photo by Marili Fernandez-Ilagan
“WE did not expect it to be a huge production,” said Nikki Torrres of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Performing Arts Department who spoke in the forum following the 45-minute production of “Uyayi sa Digmaan” by Don Pagusara at the Tanghalang Huseng Batute on December 4, 2008.
And huge it appeared indeed. There was the 18-member troupe that played Moro music on the palabunyibunyian, providing an ominous introduction to a somber unraveling of the Moro war, circa 2008. Recently formed out of a foundation that goes by the uncanny name Serve the Children and Older Persons, its members looked like authentic Moro, which they were not. Fact is, the play itself, written by a non-Moro, was mounted by non-Moros.
In any case, “Uyayi sa Digmaan” at the CCP presented before a limited audience a human dimension of a war that has raged in Mindanao for ages. The war has been there for so long that it no longer offers excitement to newsreaders, except when the body count rises to hundreds and whole villages are plundered.
"Uyayi sa Digmaan," as “play within a play,” is an interchange of the scenes of the drama Norhaina, which Teatro Pagariya rehearses, and the off-scene moments between Raizza and Kurt who are the lead actors in the play. The dramatic and real life, as it were, dialectics on stage is what provides momentum in the action and development of "Uyayi sa Digmaan."
Norhaina, the play within, depicts the long trek of the Moro evacuees of mostly women and children in the wake of the war that breaks out at the Liguasan Marsh between the government troops and the Moro rebels. Raizza, a young Moro member of Pagariya, plays the central character Norhaina. Kurt, a Christian, plays Norhaina’s rebel- leader husband Hassan. Kuya Margo directs the play.
The rendition of the story of Norhaina offers a kind of heroic relief against a backdrop of war. Her heroism is marked from the moment she assumes leadership of the women and the barrio folk of Siarip-Agwak as they all flee across the waters of the Liguasan marsh until they reach the distant banks of Pagalungan. This she does as she carries her infant child. Her will and an abiding faith in Allah and the cause of the Bangsamoro struggle sustain her through the endless nights of their exodus, even as her heart sings constantly the uyayi.
In between the scenes of the Norhaina play, Raizza and Kurt have their own scenes of entanglement. Raizza has staked her personal honor and the pride of her people in her portrayal of Norhaina. But she is confronted with a kind of disquiet gnawing at her heart during the whole season of the rehearsal. Yet, she is enlivened excited by her relationship with Kurt, which, she realizes, has no future. She is a Muslim and Kurt is a Christian.
Norhaina’s ordeal and the trial of a relationship between Raizza and Kurt rise as the play’s songs and music culminates in the premiere of Teatro Pagariya’s production.
The play’s CCP outing was made possible by the Tag-ani Performing Arts Society, in cooperation with the CCP, as part of its Waiting in the Wings program. The program features plays that are “works in progress,” meaning unfinished. Nikki Torres noted that oftentimes, the performances were simply dramatic readings sans a directorial concept or production design. But Tag-ani did excerpts of “Uyayi” with lights and sound and all that. Choreographer-Director Marili Fernandez-Ilagan, a UP student finishing her masters in theatre arts, even made sure that the playwright’s lyrics were set to music and arranged for the CCP performance, and by noted artists such as Cynthia Alexander and Malu Matute. The cast and crew, composed of students from Miriam College, the Polytechnic University of the Philippines and the University of the Philippines, were admirable.
Perhaps, the sentiment that “Uyayi” created among the audience could be captured by the two foreigners who came in earlier than the Pinoys (so what else is new). They said they did not know the language but they nevertheless understood. And that they were touched.
And touch the audience a play ought to do.
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