practitioners in their respective fields comprise the production’s artistic team: production designer and noted architect Paulo Alcazaren, lighting designer Dennis Marasigan, costume designer James Reyes, musical director Diwa de Leon and dramaturg Ericka Estacio. ALVIN I. DACANAY
Mga Buhay na Apoy opens at the CCP Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino on October 2 and will run until October 25. Shows are at 3 and 8 p.m. For more information and ticket inquiries, call Tanghalang Pilipino at 832-1125 local 1620 and 1621, or 0917-8763678.