Incomparable Cecile

The most remarkable thing about Filipino playwriting in the mid-sixties was its perennially nascent state: Philippine drama always seemed on the verge of being born for the last 30 years or so. The published works – these were in English – hardly progressed beyond one-act plays usually written by authors with little or no actual involvement in theater.

The handful of three-act plays being staged then were comparatively shorter than the average full-length plays. A hypothetical ‘Evening of Philippine Drama’ would have consisted of several one-act plays strung together, and I could have safely wagered that in about two weeks’ time, the repertoire would have been exhausted.

In fact, the UP Dramatic Club’s decision to stage only Filipino plays was short-lived. Director Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero soon abandoned the crusade because he found himself staging the same plays again and again.

In April of 1967, Cecile Guidote, a young woman passionately involved in theater, went to the ruins of Fort Santiago. There, standing on the rubble and dwarfed by the jagged walls and ramparts towering above her, she quickly envisioned an open-air stage in their midst. Her idea roughly approximated the building of a theater in the environs of the Great Wall of China, the pre-Hispanic Walls of Intramuros, like the ancient walls of China, having been constructed solely to protect a people from marauders.

It was with unassailable logic, therefore, that Cecile had envisioned the Fort as an ideal theater for historical dramas. Accordingly, six months after her visit to the place, a theater rose from the ruins, the persuasive Cecile having elicited the support of certain influential persons and, not the least, of stage-struck youngsters who intensely believed in the cause of the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) which Cecile had organized and founded.

The inaugural presentation was Virgie Moreno’s one-act tragedy Bayaning Huwad ("The Straw Patriot") which harks back to the turbulent years of early American rule. The crumbling, gaping walls inevitably recreated a past era; an American soldier patrolling the parapet above the ruins heightened the impression that the farmers were engaged in clandestine activities.

To build up tension and suspense, to leave the audience in the grip of excitement, Cecile the director utilized every inch of the vast stage. Crowds were massed on either side of the embankment; actors walked or dashed from one extreme to the other.

Cecile’s ingenuity was put to an even more challenging test in the full-length Larawan, the first-ever translation in Pilipino of Nick Joaquin’s Portrait of the Artist as Filipino. With the tragic drama actually set in Intramuros, what more authentic venue for the titan’s Noble and Ever Loyal City? To enhance the country’s Hispanic past, a full-blown procession honoring Our Lady of Naval was reenacted on the main rampart which rises to an immense height overlooking the main stage. The unmatched spectacle was festively and vibrantly alive with buntings, blaring band and the Virgin’s chanting devotees. The incredibly resourceful Cecile even turned Intramuros’ urchins – now called "street children" – into instant actors for crowd scenes and walk-on roles!

The various devices could have achieved the dramatically visual and visceral effect only at the Fort Santiago Theater, shortly to be re-named the Raha Sulayman.

I reviewed the aforementioned plays, as also the widely-ranging, diverse presentations which followed: the Theater of the Absurd in translation, and not the least, traditional forms like the comedia or moro-moro and the zarzuela. Plays by Brecht, Goldoni, Arthur Miller, Ionesco, Aristophanes, Albee, Gogol, Sophocles, Chekov, Beckett, Pinter, Yeats, etc. were translated, adapted and interpreted in a manner that appealed to popular taste. Startling as this might seem, audiences empathized more closely with actors in foreign plays translated into Pilipino than in English dramas written by Filipino authors!

Years later, as an exception, a reading of Leonor Orosa Goquingco’s one-act tragedy Her Son, Jose Rizal was held in Intramuros. Cecile assumed the role of Doña Teodora, and never had audiences seen a more powerful, more compelling portrayal of Rizal’s valiant mother.

Long before then, the Raha Sulayman had come to be known as "the theater of the people". With involvement, commitment and relevance as its rallying cry, the PETA had always aimed at the building of a national theater which, in Cecile’s words, "draws meaning and power from the lives of the people speaking in the language of the people".

In 1972, Cecile, now married to Heherson "Sonny" Alvarez, fled to New York with her husband to escape the wrath of Marcos. In the Big Apple, she lost no time working with Ellen Stewart, the dominant figure of La Mama Theater Off-Broadway. Cecile then helped train Filipino players – including Ching Valdes – who belonged to the May-I Theater which was staging works based on the Asian-American experience. Forthwith, Cecile appeared with Jorge Ortoll in Juana la Loca, characteristically impressing theater-goers with her striking talent.

Cecile also organized PETAL (the "L for League), an extended version of PETA, to create a Filipino theater tradition. Quickly, PETAL garnered the "Outstanding Political Theater Award" from The Villager Off-Broadway.

I saw Cecile briefly in New York, and over tea, I could not help discerning that her passion, enthusiasm and obsession for theater were still as always, very much alive. Understandably, her name is a byword in UNESCO cultural circles and in the International Theater Institute (ITI).

Upon her return, Cecile started the award-winning radio series Balintataw, and formed the Earthsavers Dream Ensemble consisting of youngsters with impaired sight and hearing. Imagine the time Cecile has spent training them and conceptualizing their performances which, believe it or not, invariably win glowing praise abroad!

In view of Cecile’s unique, audacious, brilliant and, indeed, tremendous contribution to theater, do you wonder why some of our leading theater luminaries paid Cecile the highest tribute yesterday at the James B. Reuter Theater in St. Paul’s College, QC?