‘Kisapmata’ REVIEW: To Remember, to Never Forget
‘Kisapmata’ REVIEW: To Remember, to Never Forget
Jonathan Tadioan as Dadong, Lhorvie Nuevo-Tadioan as Dely, Toni Go-Yadao as Mila / Taken from the Tanghalang Pilipino official Facebook page
In light of the recent arrest by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of former President Rodrigo Duterte, there could not have been a better time for playwright and director Guelan Varela-Luarca to adapt Mike de Leon’s classic film Kisapmata than now. Like what Luarca shared in the playbill, “Changes in our current political landscape… [call] for a new Kisapmata.” These “changes” refer to the aftermath of the Duterte administration where it led to the distrust of our democratic institutions, the War on Drugs campaign that resulted in around 30,000 victims, and the becoming of a new Marcos presidency. There is no better way then to remind ourselves of a suffocating ordeal of oppression than with an allegory that shaped our understanding of it.
Kisapmata was a news story before it was a play. Released a week after the crime, the aptly titled The House on Zapote Street, written by Quijano de Manila (the pen name of Nick Joaquin), recounts the moments which led to the eventual turmoil of the Cabading family. To archive such a vivid report, De Manila conducted interviews with concerned parties including the brother of one of the victims and the lone survivor of the crime.
Jonathan Tadioan as Dadong, Lhorvie Nuevo-Tadioan as Dely / Taken from the Tanghalang Pilipino official Facebook page
In summary of the report, Pablo Cabading, a policeman, shot his daughter Lydia Cabading-Quitangon, his son-in-law, Dr. Leonardo Quitangon, and his own wife Asuncion Cabading, who would be the only survivor of the incident. They were found after a neighbor heard gunshots inside the home of the Cabading family. This story is what later inspired Kisapmata.
Kisapmata was a film before it was a play. Filmmaker Mike de Leon tells the story of Dadong, played by Vic Silayan, who is upset by the premarital pregnancy of Mila, played by a young Charo Santos. Mila and her eventual husband Noel, played by Jay Ilagan, eventually receive the blessing of their parents to get married—but Dadong was never happy with the marriage to begin with. The oppressive father hindered the marriage of Mila and Noel. And this fueled the family’s turmoil, which eventually led to Dadong killing all of them: Mila, Noel, and even Dadong’s own wife Dely, played by Charito Solis.
Toni Go-Yadao as Mila, Marco Viana as Noel / Taken from the Tanghalang Pilipino official Facebook page
Kisapmata the play, produced by Tanghalang Pilipino, follows through with the spirit of De Manila. As described by writer-filmmaker Erwin T. Romulo, “Towards the latter half of the ‘60s, Joaquin would deploy De Manila not to these episodes but devote the column inches at the Free Press to the political upheavals and turmoil of the Marcos presidency, culminating in Martial Law.” Only this time, the turmoil came from a different authoritarian presidency.
The play also leaned more heavily towards De Manila’s report, given the amount of talahib (tall grass) surrounding the stage, rather than the film and focused more on the relationship between the four main characters. Dadong, played by Jonathan Tadioan, is a spitting caricature of a tyrant. Charismatic, witty, and funny, he hides his smoldering need for control under the cheerful jokes and smiles that he shows to Noel, played by Marco Viaña. Dadong cannot hide it from his wife however. Dely, played by Lhorvie Nuevo-Tadioan, is an ever-present observer of their house. She knows why everything happens when they happen. She knows her husband and her husband’s love like no other.
Lhorvie Nuevo-Tadioan as Dely / Taken from the Tanghalang Pilipino official Facebook page
This is maybe the biggest pivot away from the film. Notice how I barely mentioned Dely in the summary of the film. Because Dely is a more central figure in this iteration of the story. In a life where she was oppressed by her brooding husband, Dely has been stripped of all hope in life except her daughter Mila, played by Tony Go-Yadao. Though arguably she is still not an active character in the story, partly because they are under Dadong’s oppression, it is in Dely’s soliloquies that reveal to us the dynamism of their family. This is also greatly magnified when you realize that these characters are dressed in nude-colored attires to truly remove all distractions from them.
Another pivot, a decision to which I am a fan of, is depriving us of a tangible house. We are not given the pastel-colored home with a half-story perched inside. Though we are given a doorway to which we see man-high talahib, producing a surreal image whenever someone stands by it, still there are no balconies or bedroom doors to come by save for a bare sala in the platform the actors act on. What we are given instead are shadows that fill in the space to which walls and furniture should occupy. The shadows like the ones formed whenever orange-tinted street lights glare at our houses at night as if we are given the illusion of being inside the house. There are no walls because in knowing their story we are part of that home. There are no walls needed because being with the family is claustrophobic enough. There are no walls because as far as the family is concerned—and as far as Dadong is concerned—this home is their world and nowhere else.
In presenting the play in this way, in writing Dely as a more central figure, this reveals to us that this is not a mere adaptation of the film nor is it a one-to-one retelling of the reportage. Instead, the play is concerned with stripping away all of the distractions and revealing to us what the story of the Cabading family has become in our zeitgeist. Luarca’s Kisapmata, in a way, is a story we get to tell ourselves with—we get to remind ourselves with—whenever there is a threat of oppression to our freedom.. This story is now an allegory of oppression in the Philippines. Dadong is no longer just the Pablo Cabading, he is now a stand-in for every oppressor that has come before and those that remain walking free. Lydia represents our fight for our right to choose for ourselves without anyone holding us back. And Dely, she is the voice—the whisper—that tells us that when we endure and persevere. Because in allowing ourselves to live on, we allow ourselves to remember—to never forget—and to continue retelling the story.
‘Kisapmata’ runs from March 7 to 30, Fridays to Sundays, at the Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez.
