Theater in Mindanao

Overview of Theater and Literary History

If theaters essence is mimesis, or the imitation of reality, then many acts in

Mindanao qualify as theater. But, to encompass a large number of human activities as

mimesis -- that certainly applies to a lot of the daily acts we do -- makes our

qualifications impractical.

To qualify theater, I propose two categories: theater-as-process and theater-as-

staged. Within these qualifications are more specific instances of performance types, their

intentions, their contexts and contents, and their idiosyncratic expressions.

For our purpose too, theater refers to creative expressions performed solo or in

combination with dance, music, dialogue, chants, visuals, literature, and other

complementing media. This will have a recognizable structure. With composite

ingredients, theater may fulfill ritual functions or serve social demands as entertainment.

It may teach, propose some social action, or may work to fulfill all of these intentions.

Theater-as-Process

Theater-as-Process essentially fulfills communal functions in religion, economics,

cultural solidarity, and other socially beneficent actions in a community. There is little

distinction between the performer-participant and an audience. Spontaneous in its

performance, this theater includes communally-imposed procedures that improvise

creation, like rituals. Its creative production emphasizes the process to meet communal
needs like integration and defense. This kind does not have the need for art specialists

like a playwright or a director.

The Iliganun sinulog, for instance, the street performance mimicking the battle of

San Miguel against Lucifer and the rebelling angels by our qualification is theater.i In

costumes with swords and shields, the participants dance the eskrima, akin to the

Maranao sagayan (that mimics battle with warriors brandishing their kampilan and

tapping this on their wooden shields). A sequence orders the reenactment when the

adversaries face each other. Lucifers rebel group including soot-painted nitibos (natives

or agtas to the Iliganuns) taunt the angel-warriors who prologue their battle with their

eskrima. Then the groups clash and continue their dances. In victory, San Miguel and his

band genuflect and shout Viva! Seor San Miguel! The crowds lustily reply Viva!

The sinulog fulfills panaad, a sacred vow to repay past favors granted and to seek new

favors. In this creative reenactment, process is more significant than any canned end

product. The process is the production itself.

There too are other components of this annual celebration (from September 20 to

29) that qualify as theater. One such performance is the diandi that mimics Iligans

indigenous groups: the animistic Higa-unun and the Muslim Maranao venerating the

Christian Archangel. In two parallel rows, female Iliganun dancers take the roles of

Higa-unun and Maranao natives. The diandi (a term from an indigenous pact-making

ceremony among the Higa-unun) presents the courtship of male Maranaos and

female Higa-ununs. The reenactment of the diandi is in dance and verses are recited.

Rather than being a pact, it implies the Iliganun authority and worldview dominating:
the act of both non-Christian groups venerating the Iliganun icon of authority suggests

their patronage to the Christians.

Salient in these ritual events however is the annual presentation of Mindanaos

only extant comedia de santo, the Comedia de Seor San Miguel popularly referred to as

the yawa-yawa.ii The staged performance of the battle between the Archangel San Miguel

and Luzbel (Lucifer)is more structured than the street performance. Reenacting the battle

of the good against evil as in the sinulog, this morality play is produced from a script,

casts performers who are panaad devotees, performs with a composed music score, uses

artifices for staging effects, utilizes lights and a sound system, presents actors who don

designed costumes with similar patterns and who act to an audience separate from the

performer-participants.

The comedia straddles between the ritual reenactments in the theater-as-process

street performances and the more formally structured theater-as-staged type. It too fulfills

ritual functions. The staged performance is the end product of a creative process that

is thought of, planned, rehearsed, and supported financially. It has a narrative with a

conflict and a resolution (good winning over evil) caps its plot. The comedia nurtures its

actors who learn its production through apprenticeship. It inculcates all requisites of

theater production produced and staged before an audience.

Theater-as-Staged

Theater-as-Staged is this papers concern. An end product the play - is the

result of a process of creation in collaboration. While intentions for a plays production

vary, its creation process varies slightly among this theaters practitioners. It has these

general characteristics:

The presentation of a work is produced in collaboration among a community

of artists who are mostly specialists.

A production usually starts with a subject (or material as in a script, written

or improvised). This material is transformed and worked out by the efforts of

artists in collaboration with the end in view of presenting the work on a

stage.

An audience that views the completed work participates in varying degrees.

It may be separate (without any active participation in the creative process of

production) or may directly participate: being the source of the plays

material, they are thus feedback indicators of the works validity, or are

active participants themselves who join the production.

 i
Fernandez, 1985; also published as The San Miguel Fiesta Rituals: A Study of Form, function, and
Value. Iligan City: MSU-IIT, 1985.

Steven Patrick C. Fernandez and Nicanor G. Tiongson, The Comedia de San Miguel of Iligan City, in
ii

Nicanor G. Tiongson, Komedya (Quezon City: U.P. Press, 1999), pp. 45-190.