'Bayan-Bayanan: Letters From Home' to be Staged at CCP This July 2022

The critically-acclaimed play written by Bienvenido Noriega Jnr and staged by internationally recognised theatre and film director Anton Juan comes home to Manila this July 2022

The post-war Filipino diaspora has left a mark on the world's consciousness. When global audiences look at Filipino people, they see creative, resourceful, and skillful individuals ready to brave and stand out in every industry. Back home, the promises of better living, earning higher salaries and eventually being naturalised in a first-world country were etched in the minds and hearts of so many generations that it has become a dream. Down the line, we have witnessed its realities in the social milieu.

This pivotal moment in our society in the middle of the 20th century, at the height of the Martial Law regime, has been the subject of Bienvenido M Noriega Jnr's classic play Bayan-Bayanan. The play sheds light on the timeless stories of Filipinos working overseas, both heartwarming and heartbreaking. It was first staged at the Cultural Centre of the Philippines (CCP) in 1975 and won the coveted grand prize in CCP's playwriting contest.

With the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) being present in different parts of the world, the multi-awarded playwright, actor, and filmmaker Anton Juan staged the material in Manila, Athens, London, Paris, Chicago, Toronto, and Geneva (where the play was set). Over the years, he has been developing the material as each location would have different OFW stories to tell. The 2014 Toronto production of the play showcased a new version of the material—more scenes and characters were added. This July 2022, fans of the classic play and a new generation of theatre folks would be indulged by a musical iteration of the beloved material as it returns to CCP.

Above Anton Juan

Twice knighted by the French republic for his contributions to the arts and the academe, Anton Juan shares with Tatler the stories on and offstage of Bayan-Bayanan throughout the years.

"I did it thrice in Manila before with different casts, including National Artists Rolando Tinio and Fides Cuyugan-Asensio, who played husband and wife, and the late veteran actress Veronica Palileo, to name a few," he recalls. "The play has undergone many histories, with many of its former casts already crossed on and had casts who were actual migrant workers."

Juan shares that one's joy is seeing theatre neophytes utilise their cultural knowledge, which is traced back to beauty pageants in the barangay or karaoke, into more meaningful projects like this play that speaks about their lives.

The theatre master explains that the reason why the play has experienced changes throughout the years is that "as you go along, the times create other contexts as well and new vocabulary."

An example of this was something he picked up from the Athens production of Bayan-Bayanan. Most nights after rehearsals or performances, Juan would be joining the company for late-night hangouts. One of them would shout "Oy halika na kayong mga KKK!" (Come on let's go KKK people!" Curious about it, Juan asked for the meaning of the KKK as it was either the notorious Ku Klux Klan or the honourable Katipunan revolutionary movement that he knows. Turns out, it was a derogatory acronym for 'kudkod kubeta' (toilet bowl cleaners).

"Can you imagine?" Juan asks rhetorically. "From the Kataastaasan, Kagalanggalangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (Supreme and Honourable Association of the Children of the Nation), it becomes kudkod kubeta." The shift in what was perceived as honourable enraged Juan, not to mention the fact that an old word in Greek was not used anymore because they use Filippinéza "to describe not a woman of our race but a domestic helper".

It was not easy staging Bayan-Bayanan in other countries, Juan shares. "There was no embassy at that time in Athens. When we did it in Geneva, it became more meaningful to them in terms of realities being it was the city where the International Labour Organisation was based. Moreover, the story was set in Geneva because it was Boy Noriega's inspiration. The bagong salta (foreigner, neophyte) character in the play was actually him."

For the 2022 musical production, Juan partnered with many composers over the years to complete the songs. It includes Cleofe Guangco-Casambre (music composer for Rizal's Sweet Stranger), actor-singer Narcies Cabico, pianist-composer Andrew Bryan Sapigao, composer-musical arranger Jonathan Cruz, and members of the Metro Manila Concert Orchestra. The production is part of the lineup of the French Embassy in the Philippines' celebration of the 75th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between France and the Philippines and is produced by Erehwon Centre for the Arts, of which Juan now serves as chief cultural consultant.

"I think it is the groundedness in the different characters that struck me the most when I first came across it that made me want to stage it here and abroad," says Juan. "The characters stand in their own world that they have each created. The nurse character is kind and sensitive, but she is not sensible. She meets this Italian guy and falls in love with him, but he never goes to see her. She is fooled, like many other migrant workers who share the same fate." he explains.

Juan admires the genuine love and care that the Filipino migrant workers express to their wards abroad—treating them like family and calling them in Filipino endearment words. However, for the migrant workers, there is this continuing quest for 'home'.

