Among the other versions include ‘Ibong Adarna’ which I
believe every literature loving Filipino knows it was Florante who wrote it. When
it reached Calayan, reports had it that the former Calayan Mayor Pascual
Fernando did not only translate it into Ilocano but he also reconstructed it
into a poetic style. Furthermore, he used poetry and the added feature of
emotive language in presenting the local version of Shakespearean stage play
called Komedya. Everything else is a modification of the originals. You may be
able to read the Ilocano script of the Komedya as fast as you can but putting
the right intonation is a different thing. Often times I hear Director Herbert
Singun and his Komedya Guru Mr. Navarro of Cabudadan say, “You have to stress that
line like you wanna fight.” Love scenes are voiced out - not acted out. Otherwise,
we would be watching Leonardo di Caprio and his partner in Titanic and not
Komedya. You’ve got to watch it to see what I’m driving at.
Komedya is presented yearly as a regular part of the
municipality’s celebration of Calayan’s Patronal Town Fiesta and in certain barangay
fiestas as well. As to the Ibong Adarna Komedya, I learned that it was only
staged once ‘long time ago in Bethlehem’. Maybe all the performers have turned
to stone when they slumbered at the melodious song of the Ibong Adarna and
never woke up. Some say, the bird’s excretions turned them into a statue.
This morning, Mr. Reynaldo Javier and Fernando
Escalante told me that a certain Obispo and Orel from Magsidel have also
translated other Komedya scripts.
In the Atamante version, the story goes
that one was beheaded. Gruesome! No additional details as of this writing and author/translator
not yet specified. I got the impression that no one has a complete collection
of all Komedya script versions. Some friends and Fr. Rommel Olivar, our parish
priest, urged us to collect all the versions and make a book for posterity.
The Galliana
version shall be presented on August 24 this year. Any Komedya in Calayan is a
war dance. This does not mean however that the story is all about the
battlefield – unless you consider love as one. Music is provided by live
playing of the guitar, flute, harmonica and drum. The warring parties are Moros
and Kristianos. The shortest of all the scripts is that of the “Galliana” whose
running time is four hours. Others run for three days, I was told. All the Komedyas
I have witnessed start at 9 in the morning and culminate at sundown with one
ceasefire - when the warriors go hungry at noon. Watching the whole play could
either be entertaining or taxiing depending on your stamina to keep your eyes
open to the dusty battleground and understanding of the story. We may, in the near future, add further details to the
history of Komedya in Calayan. Expect some changes too.
Based on the story, Galliana is a Moro Empress who, after engaging the battle of
religions, and of empires, succumbed to the overall power of this world called
love. The story and the Komedya ends
with the marriage of Empress Galliana to a Christian King, peace between the
warring parties and conversion to Christianity.
Attempts at reconstructing the Calayan poetic version
of the scripts to suit the conversational language is waning due to the
perception that such reconstruction is disrespectful to the original authors.
Any comment?
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