USC Theatre Guild does it again with "Bahid"

On its 33rd year, the University of San Carlos Theatre Guild scored again with “Bahid”, an adaptation of playwright, teacher and national artist Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero’s “The Clash of the Cymbals” staged at the SM Cinema 1 over the weekend.

As a form of entertainment, the Guilders were able to share in the play their sense of humor, their artistic spirits, and their willingness to make the improbable probable, says director Loyd Sato who is also the president of the Guild.

As an instrument of education, the Guilders presented the characters of Edwin and Butch who are seemingly two different people but almost of the same situation, where insecurity and loneliness isolates them from the “normal world”; this, because of the intimate relationship they shared.

Bahid underscored that it was not intended to be a feel-good play. “It is more than that. It is education in theatre arts form. It is a social act wherein we present something to the audience and the end is for them to appreciate, critic, or even despise,” Sato said. “Whatever their feelings after the play, that is our primary objective—to make them feel something.”

As a document of history, Bahid featured Edwin and Butch trapped in a destiny different from others. Totally different and unacceptable at a time when it was taboo for two males to be in a romantic affair.

“Dapat na kitang patingnan sa doktor; nakakahiya, dalawang lalaking magkayakap,” freaks out Edwin’s father, a military captain who without discreet curses his own son, upon his discovery of him sharing intimacy with Butch.

Meanwhile, Butch has a drunkard for a father who left him and his mother when he was younger. His mother presented as a “frigid woman” seemingly accepts Butch for what he is.

Across scores of Marches and Decembers, B2B relationships in this predominantly Christian nation are despised even today. Those who are seeking blessings for same-gender marriages only end up being hurt all the more by public scrutiny and the church depriving them of Holy Communion. And that love—yes love that knows no bounds—is tagged as malady, and them lovers as fornicators.

But on the course of the revelations of each “Bahid” scene, one is moved to the obvious that is not the uniqueness of the relationship but the truthfulness of the situation of the Filipino family. That it is “trapped in a dream of façade and stricken by the cancer of truth and denial,” Sato said.

“The play is foremost a story of a father, mother, and a son, and their relationship with each other, and how this relationship has changed the very core of their own existence,” Sato pointed out.

After mounting “Elena” in 2006 written by Sugbu’s playwright laureate Vicente Sotto, and “Halok sa Tarantula” last year translated by Jonathan Alberto/Rudy Aviles in Sinugbuano, the Guild has performed skillfully, true to its commitment of bringing significant and socially realistic plays that moves and educates not only the Carolinians but the Filipino audience in general.

The only minor drawback is that a play is never as witty and seasoned with that “kilig factor” as when it is written and delivered in the mother tongue. Of course, we have to understand that Bahid could be part of or was aligned with the celebration of the Buwan ng Pambansang Wika.

Further, it was learned that after the Guild made way for changes in orientation to take shape, artistic development as well as organizational consolidation was the call of the day. Then, it already became a mission to continue producing plays with social relevance, values as themes.

In 2000, the Guild was no longer referred to as just an organization, but as one of the Performing Arts group of the USC, honing homegrown talents who not only act but also write and direct plays.

To date, the Guild is revered as the oldest and most established University-based theatre group in the Visayas and Mindanao.

Sato said, “I believe this is the only University-based theatre company that can do this kind of production (referring to Bahid) because we have such a strong emphasis on ensemble work in the Guild matched by the ability to break barriers and face challenges one production at a time.”