RANAW: ISANG ALAMAT
Paper, Poetics, and Performance
The transcreation of folklore

The 2008 mounting of "Ranaw: Isang Alamat" establishes the process when paper (research) transforms to poetics (the script as literature) to performance (the theatre).

The "Ranaw" epic is the story of a lesser-known folk hero Bato Lakungan (lesser to more popular epic giants as Bantugan or Agyu). I learned of Bato and his story while completing my master's thesis on the Iligan San Miguel fiesta street performances. My main source was Dionisio Orellana, the keeper-director of the Iligan comedia then and the human archive of Maranao-Iliganun lore, their oral history, blood relations, and the pecadillos they lock in their kabans.

The folk rituals of Iligan, with a deep Catholic background, integrate Islamic and pre-Islamic ethics. Beliefs mix in the conduct of these expressions. The folk perform these expressions not only as religious rituals but as creative outlets of fervor. Extending outside these rituals was a thick weave of history, of stories about confrontation after confrontation, of love binds, of children born out of wedlock, of inter-family marriages, and the adventures that make for explosive storytelling.

            The story of Bato figured prominently because my study involved the relationships among North-Central Mindanao communities, the Islamized Maranao-Maguindanao, lumad Higa-unun, and the settler Iliganuns that inhabited the northernmost portion nearest the bay. Each community had some connection to the Bato story.

             Bato: Figure shared

Ranaw: Isang Alamat's time is pre-colonial Mindanao. Interesting links connect the Iliganun, Maranao, Higaunun, and Maguindanon through a genealogical tree where the hero is a common relative. Interesting, because these communities have related with each other in hostile ways.

The confrontations between the Iliganuns and the Maranaos have been numerous – wars in the 70's, tension in the mid-80's after explosions rocked the city plaza, and in the recent August 2008 threats of attacks. These multiple conflicts among communities living in proximate territories have also involved the Higa-unun and the Maguindanon. Conflict is the gist of the theme in Ranaw. Fragmentation of our people was more pronounced before colonization.

Disunity among our diverse sectors continues to this day. The play's idea gestated during those divisive times in the 1980's when diverse sectors were pulling Philippine society apart to the advantage of Marcos. Even after the assassination of Ninoy Aquino, the opposition had yet to sing the same tune to keep Marcos out of synch. In Ranaw, a community ruined by conflicting interests was as real a situation before the coming of Spain as it is today.

Bato: A historic personage

Orellana indicated the hero's existence through the Maranao, Maguindanon, and Higa-unun salsilah (genealogy) and the alleged evidence of the hero’s weapons kept as heirloom by some of the oldest families in Central Mindanao.

The story of a hero banished because of the accusation that he seduced his foster mother antedates the controversial themes of our TV soap operas. This controversial portion is culturally unacceptable to the conservative communities that host the legend but is integral to the plot before plot can take off.

Keeping in character with legends and folk tales, the linear storytelling in epics stamps the Ranaw narrative method. The play divides into three Acts like chapters with a Prologue and an Epilogue. Plot runs in episodes straight to a finish line: there is no mirroring of earlier events, nor are there flashbacks or the asymmetrical arrangement of events. In its straight simple storytelling, the plot develops not because of character transformations but because of the interference of events. This manner best reflects the milieu that the play attempts to capture.

Legends and myths are structured in this chronological order.

The play's writing took two years to conceptualize and a year to complete. Bato Lakungan escapes to Ranaw with his four enchanted weapons. His enemies steal the weapons. Each of the four weapons has no power without the other.

The idea of these weapons held separately by Bato’s enemies was a sharp starting point because of its metaphor. Our own urban legends tell of the baladao (one of the weapons) in the care of the Ramiro family – one of Iligan's oldest clans whose roots are traced back to the Maranao royal house of Wato (mama sa Wato). The three other weapons are said to be in the possession of other families.

Unfortunately, the interest for the veracity of the story also died with Orellana.

