Young Ateneans show energy and passion in new stage play

The child thespians in the Ateneo Grade School set their minds and hearts on staging a completely new version of the well-loved korido Ibong Adarna titled Adarna at ang Alaala ng Kristal. The play is the 77th production of the Ateneo Children’s Theater (ACT), which also celebrates Ateneo’s 150th year, its Sesquicentennial, in 2009.

Billed as a “bundle of firsts,” the presentation is expected to open a most unique chapter in the annals of ACT.

Its script is about the last part of the korido (fourth and fifth parts): Don Juan’s quest for the Reyno delos Kristales to find the beautiful Maria Blanca, daughter of King Salermo — a part hitherto unseen in this country.

For the first time, most of the members of the creative team are Ateneans giving back to the school that has nourished their creativity and ignited in them the need to strive for excellence. These alumni are the multi-awarded Khavn dela Cruz, the writer of the play; Gino Gonzales, the NYU-trained set designer; the independent musician/songwriter Allan Elgar; and the budding choreographer Jim Ferrer.

Not to be outdone is Jesus Joseph Ignacio, a true-blue Atenean who studied in Ateneo from grade school to college and also a former member of ACT, who opted not to leave his alma mater when he graduated. He is now a teacher and formator at the grade school and one of the directors of the play along multi-talented thespian Adrian Reyes and Ace Elgar.

He has every reason to look forward to the magic that ACT’s artistic team will weave together. There’s Gonzales, the former student and apprentice of National Artist Salvador Bernal, who attended a master of fine arts program in Theater Design at New York University and was given the Meier ad Seidman Awards for Excellence by the same university and the World Stage bronze medal for the set design of the opera Spoliarium in Toronto, Canada. And there’s the costume design by Paete artisans headed by Lino Madridejos-Dalay and stage lighting by lighting designer Voltaire de Jesus.

But what will be long remembered by the whole grade school community are Ignacio’s seldom if ever heard words of praise: “ACT has not changed much with the passing of time. The students are still just as excited, energetic and passionate.”

Of course Ignacio knows that the high level of energy and passion would not have endured well into the present had Mariano Singson (ACT director for 34 years) not inspired and stimulated them and hammered into their heads the importance of theater which he used as a vehicle for values education and had he not developed the theater of, by, and for Filipino children. And not to be downplayed is the fact that the directors and producers after Singson’s retirement perpetuated the values and activities with the unfailing support of the school and the parents of the students. This explains why Fr. Norberto Ma. L. Bautista, S.J., the new headmaster and producer of the play for the first time, and the hardworking Jonny Salvador, who is the executive producer, renamed the grade school auditorium Mariano Singson Jr. Hall a month and a half ago.

Adarna at ang Alaala ng Kristal which opens on Jan. 30 at the Irwin Theatre, Ateneo Loyola Heights campus makes this statement. “Theater as a tool of Jesuit education is at its best if started in grade school and continued in high school and college. This is ACT’s contribution to the Sesquicentennial celebration of the Ateneo.”