‘Mabining Mandirigma’ in Iloilo City: The musical moves its wheels to the regions

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By John Anthony S. Estolloso

Since its premiere in 2015, Tanghalang Pilipino’s ‘Mabining Mandirigma’ has received first-rate reviews acclaiming the depth, brilliance, and relevance of the musical. For one from Iloilo City, one can only aspire to be serendipitously at the capital during its performance dates to witness its spectacle. But now, the musical – akin to the motions of its paralytic lead – has moved its wheels to the regions.

To write about the plot and narrative again would be an exercise in triteness: much has been written about Mabini as the eponymous character of the drama. Like any musical attempting to take on biography, the play can readily fall victim to the pitfalls of crippled sensationalism – and admittedly, there were moments when the musical nearly keels over to that. Somehow, it rights itself at the right moments and bits.

Onstage, more than Mabini the Man, you discover Mabini as Everyman – man and woman, child and parent, sibling and comrade, citizen and statesman, paralytic and paradox. The androgynous characterization further begs the question: in a history of struggle where men dominated most of the drawing-board of revolution, what is the place of the Filipina?

The production does not attempt to answer that; rather it gives you situations that might conjure the wraith of an explanation. Shaira Opsimar’s embattled character sits pathetically crippled yet powerfully rages on at the forces surrounding her, even as a masculine Arman Ferrer as Aguinaldo harangues the invalid. Nicanor Tiongson’s storytelling flips through history while Chris Millado’s direction enfleshes the story without losing touch of historical nuances. Toym Imao’s set designs verges on the Daliesque, as if to suggest to us that our aspirations of independence, liberty, and equity are but fever dreams incessantly plagued by self-interests and disunity.

The set bears closer scrutiny. Standing at the wings are the metaphors of the narrative: the coils of the brain encased in a riveted circle, ever-fixed on some lofty desire; on the other side, a heart bursting with curls of smoke, rising to the heavens like incense wafted to a divinity. Flanked by mind and heart, the machinery of the nation moves forward – or backwards. Utak, puso, at bayan: the last is centerstage of Mabini’s world, where the powerful play goes on.  There are no curtains to rise or fall for the players.

In the singing, we encounter vignettes of Mabini wearing various hats: child, student, statesman, writer, dreamer. Joed Balsamo’s scoring exhausts the range of Filipino and theater music in the characterization. We hear kundiman and hele sang alongside a patter song and a biting parody of The Battle Hymn of the Republic. The principals and chorus understand the assignment: the recitatives and choral numbers are intense, the choreography (by Denisa Reyes and Richardson Dayao) delivered with subtle nuance and depth.

On hindsight, these dramatic interplays echo the paradoxes and contradictions enmeshing our heroes. How does a reimagined Western aesthetic tell the story of one of our own history’s most underrated characters? Why is Mabini often left speechless, not by the gravity of his opponents’ arguments but by contradictions posed by himself? Why does a woman sing the role of a man?  ‘Mabining Mandirigma’ asks the uncomfortable questions which we still attempt to answer uncomfortably as a nation.

Altogether, the entire production is a litmus test of artistic feasibility and theatrical sensibilities: one does not simply ship a musical around without available prerequisite platforms and a readiness from the audience to appreciate it. We applaud the University of San Agustin and its various artistic organizations for giving the production an artistic space – and it is with no small degree of pride that one got to see familiar faces singing with the choir augmenting the performers centerstage.

If Mabini’s story is one of patriotic struggle confined to the chair, it reverberates in the musical. The struggle to mount the play on regional stages. The persuasion to make audiences come to terms that greatness or vileness of character knows no gender. The grind of having to come face-to-face with the same unending problems faced by Mabini in his times. The struggle of seeing Filipinos struggle with thinking matters through beyond self-interests and mediocrity. For worse than the paralysis of the body is the paralysis of the mind and heart, one that numbs the soul to remain sedentary and apathetic towards the turpitudes of the state. At any point the narrative and its subtext began to hit close to home, one can always paraphrase historian Ambeth Ocampo’s quip: why does the present begin to sound like the past?

In a time when students, researchers, and journalists are indiscriminately threatened in their work, when our government on occasion begins to resemble a circus of clowns, when everyone seems to run after the bait of monetary gain, ‘Mabining Mandirigma’ does not hesitate to speak out and condemn, even from the wheelchair: it permeates all who witness it. Suffice to say, our hearts, minds, and souls were full of what we have seen onstage in the evening of April 29. We shall need more of it: we look forward to the next play.

[The writer is a language and literature teacher in one of the private schools of the city. Photos are from Laragene Servando-Retazo and USA Publications.]