Over the footlights

Dulaang Sibol, the Drama Guild of the Ateneo de Manila High School, is celebrating its Golden Jubilee. It was born on February 25, 1955, and it has been producing plays regularly, since that day.

The heart and soul of Dulaang Sibol is Doctor Onofre Pagsanghan, who is 78 years old. He has been directing Ateneo High School boys, between the ages of 12 and 18, for fifty solid years. He was an inspiration to his students in 1955, and he is an inspiration now.

In school, at the Old Ateneo on Padre Faura, he was known as "Pagsi". The name has stayed with him through the long years. When he graduated from college he applied for entrance into the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits, who had known him at close range for a long long time, realized that he had all the qualities necessary for the priesthood. As a candidate for religious life, he was not only acceptable.. . . . he was outstanding. But his health was so frail that the Jesuit Superiors felt he would not be able to bear the burdens of the priesthood.

So Pagsi was rejected, only on those grounds: his health was so frail that probably he would not be able to bear the burdens of the priesthood. . . . . . Pagsi accepted this, became a teacher at the Ateneo de Manila High School, and went on to do more work than any three priests in the school, put together.

He had been rigidly trained for the stage, and filled with love for drama, by the great Dramatics Professor of the Ateneo – Father Henry Lee Irwin, S.J. In his Senior Year at college, in the Shakespearean play "Hamlet", he acted in the role of Ofelia – the girl whom Hamlet was supposed to marry.

In those days, a boys’ school like the Ateneo was not allowed to use girls in their stage productions. So Pagsi played Ofelia – a strong dramatic role. Her mind breaks, under the stress and strain of events in the Danish Kingdom. Pagsi’s last scenes in that play gripped his audience. He understood "empathy". How to contact an audience. How to make them feel with you, laugh with you, love with you, and weep with you.

In Dulaang Sibol he taught this to his boys. He produced play after play of the great William Shakespeare: Macbeth, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet. He did Edmond Rostand’s "Cyrano de Bergerac", and Agatha Christie’s "And Then There Were None"

In 1966, he began to produce Filipino plays. Then came translations and "transplantations." He did Thorton Wilder’s "Our Town" as "Doon Po Sa Amin"; and "Dear Brutus" of James M. Barrie as "Wala Sa Ating Mga Bituin"

In 1967, he began to encourage his High School students to write their own plays. This led the 16 year old Paul Dumol to create Ang Puting Timamanukin and Ang Paglilitis ni Mang Serapio. Some newspaper critics felt that these plays were a major breakthrough in the development of our national language.

In 1975 Pagsi began to encourage his boys to write songs. In 1979 a first year High School student wrote a song which won five national awards as the best original Filipino composition of that year. The song was Hindi Kita Malilimutan. The composer was 14-year old Manoling Francisco. After graduating from the Ateneo High School and from Dulaang Sibol he entered the Society of Jesus. He is now a Jesuit priest.

In 1976, after 20 years of staging plays in converted classrooms, in borrowed halls, and in slum clearings, the Ateneo gave Dulaang Sibol a small, intimate theater, with 156 seats. For the last 30 years they have been acting in this little theater, which is similar in many ways to the venues chosen by the dramatic productions "Off Broadway.".

For their Golden Jubilee, Dulaang Sibol is presenting a musical which is all their own: Adarna. Ibong Adarna, of course, is one of the best loved Filipino folk stories. But the libretto and the music of Adarna are composed by the student actors of Dulaang Sibol. They created the set, the costumes, and the props.

It will be on stage this evening, Saturday, November 26, at 6:30 p.m. Also on December 2,3,9 and 10, at 6:30 p.m. The theater is right there in the Ateneo High School at Loyola Heights, Quezon City. For information, please phone: 920-18-17. This is the phone in Pagsi’s house.

Dulaang Sibol is theater produced by the young, largely about the young, for the young, and for the young at heart. It is a tremendous lifetime achievement of one of the finest teachers in this country – the simple, unpretentious–Onofre Pagsanghan.

Very often he has been asked to become a professor in College, or a Dean. He has always refused. He does not want to give up teaching. The secret of his success is this: he loves drama; he loves people; and above all he is willing to sacrifice himself endlessly for every student that God sends to him.

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The Ateneo is presenting the talents of their High School Students in Dulaang Sibol. Saint Paul University Quezon City, also very strong in Communications, is presenting their babies in The Night Before Christmas. They have re-opened their grade school. This play is an accomplishment, because the majority of the cast is under seven years old. Technically, they have not reached the use of reason.

It is the story of a Toy Shop, on Christmas Eve. All the dolls wake up at midnight, and are waiting to be delivered. It is a strange toy shop, because the Toymaker does not charge. He gives the dolls away, free. Not to children, but to adults. He can only deliver if he receives an acceptance from the adults. The dolls who are not accepted are carried into the Store Room, where they must stay, in the dark, forever.

The doll who is a bride, and the doll who is a groom, come to realize that the Toy Shop is not a toy shop. It is the mind of God. And the dolls are not dolls. They are real children, in the mind of God, waiting to be born. And the Toymaker is not a toymaker. He is God.

They ask if they can talk to their Mommy and Daddy, personally. The Toymaker lets them do this. They go down to earth. The groom talks to his Mommy, and the bride talks to her Daddy. The play is strongly pro-life, and very relevant today. The three adult actors all have children in the cast.

On Tuesday, December 6, at 6:00 p.m., the beautiful new theater of SPUQC will be open to all religious, free of charge. On Thursday and Friday, December 8 and 9, performances will be held at 6:00 p.m. On Saturday and Sunday, December 10 and 11, performances will take place at 3:00 p.m. and at 7:00 p.m.

Saint Paul Schools have always looked upon Communication as an integral part of their education. In this play, they are introducing their babies to the stage, properly. The theater is surrounded by three walls, making it an acoustical dream. You can whisper on the stage, and be heard by the last person in the farthest corner of the theater. It seats only 500. It is steeply banked. Every seat has maximum comfort and visibility. In productions like this, the children develop a love for drama that lasts forever.

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And Saint Paul University Manila is coming back, strong, to the Performing Arts. They have transformed their Observatory of Music to the "College of Music and the Performing Arts". On Sunday, December 11, at 9:00 a.m. in the Fleur de Lis Auditorium on Pedro Gil, they will star their children’s children in a "Paulinian Piano Festival".

They have produced many outstanding pianists over the long years. These pianists now have music schools of their own. Their students will appear on stage, playing beautiful classical pieces: Bach, Schumann, Beethoven, Haydn, Chopin, Liszt, Grieg. This is no small thing, when you realize that some of the pianists are only six years old.

We are prone to brood over our miseries; the economic recession, the stark poverty of our people; the disgraceful emotional quarrels among our politicians. But life rolls on. And Philippine life is beautiful. Families build their Christmas Belens. They buy Christmas presents for those they love. They pour through the streets, smiling, laughing, to the Missa de Gallo. And they work with all their hearts for the good of their children. The harder things get, the happier we will be, at Christmas time.