Answer:
The director and playwright of “Dekada ’70”, Pat Valera, envisioned that his adaptation of Lualhati Bautista’s Palanca award-winning book would be watched and understood by young people. Valera and some of the original cast members, Stella Cañete-Mendoza (Amanda Bartolome), Jon Abella (Jules Bartolome) and Abe Autea’s (Bingo Bartolome), spoke with INQUIRER.net last Saturday, Feb. 22, and voiced out their insights about the play, some of which touch on its relevance to the young. The production invites its audience from all walks of life, regardless of age, gender, social status, and even political alignment, to take a seat at the Doreen Black Box Theater in Arete, to awaken their political consciousness, especially if it has already gone into a deep slumber.
The play, now on its third run, was initially staged in 2018 as Valera’s thesis production requirement at the University of the Philippines Diliman, where he graduated in 2019.
Valera revealed that he first decided to adapt Bautista’s play after the news about former President Ferdinand Marcos’ burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani rocked the nation and gave rise to protests. “The art and the theater should respond to this,” Valera said, referring to the burial of Marcos in a cemetery supposedly for heroes. Since then, the play’s concerns have “compounded” to tackle more issues such as the suppression of press freedom and “the need for memory to continue.”
True to the source
Bautista’s novel was told through the perspective of Amanda Bartolome, a housewife and a mother of five boys, as their family lived through the 1970s, before and during the time when Marcos declared Martial Law.
While Amanda’s five boys, Jules (Julian Jr.), Gani (Isagani), Em (Emmanuel), Jason, and Bingo (Benjamin) grew up and started forming their own beliefs in their journey towards becoming “men of life,” Amanda also started her own journey towards liberation. From a life supposedly centered around “a man’s world,” step-by-step Amanda freed her mind from the confines of her middle-class lifestyle. The musical transforms Bautista’s depiction of the decade into a play that also highlights the plight of the masses surrounding the Bartolome family. The musical’s ensemble echoes the political unrest of the period through its songs and its portrayal of political prisoners during the 1970s, which Valera assured was backed by extensive research.
The play’s third run began on Feb. 21 and is extended until March 14. The bare rectangular theater which houses “Dekada ’70” booms with life and music as the characters perform their well-choreographed song-and-dance numbers, and deliver their heart-wrenching dialogue. Even the comedic banter between the Bartolome boys drives the audience into waves of laughter and intense emotion. “Dekada ’70” transitions from one scene to another, often with compelling ballads or upbeat protest hymns, written by Valera and the play’s musical director Matthew Chang. When Valera was asked why the novel was transformed into a musical, he explained that the initial plan was to make a play with music. Valera, later on, realized the undeniable power of musicals, which led the team to want “to bring out the emotion” in the story. Valera cited that one of their inspirations for turning the play into a musical was a fellow artist, film director Pepe Diokno, who said, “One day we will sing our own songs.” Diokno’s words became the play’s framework when they were writing the script, which compelled them to “sing their own songs as well.” One of the play’s most powerful songs, “Bayan, Bayan, Bayan Ko” was performed by the play’s ensemble. The upbeat song, filled with heavy bass lines, electric guitar riffs, rapid beats, and multi-layered vocals, invites people to take a stand and continue fighting. “Tao, bayan/ Kailan maninindigan?” the ensemble repeatedly sings. Despite acknowledging the songs as “larger than life,” Valera clarified they had to tread this line carefully to avoid making a “spectacle out of history.” “We must find our own truth on how we sing it, hanging saan ‘Yung (what are the limits of the) spectacle, per se,” Valera stated. “To be objective about it as well.”