In his director's notes, Juan wrote: "And what happens meanwhile, in this duration of being away from the mother country? We play nation like we play house or school as children, but in these games that arise with playing nation, our stories intertwine. No Filipino is alone—whether by cellphone at Viber or Skype or text (before the rest of the world got to know it) so that we invented the revolution by text, or by padala and putting things in a balikbayan box the whole year round for Christmas; or by gossip; or by eating parties; or by common pain; or by adobo festivals; or by performances such as this. We are always with kabayans or families and extended kins—or with our memories."

This sense of fidelity to their homes and the nation binds them to their work, Juan shares with Tatler. Although they are far from home, the migrant workers keep their Filipino spirit alive as much as they could.

Juan strongly expresses the plight of the migrant workers is not just evident in the Filipinos. People work abroad not only to earn more and provide better lives for their families back home but because of the reality that minimum wages and salary levels differ in many countries. In his stint as a professor at Sorbonne, he had a whole class of 16 students who were children of migrant workers of varying nationalities. Likewise, in London, he had students living in a borough where 125 languages were being spoken.

"Bayan-Bayanan was like moments of their identities as children of migrant workers," he opines. He shares that he had an activity with his pupils where he asked them to draw their last memory of their country of origin. A student asked if he could draw the war but his mother, a Syrian refugee, opposed it vehemently. Juan interjected and said, "No. You have to know where the origin is so that the process of assimilation is very clear to them. If you stop them and they get back to it later on in their lives, it will be a process of dichotomy. It is important for them to be conscious of the issues of the world as they assimilate," he explains.

"When Boy Noriega wrote this, it was almost like a Chekhovian play, where you take a moment and expand from there. Each issue it opens comes from [somewhere] personal, then it tackles a certain complex of a particular culture or the societal problems that continue to this day. It doesn't point to the relevant issues today like a prescription," Juan says.

Making up the cast are well-known theatre actors as well as first-time stage performers. Professional theatre actress and singer Banaue Miclat-Janssen portrays the central character, "Manang." Banaue has performed in various spaces and films in the Philippines and abroad. She is an Aliw Awards Foundation Hall of Fame for Best Performer awardee.

Ava Olivia Santos, a singer, recording artist, and actor in theatre, film and television, portrays a Filipino nurse struggling to carve a better life for herself abroad, seeking a fairy tale love.

Noriega wrote himself into the story as Dino, a scholar sent to study abroad on an international scholarship, much as Boy Noriega was when he was inspired to write the play. Dino is portrayed by theatre actor and classically trained singer Carlo Mañalac, who is remembered for having played several roles in different presentations of Kanser, a theatrical adaptation of Rizal's Noli Me Tangere.

Roxy Aldiosa, a soprano who is both a theatre actress and musical director, teams up with tenor Carlo Angelo Falcis, who is a singer, actor, and voice coach, to portray a comically annoying couple, status seekers who believe that any life abroad, even hardship posts, are better than life in the Philippines. Jacinta Remulla, known for acting in Suntok sa Buwan, has been cast as the couple's sultry and flirtatious niece, Connie.

Richard Macaroyo is Pol, the TNT, the illegal migrant, luckless in so many ways. Greg de Leon, who portrayed "Elias" in Noli Me Tangere: The Opera, is the perennially homesick Ginoong Luz, whose loneliness can only be lifted by the melodious singing of his wife. Opera singer Jane Wee is Ginang Luz.

Completing the Bayan-Bayanan cast are Christine Angelica Evangelista, Timothy Carlo Racho, Kendrick Tamayo, Abigail Sulit, Jane Florence Wee, Matteo Teehankee, Karina Macaspac, and Adrian de Ubago.

"I want the audience to be inspired to 'look again' at our migrant workers. There is a migration regime happening all over the world. All the wars that have occurred in the 20th century were integral to this. When we watch Bayan-Bayanan, I would like us to see a slice of the reality of migrants that we can connect to," he says.

In his director's notes, he wrote: "I dedicate my direction of this play to all the migrant workers and migrant friends who 'homed' me, 'nation-ed' me in my times of study and work abroad, who 'cradled' me as they cradled each other in times of crisis and personal rollercoaster times of highs and lows; to the entire cast and the production for taking special time to share their talent and their esteemed careers, countless dearest friends who helped, and our audiences—who are all part of the play because this play is about them, us, a nation outside their country."

Bayan-Bayanan: Letters from Home will be shown on July 29, 30, and 31 at CCP. Tickets are available at ticketworld.com.ph

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Erehwon Centre for the Arts

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theatre musical

Tatler Asia

Anton Juan Shares Stories Behind the Award-Winning Play 'Bayan-Bayanan: Letters From Home'