Transcreating and updating

Ranaw - updated in this remount - was composed in the 1980's when storytelling through the Greek-like chorus was popular. In the original 1980's production, the koro narrated storyline and revealed the consciousness of the characters. It commented on and foretold events. The zarzuela-like influences in its dramaturgy included the merging of music-and-dance numbers with spoken dialogue. (This too is the manner of Broadway musicals.) Music for most of the play's part was built from indigenous instruments with the sounds of the kulintang and other ethnic idiophones being dominant music motifs. The use of creative dramatics for "sets" and other suggestions (the body and its movements) are typical of the dramaturgy of these times.

It was my liberty to weave legend, recreate relationships, and imagine motivations to make the play work on stage. I wrapped up the final version after poet Enrico Enerio discussed with me several possibilities that the play's plot may take. This conversation suggested the ending that the play now uses. Further suggestions were provided by poet Alex Serrano of the UP Likhaan who edited the first manuscript.

The play's production design, even during the time of its writing, was already gestating in my mind. Writing with a director's orientation, I built segment after segment as I visualized the sights and sounds that were to be seen and heard in theater. I easily shifted from audience, to actor, to playwright, and to director in the process to take several perspectives in pre-judging the play's effectiveness.

I had decided to use pop music with dominant kulintangan influences as the musical form of the play. Dance was to be based on the Tausug pangalay, a form IPAG was proficient in. But dance had to be reinvented - to be consistent with theater’s contemporary features - and choreographed borrowing from the techniques of "contemporary" dance. Language was conversational Filipino to sustain the interest of the young modern audiences. There are direct addresses to the audience as there are dialogues and music-dance segments in most parts.

After a year and a half, the play was rewritten to accommodate music and the ensuing choreography of its staging. More music was composed - this time digitally - in its 2008 remount.

Even as I sat as director, within the process, a collective of creative ideas merged to complete this collaborative work. The creative staff conducted complementary research to correctly project the cultures of the four communities. We ensured that inclusions of contemporary expressions were carefully chosen to keep the integrity of the cultures we were projecting and to preserve the ethics sensitive to these cultures.

To be timeless

Ranaw, although about pre-colonial events, colors a contemporary political picture. I used characters and events in a legend to allude to the foibles of present society. The past connects with the present. The intent was to use folklore, to reinvent this and to translate this to a contemporary mode without renouncing the material's original folkloric qualities. Folklore is thus made alive and relevant because it does not only document past events but comments on issues all of us are familiar with.

Historicity, or the issue of faithfulness to real time, place and events, is not the object of this transcreation. A separate reality identifies the reality in folklore or in other intangible cultural elements as well separate from that of Science. Science defines a different objective reality. Empirical reality differs from mythic reality but this difference does not necessarily mean that the latter is less real than the former. Reality, in another sense, is about how a people perceives the state they are in. Stories that narrate of supernatural characters, out-of-the normal phenomenon, dreams, and unplaced time among others (as in the Pinoy's preoccupation for magic-realism in his stories) present symbols, images, and relationships that explain the folk's view of their realities.

The play's premiere in 1985 in Iligan and its subsequent nationwide road tours (1986-1989) were widely accepted by both Mindanao and non-Mindanao audiences. The critics were kind too. The Maranao and Higa-unun viewers particularly were reminded of this little-known hero and his exploits. A large group of Maranao viewers dressed in their ceremonial regalia trooped to our Baguio and Laoag performances (Maranao traders are numerous in the North) and engaged us in fellowship. Many were visibly proud about a non-Maranao group sharing their heritage around the country. One native erudite shared more stories about Bato and the large family the hero fathered. These clans are real families in the Lanao-Maguindanao areas today.

As the production was constantly reinvented, so were its aesthetics hewing to the needs of the times. The tangibles may change (music, choreography, visual designs, pacing, and the craft of staging), but the spirit of the lore – its intangible elements (religiosity, relationships to the supernatural, ethics, intra-communal relationships) remain constant.