MANILA – In celebration of Nick Joaquin’s birth centennial, the UP Playwrights Theater (UPTT) brings back to the stage Nick Joaquin’s “Fathers and Sons/Mga Ama, Mga Anak.”

Based on the National Artist for Literature’s short story “Three Generations,” the play was first staged by the Philippine Educational Theater Association in 1977 for which the original English script was translated into Filipino by Virgilio S. Almario and Jose F. Lacaba.

It is not a simple matter to just sit down and watch a Nick Joaquin play, especially one with characters as complicated as the ones we meet in “Fathers and Sons/Mga Ama, Mga Anak.”

Set in 1974 when Martial Law was at its height, the audience is taken on a 24-hour ride through the travails of the Monzon family accompanied by the ghosts of unresolved issues that threaten to break them.

The Caretela King, Zacarias Monzon, sits in his old, crumbling mansion holding court with memories of better days. A self-made man, he prides himself on having risen from humble beginnings to sit at the head of a powerful and wealthy family.

He is attended to by his spinster daughter, Nena, who has made it her vocation to care for her ailing father and who proudly states that she never married because no man was brave enough to ask her. She is aided by a young woman named Bessie, a lusty, outspoken “working girl” who Zacarias brought home from one of the bars he used to frequent.

His son, Marcelo Monzon or Celo as he is called, a successful and well known personality in the world of business, pays a visit with his son, Chitong who is a novitiate at a seminary. It is that point that the ride begins and we are taken along as hostages to the Caretela King’s tirades, his only son’s inner conflicts, his daughter’s seeming subservience and his grandson’s grand realizations.

The ride is made more interesting by Zacarias’ daughter-in-law who is a society matron like no other, his rowdy yet tender mistress, and a local woman with an undying crush on the grand patriarch. We are asked to sit with the larger-than-life Don at his long table, to listen to his stories of days past when he was a demi-god, at least to his mind.

We watch in abject horror as the self-proclaimed demi-god is reduced to a blubbering fool when old age and frailty overtake him. We attend his funeral at the end where not only his mortal body is laid to rest, but where the wounds of father and son are finally healed.

Leo Rialp and Menggie Cobarrubias (who play the role of Zacarias alternately) strike imposing figures onstage despite their characters being tied to a wheelchair. In equal doses of spitfire and senility, both veteran actors take us back to Zacarias’ time when he was king of the world and show us his helplessness and mortification at having to depend on other people to feed and dress him.

Rody Vera as Marcelo Monzon is at once tough and vulnerable, his portrayal of a son vacillating between love and loathing for a father who to him was a brute, and his later realization that he has become his father is nothing short of powerful. Vera alternates with George De Jesus III and Greg de Leon in this role.

Adriana Agcaoil (who alternates with Issa Litton) is a wise yet playful Sophia. She saunters across the stage, a billowing cloud of bright caftans and perfume, and presents to us a worldly and realistic woman hiding behind the perfect society matron’s mask. Adlibs between her Sophia and Rialp’s Zacarias were hilarious.

Stella Canete-Mendoza’s Nena is restrained and proper until her eruption at being mistaken for one of his father’s mistresses gives us a glimpse of the ghosts Nena inherited from her mother. Her delivery of that line: “Father, I am not Doray!” spoke volumes.

Banaue Miclat-Janssen’s portrayal of the same role brings a little bit more of that anger to the forefront. While her Nena remains dutiful, there is always that hint of stifled resentment at having to remain with her father.
Candy Pangilinan as Bessie is sassy and unashamed – a perfect ploy against the stuffy, repressed characters onstage. She is able to convey Bessie’s natural acceptance of her position in society, her unabashed admission to what she is and what her perceived role is. Playing Bessie on other playdates are Paula Benitez, Sarina Sasaki and Chloe Jenna.

Carlo Tarobal, in the role of Chitong, is effective in playing the part of the confused novitiate, a young man in search of his own truth. There is a hesitation in his stance, a second guessing of sorts, when he speaks to his father which adds to the image of a young man who has just started on a life journey. Mark Dalacat and Tracy Quila alternate with Tarobal as Chitong.

Olive Nieto is Mrs. Paulo, the middle aged woman with a lifelong crush on Zacarias. As she swoons and palpitates over her close encounter with the old man, Nieto is funny and, like Pangilinan’s Bessie, quite unabashed and unapologetic over her bouts of fangirling. Her portrayal provided light moments to otherwise somber scenes.

As expected, esteemed director Tony Mabesa does not disappoint. Mabesa, a Gawad CCP Para sa Sining awardee and mentor to many of the faces that now grace our theatre stages, brings this Nick Joaquin classic to life once again and effectively transports the audience to that old mansion, like curious neighbors allowed to peek into the private lives of the people next door. His expert direction allows each scene to flow gracefully into the next at a comfortable pace.

The characters’ presentation is not as caricatures, but as real and relatable human beings.

The Filipino translation by Almario and Lacaba accurately render the original English script and more. There is something about hearing these lines spoken in one’s native tongue that make them more real and earnest.

Joaquin’s “Fathers and Sons/Mga Ama, Mga Anak” is a complicated tale of acceptance and defiance. It is a story that speaks to any of us who have gone through the internal conflict of devotion and the longing to break free, the fight between how we want to be seen and how we really are, the desire to forgive and the predilection to cast a curse.

In the end, these seemingly unresolvable issues are burnt in a conflagration that celebrates the inner complexes of human beings: our moments of pride, the times when we were less and the instances in between when all seemed as they should.

“Fathers and Sons/Mga Ama, Mga Anak” runs until September 24 at the Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero Theatre at the Palma Hall in UP Diliman, with dates set for the English staging and Filipino staging. For tickets, sponsorship or show buying, you may call the Dulaang UP Office at telephone number 926-1349 or inquire e-mail at dulaangupmarketing@gmail.com.