Sibol classic Sa Kaharian ng Araw evokes high school nostalgia

I spend most Sundays with my mom and brother Paul. We hear Mass in Greenhills, and then have lunch somewhere near the area. Over lunch last Sunday, Paul told me that during the EDSA Revolution holiday on Feb. 25, he and two friends went out of town. Their destination was neither the beach nor the mountains, but the oasis-like campus of Xavier School Nuvali to see a play.

It was a production of Sa Kaharian ng Araw, which was written by the legendary Dr. Onofre Pagsanghan (a.k.a. Mr. Pagsi) and his son Joel more than 40 years ago. I am very familiar with the name of Mr. Pagsi since my two brothers and all my male cousins went to Ateneo de Manila High School, where he is revered as one of its most beloved teachers.

When I was in high school, I used to go to Ateneo just to watch the plays of Dulaang Sibol, the theater group established by Mr. Pagsi. Sa Kaharian ng Araw is a Sibol classic that is staged every few years, and now, in what I believe is a first, the play was being staged not by Ateneo Sibolistas, but by the Xavier Actors Society in its Nuvali campus.

And so, I asked Paul to write about the experience. He readily obliged because Kaharian is not only a touchstone of his high school memories, but because the Nuvali version’s director, Marvin Ong, had been a child actor in the late ‘90s educational TV show Epol/Apple, which Paul had directed several episodes for.

Here is his review of the play:

A timeless story about friendship, painful sacrifices, and the often crushing gap between expectation and reality, Sa Kaharian ng Araw was wonderfully and creatively staged by its talented cast and crew in Xavier School Nuvali. In its first few minutes, the opening song made me and a friend teary-eyed. Having seen many iterations of the play over the decades in the all-boys productions staged by Ateneo High School’s Dulaang Sibol, we were taken aback by the richness of the main theme’s soundscape as it was performed by Xavier Nuvali’s co-ed cast of senior high school students. How much more colorful and youthful the song sounded with girls adding their dulcet tones to the chorus!

A timeless story about friendship and painful sacrifices, the new version of Sa Kaharian ng Araw was staged at Xavier School Nuvali and directed by Marvin Ong.

The play’s 60-plus minutes just flew by. An innovative touch of the director was his use of painted wooden boxes/blocks the size of basketballs which the engaging main characters, Ponce (Kyle Yuan Cancino) and Paolo (Red Baron Barba), not only sat on but used as “stepping stones” as they journeyed from one plot point to the next. Those wooden blocks, though, made me nervous for the actors, because one misstep could easily have resulted in an injury. Thankfully, no such accidents happened, but their frequent use certainly added a layer of suspense and tension to the viewing experience!

I found the costumes worn by the kings of Rain, Wind, and Darkness to be eye-catching but not attention-grabbing, evoking the essence of those kingdoms clearly and economically with a few simple materials. Kudos to costume designer Maria Enaje.

The sound was marvelous, too. Though no lapel mics were used, every word and note spoken and sung by the actors was picked up by strategically-placed microphones and heard by the audience loud and clear. This, even though the performance area was an intimate subsection of the spacious John Tiu Ka Cho Multipurpose Center, a large hall big enough to contain three or more basketball courts.

When the play ended, we greeted the cast with sustained, thunderous applause.

After the audience left, the director approached us and asked us what we thought. I told Marvin that his work brought tears to my eyes, and that his innovations — especially the inclusion of girls — made me feel as though I was seeing the play for the first time. The friends I was with, both of whom are current moderators of the Dulaang Sibol theater org, had “notes” which Marvin intently paid attention to. Their brief exchange included an animated discussion about which character — Paolo or Ponce — should wake up first when the play begins, and even a radical suggestion about how to make the story’s ultimate revelation more minimalist but more impactful. Ah, the details that theater folk obsess over!

Before we left, though, we assured Marvin that he had nothing to worry about because his kids were all very talented and natural performers. He introduced them to us as they were about to have lunch, and we congratulated them for their affecting work. I also complimented the young man who played the Wind King, Dan Lawrence Manguiat, on his perfect conveyance of childlike wonder in the part where he listens to the Paolo character play his guitar.

The director reiterated his invitation for us to stay and watch the female version of the show, which was to start in a couple of hours. Sadly, though, we had to decline because my two companions had to be back in Quezon City for the performance of another Dulaang Sibol classic later that day.

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Sa Kaharian ng Araw ended its run on March 4 without Paul having had the opportunity to see the female version. He later heard through the social media grapevine, however, that audiences were also heaping praise on the version with girls as the leads, and that it may be restaged in September. Paul will make sure to see it then, and if all goes well, I will join him for my dose of high school nostalgia as well.