Written by Camille Dominique Javier
Tanghalang Pilipino celebrates the 150th birthday of Aurelio Tolentino—renowned Filipino playwright, dramatist, propagandist, and member of the KKK—by launching its most recent production, Aurelio Sedisyoso: A Rock Sarswela. This roughly three-hour-long play gives a portion of Philippine history a fun and interesting spin with its rock music ensemble and loosely-executed steampunk set theme, comedic character portrayals. Aurelio Sedisyoso will surely entertain theater enthusiasts who are comfortable with the non-traditional and who enjoy rock music and don’t mind a bit of dissonance and asymmetry in the stage set up.
Written by playwright veteran Nicanor Tiongson and directed by Chris Millado, Aurelio Sedisyoso focuses on the life of Aurelio Tolentino during the American occupation; right from when the Spaniards ceded the Philippines over to the Americans. At the dawn of a new government—democracy—the nation remained submissive to the colonial power of America, but nonetheless, revolutionaries like Apolinario Mabini and Mario Sakay kept the fight. Tolentino, on the other hand, took the fight through propaganda by writing plays that he’d hoped would ensue, trigger, and unite his Philippine audience in a sense of nationalism.
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In a similar manner, Aurelio Sedisyoso aims to recreate Tolentino’s style dramatic symbolism as a means to trigger the audience to action or at least spark a strong sense of emotion and empathy using the characters or elements in the play. It seems apt that rock was the chosen genre by musical director and composer of the play, Joed Balsamo, since the genre is commonly used as an avenue to express strong emotions like anger, frustration and angst. A small band of rock musicians accompanied the songs which gave the play a very edgy yet somehow casual appeal. In addition to the rock band ensemble, actors were dressed in dark and edgy costumes fused with traces of familiar Filipino fashion during the American period, designed by Paris Young Designers finalist, James Reyes.
Aurelio Sedisyoso rounds up an interesting cast of characters featuring some familiar names like Norby David from Rivermaya, Alfritz Blanche, and Baron Geisler—who makes his theater debut as Tikbalang, a metaphorical symbolism for the American government. This interesting cast also features fresh faces who are set to make it big in the industry such as David Ezra, a budding and yet accomplished theater actor with a powerful voice, who plays the lead role of Aurelio Tolentino. Although seemingly too young to play the role of someone addressed as “Tatay” in the play, David Ezra gives a powerful performance as he belts out and hits all the right notes with ease throughout the play.
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Overall, Aurelio Sedisyoso makes a fascinating play to watch. Although there were some lulls in the play from time to time, the cast is sure to catch your attention again; whether it be through a comedic song or a powerful show-stealing act somewhere in between.
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Tanghalang Pilipino
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