Buhing Kalbaryo

Fifteen years ago this year, a small group of energetic youth leaders wanted to come up with an activity to keep young people busy during the summer break. School had just ended then, and the big worry was that the long vacation might bore idle youngsters and entice them to try unlikely things.

Holding a sports tournament was, for sure, one of the first ideas that came to mind. But not everyone was into sports, aside from the fact that sports of any kind were already commonplace everywhere. There was a need to involve, as well, those who were not as eager to develop physical power as they did the other aspects of themselves.

Then city councilor Michael Rama talked to his friends in the Guadalupe-V. Rama area. They all agreed that the arts were a field that the youth could engage in. Especially performance art - theater in particular, where the most number could participate.

At the time, the Lenten season was fast approaching. They contemplated that maybe the youngsters in the neighborhood could be gathered together and organized into a theater group. And, if they could find a competent theater director to handle the group, maybe they could come up with something in time for the Holy Week.

Since then, the Buhing Kalbaryo (Live Calvary) play has been re-enacting the final hours on earth of Jesus Christ, every year without fail. The presentation is quite unlike any regular theater plays we have hereabouts. It has a cast of way over a hundred. And the play is not totally confined to the stage; at some point, the cast joins the audience on the street, walking several kilometers towards the site of the play's finale.

At 15, Buhing Kalbaryo is already a tradition. Those who were just little kids when they started in the project - doing slight roles - are now all grown up and playing the major characters. New members are also continually being initiated into the group.

The Buhing Pasko Foundation, Inc. has since become a legal entity duly registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The aim is to ensure the continuance of the annual Buhing Kalbaryo project, together with the more recent but equally significant Pasko sa V. Rama, a merry festival of lights and decors along the city's V. Rama Avenue at Christmastime. These two undertakings have now been institutionalized.

It's a good thing for worthy projects such as these to at least have an organization focused on them. They become more secure this way than when their existence merely depends upon the available time, personal connections and resources of a few originators. There can now be thorough planning and, thus, a better degree of efficiency and stability to the production procedures.

Stability, however, is a tricky matter. Too much of it can lead to stagnation. It can make people become languid and overly lenient.

Some of the actors that have been performing in the Buhing Kalbaryo for years had unknowingly acquired a common attitude - complacency. It's not necessarily about their persons but about their portrayal. They have become so familiar with the roles and gotten themselves confined in mental moulds based on the performances they'd witnessed from way, way back. Their acting is stiff, turgid and stale.

What's worse, because Buhing Kalbaryo is an ensemble play with mainly the same actors doing it every time, there seems to be a general feeling that they don't need much directing anymore. They simply tend to repeat everything - blunders included - from the previous performances. The director is often the last to be called in.

As has been the practice by the group for several years now, rehearsals are done for only about a month before performance day. A month may seem like an ample time with a daily rehearsal schedule, as in the case of Buhing Kalbaryo. But with actual practice only averaging two hours each time, the director may only have to keep the play in the way it has always been.

To introduce major improvements might only muddle the established concepts the actors already have in their minds and there is no more time to put things back in order, if ever. So, to be safe, only very little tweaks are possible: in the actors' speech, facial expressions, and body language. Then the director can only pray that his actors will remember those on performance day.

For Buhing Kalbaryo to remain solid and reputable, to make the yearly staging always exciting and fresh, a major overhauling may be indispensable. It cannot afford to remain at its level in the years past or, much less, deteriorate away. This project is just too dear to lose.

I am speaking from personal experience. This year is my second time directing Buhing Kalbaryo. And I am not complaining.

For a month in these last two years, the Buhing Kalbaryo group is my family. The sheer size of this family is mind blowing, yes, but it's so reassuring, as well. Chaotic most of the time, maddening at times, but always sweet and warm.

It touches me in a profound way to see students, little kids to teenagers still in their uniforms, coming to the nightly rehearsals. And there are the bigger ones, too, that come straight from work, looking very tired. It is obvious what big sacrifice they're all doing, and I am most grateful for it.

Buhing Kalbaryo is not a Les Miserables or a Miss Saigon or any other Cameron McIntosh production. There are no spectacular special effects, no great actors coming from all over the world performing. Buhing Kalbaryo is simply a story about God's great love for His people, and played by neighborhood kids who would otherwise be out drinking liquor and smoking cigarettes or taking prohibited substance or doing many other ugly things they would later regret for the rest of their lives.

I enjoy the play at rehearsals. I enjoy it even if it's the same thing I see over and over, every night. I am confident that you will enjoy it too and, therefore, enjoin all of you to come and experience Buhing Kalbaryo on April 6, Good Friday; starting at 10 a.m. at the San Nicolas Parish grounds all the way until the Guadalupe Church plaza at 3 p.m.

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