What is the
purpose of putting up a play? An opera?
It is to
tell a story in musical form—and that is what Maria y Marta is all
about. Their story is about how they had felt about the death of Lazarus, based
on the account of John in the New Testament. Lazarus died and had lain for four days when Jesus came and
told him to rise up and live again.
The play
only uses the two women expressing their grief for one hour. And for one hour,
the chimes, sets of which were distributed to the audience kept on ringing and
ringing all throughout, so much so that we could only hear snippets of the words
of the songs being sung.
When telling
a story from the Bible, we expect that the writer would want the reader to
appreciate Christianity afterwards, or see the value of Christ’s teachings. But
reading the script which was printed in the souvenir program, nothing of that
sort is given. Instead the lines delved on the pain of missing Lazarus, of
feelings of hopelessness, and almost blaming Jesus for not coming earlier so
that he could have prevented the death of Lazarus.
What we gather here is that
the writer is talking to the converted Christians. She does not intend to
propagate the value of Christ’s teachings.
What I rue
most is that, Jesus who is the major character did not appear at all; he was just
symbolically presented as light. The lamp that was used was so bright that I
had to cover my eyes as it was terribly blinding.
What about
the music?
The music is
what is called serial – “In music, serialism is a method of composition using
series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other musical elements.”
Actually, almost all of the songs sung
were atonal in nature. They were rising high and low, here and there, without
any key. One cannot say that the song being sung is in the key of C or E,
rather they shot up here and there and everywhere. And that is the immediate
sound of the songs. The notes seemingly arose from impulsive urges of the
singers.
And so the
play I think appears to be un-Christlike, meaning it does not show us who is
Christ and why He should come at all to make Lazarus arise again. It is not
appreciative of the lines in the scripts as the voices of the women were drowned by the constant clinging of the chimes. By the ay, it was a good thing that we were
able to read the script afterwards.
I think the
play is more a presentation of the music, which served as background to the
songs, and as links to the different segments provided by The Ripieno Ensemble consisting of
flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and percussion instruments supposed to play
in the background.
The
movements in the play were very slow, almost slow motion all throughout. The
faces of the actresses were slightly shown
as shadows were the common features.
I like the play of the shawls which covered
the faces, the bodies and were raised to the light to reveal black and white
lines.
As this is a
student production, I think that professors must examine the literature of the
students presenting their works to the public. Also, a theatre consultant must
be there to analyze if the play is audience-friendly.
Unfortunately, the play
barraged us with chimes clanging here and there (several distributed to the audience seated at different parts of the theatre) thus making us fail to
appreciate the import of the lines of the script.
Sopranos
were Stefanie Quintin who sang very high notes, beautifully, and Pauline Arejola
equally a good performer while Alexander John L. Villanueva was the Composer/Conductor.
Libretto was written by Sofia Paderes and Gabo Tolentino was the director.
THE RIPIENO
ENSEMBLE:
John Owen Castro,
flute; Danelle Dionisio, clarinet; Marian Mayoga, violin; Joseph Emmanuel
Hernandez, cello; and Gabriel
Paguirigan, piano. The play was shown at the Black Box on 9 October 2019.
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