Balete
Tanghalang Pilipino (2024)
Direction: Chris Millado
Assistant Direction & Movement Design:
Delphine Buencamino
Press
“It makes a world of a difference when a production, and the people behind it, is grounded in the reality of those it seeks to portray; when a production actually genuinely empathizes with its characters, and does not treat them like mere play things in a silly game of dress-up. Everyone here delivers top notch work.”
"Balete is a theatrical tour de force! A showcase of what Philippine Theater can achieve when its best creatives come together to weave a tale so compelling, so ambitious, and so undoubtedly Pinoy one is brought to tears upon experiencing it on the stage."
The Wisdom of our Wounds
Dramaturg's Notes
In the first chapter of Tree, F Sionil Jose describes the balete tree to be so huge that six men with their hands joined could not embrace it. The last time my mother saw a tree that big was in grade school. I have never seen a tree that big my entire life.
I write this now between news reports of more loss: severe flooding in once flood-proof areas, the daily livestream of dismembered children, and heat index records breaking every month. In my hometown, streams from my childhood and other markers of simpler times have disappeared. My mother tongue, Ilokano, is becoming a softer echo of itself.
This production offers a similar tale. When F. Sionil Jose published “Tree” in 1978, Ferdinand Marcos Sr. had been President for 13 years and Martial Law had been in effect for six. When PETA staged Rody Vera’s adaptation, “Balete,” in 2002, a second People Power Revolution had just deposed Joseph Estrada. Our staging now takes place with their sons cozily seated in the highest offices in the country. At every turn, the children of clever men inherit centuries of stolen wealth while the children of hard-working men inherit centuries of grief.
What then is there to gain from the penitent accounts of a haciendero’s son? Why would the righteous march of this generation slow down to witness him track down a sliver of innocence from his childhood? What do we risk when we, the frightened and disoriented dreamers of today, discover that those who cause harm are also frightened and disoriented?
Paulo Freire suggests in the Pedagogy of the Oppressed to risk an act of love. We have been living in a culture that pretends it can disappear waste, only for it to return to our bodies as microplastics and disease. We have built an industry out of locking away the undesirables of society. We mistake pathologizing illness for repairing community, and shaming individual missteps for upholding systemic justice.
What could the revolution look like beyond this vicious legacy of atomizing and demarcating and eradicating what doesn’t suit the script? Can we extend our nationalist pride for brazen bannermen towards pride for the quieter and more irregular ways we are unlearning violence that resides in the home–in the heart? How can we, like the protagonist Kiko, take on the challenge to investigate the deep wounds of our history and restore the precious moments of who we aspire to be?
Our company asks this in many different ways. Our peasant situationer with Dr. Judy Taguiwalo reminded us to search with hope. Our visit at Mariwska Integrated Farm urged us to search with reverence for the wisdom of the land. Our devising sessions and rehearsals taught us to search with curiosity and humility.
We offer this challenge now to you. The balete tree bears witness.