Monday, September 11, 2006

"despedida"

When I entered arvisu house, e never knew I could go back to doing Playback Theater. inside a formation house? Well, I did.

It started as a concept, to put up something for the send off party of one of our resident priests. Since I was one of the organizers, I want it to be personal and yet entertaining. I knew that Fr. eli also has a theater background, he was a stage actor during his early years. So he will definitely enjoy playback. I started by giving the seminarians (candidates) a short course on what is Playback Theater, what it does and what it was for. Then, I taught them some of the forms and the elements of the performance. The workshop was fun, knowing that the participants were non-actors but were open to the idea of coming up on stage and playing a role. After almost 4 hours of discussions, tasting and understanding the playback forms we proceeded to the rehearsal period. It was fun to see them acting out their feelings (I gave the workshop with 8 males) men showing real emotions, wearing their hearts out.

Five days later, the “despedida” send off party came. After a good dinner, we started with the program. The stage was set up. Complete with cloth tree, the chairs and the musical instruments. I conducted the performance. We started with fluid sculptures of the dominant feelings of the people who arrived to say their goodbyes to fr. eli. Most of them were ecstatic, elated and were very happy because he is leaving to finish his pastoral formation. We took a deep breath and the actors started moving, somebody was clapping and cheering, somebody was jumping with joy, somebody was speaking words of encouragement and someone was also singing a farewell song. The opening for was indeed heartwarming. For the second form, I decided to use pairs. One of the audiences gave a mixed feeling of sadness because he felt that he was loosing a friend and a counselor, but was also happy because he knew that fr. eli will come back next year. We had good 3 pairs. One pair was convincing each other to feel the opposite. One pair was closely intertwined that we saw mixing of both feelings and in one pair, the actor portraying happiness spoke loudly that it covered the voice of the lonesome feeling. All reflected the mixed emotion expressed by the teller. We had one story, but it made really the night for all who watched the performance. One of the guest priest, fr. jack us the story when fr. eli he was still a scholastic, he was the one who sent the news that one of his friend died in a mission to Cambodia. He told us how it was hard for him to tell the bad news but he has to do it. How they met and rushed to the airport to fetch his friend’s lifeless body. It was a bit hard for the actors, first because it was their first time to do playback and second because the story was a heavy one. But the guys pulled out the act. The person chosen to play the teller’s part was great. He even embraced the actor playing fr. eli’s part, after giving the sad news. That was the part where fr. eli commented that he was touched because they really did the same thing. He saw himself as if he was there again on the scene. The other parts were done just fine. We ended up with a fluid sculpture of their wishes, something that he can take with him for his trip.

All in all, the playback performance given by the first time actors were unexpected. Sincerity was seen in them, I guess that gave me the great satisfaction that they well understood Playback Theater. The mastery of the scenes, the lines and the blocking became secondary. The openness to be used as a toll for sharing stepped forward in the performance. I saw the actors as bearers of the story, the embodiment of the truth. The soul that was present in the teller’s story.

The “despedida” performance was not only a send off for fr. eli but was also a send off for all of us who were there. An invitation to the realities of life. An awareness of the coming and going of people in our lives. And the feelings that chose to stay with us, forever.

3 Comments:

At 2:47 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

hi, I used to be a part of our school theatre (IS Vietnam) every year. I am very much into theatre arts but since I got back to the Philippines I haven't had the chance to take part in any theatre performances. Do you conduct workshops aswell? I'm interested. Or would you know where I could attend workshops? please let me know: clarissvalvarez@hotmail.com

 
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