Today – March 27 – is World Theatre Day - ROSES AND THORNS by Alejandro R. Roces

It was in June of 1961 that President Arvi Kivimaa proposed on behalf of the Finnish Centre of the International Theatre Institute (ITI) that a World Theatre Day be instituted. The following year, every March 27th, which was the opening of the 1962 "Theatre of Nations in Paris," World Theater Day has been commemorated by almost 100 ITI centers all over the world. Greek playwright Iakovos Kampanellis has this World Theatre Day International Message 2001:

"Theatre dates from the time that the first human beings began to memorize their experiences and represent them in imagination, from the time that human beings began to plan their actions, imagining how to accomplish them. The first theatre company and the first theatrical performances took shape in the minds of men and women. Every person has an innate need and ability to create performances. Have you ever realized that each of us, without exception, has at his or her disposal a private theatre company, in which we ourselves play the leading role while at the same time being our own audience? Very often, we are also the playwright, the director and the set designer of this company. How and when does this occur?

"Isn’t this in fact what we are doing, when, preparing ourselves for an interesting or crucial meeting, we imagine the whole scene in order to decide how we will behave. Aren’t our memories and even our dreams, actually performances of our private company?

In the Philippines, the local ITI Center is commemorating World Theatre Day with a Tagalog dramatization of Juana La Loca by Miguel Sabido. The irony is that it will be aired and not staged. There are people who believe that the theatre belongs to the past. The future will be radio and TV. This is not true. Theatre will always be a separate and lasting art form. In fact television is a technological extension of the theater.

During the early period of the American Regime, many local theatrical productions were banned. It was because Filipino patriots expressed their fight for freedom on the stage. Sad to say, EDSA I and II and even the assassination of Ninoy has not inspired our so-called movie "artists." What moves them is pornography. The theatre in short has been the champion of pornography under freedom of expression. The real artists – like Nick Joaquin – are writing plays like Pinoy Agonistes, which dramatizes people power. Yet, you don’t hear or read about national artists like Nick Joaquin demanding freedom of artistic expression.

Artists do not have more freedom than other people. That’s why "artistic license" is a meaningless term. Article III, Sec. 4 of the Constitution says, "No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or the press . . ." Let us not confuse anarchy with freedom. If anything, the more freedom, the greater the responsibility that goes with that freedom.

What society needs is freedom from obscenity and not the right to artistic obscenity.