Tanghalang Pilipino’s 38th Theater Season opens with a daring declaration and even bolder exploration of the theme “Revolt” with season-opener BALETE.
BALETE showcases how differences between poor and rich, farmer and landowner, young and old despite coexisting in mutual dependency feed growing tensions that even loyalty, love, and family cannot hold together forever in balance. Sooner or later, the scale would tip; sanity, trust, and lives would be sacrificed to maintain the system; and, it would be up to the younger generations to give up or give in.
Would man-child Kiko give up his privileged life or give in to his guilt after witnessing the fate of his childhood friends and their families under the hands of his father Espiridion and patriarch Don Vicente?
There is more to BALETE than the answer.
- Nonie Buencamino’s Masterful Multi-Character Performance
Buencamino delivers a breathtaking portrayal of three generations, each in stark conversation and confrontation with the other. As Don Vicente, embodied by the butaka, the lazy chair of the old rich, and his caricature in a painting, he possesses the stage with the horrors of a darker past. As Espiridion, the father shackled by Don Vicente’s law, he bears the weight of legacy and the burdens of duty. As Kiko, the son navigating childhood, adulthood, and memories, Buencamino paints an emotionally charged landscape of relationships.
His frenetic, seamless transitions—from guilt-ridden man returning home, to young adult grappling with family, to mischievous, innocent child—are nothing short of mind-blowing. Each shift is a different life, each dynamic of power, guilt, and vulnerability distinct. He becomes a time-traveler, exposing generational trauma at every stage of his fractured life.
Buencamino’s performance is a masterclass in human complexity, an electrifying embodiment of shared burdens and inherited wounds across generations
- Wika Nadera’s Spellbinding Mandala Stage Design
Nadera’s unexpected rendering of Pangasinan during the American era transforms the setting into a living mandala, capturing the cyclical nature of a tension-wrought saga where lives are sacrificed to the land. This cycle persists under the looming shade of the balete tree, which silently witnesses three generations of feudal relations that endure to the present, despite the deaths of friends and family.
The circular stage, where the butaka is lowered and lifted, symbolizes the lives that revolve, depend on, and are shaped by the land they do not own and the family they serve. As the stage transforms—from mansion to riverside, to stable, to giant tree—the inescapable image of history trapped in a cycle remains stark, haunting, and oppressive.
The stage transcends its physical boundaries, becoming a living, breathing extension of the story, amplifying the emotional and social tensions of the hacienda and its inhabitants.
- Chris Millado’s Haunting Devised Theater
Millado’s direction, enhanced by Delphine Buencamino’s choreography and the creative contributions of a powerful ensemble—Jonathan “Tad” Tadioan, Marco Viana, Lhorvie Nuevo-Tadioan, Toni Go-Yadao, Earvin Estioco, Gelo Molina, and Ynna Rafa—crafts a vivid, cohesive portrayal of generational torment, coming of age, and landlord-serf dynamics.
The use of devised theater sharpens each role, giving rise to interpretations that feel deeply rooted, authentic, and multidimensional. Drawing from the cast’s own experiences, the result is a rich spectrum of characters, transforming eight actors into a teeming mob, a multigenerational family, and a community bound to the land over generations.
Each character resonates not only on a physical level but intellectually and emotionally, making every poor and sick farmer, every idiosyncratic old rich, every person young and old, distinct and palpable in every sense.
BALETE is a masterful production, a powerful transcreation that transforms the author-protagonist’s memory into a commanding performance by Nonie Buencamino as Don Vicente, Espiridion, and Francisco. National Artist F. Sionil José’s novel TREE shifts between the real and surreal in live-action sequences, turning narratives and tensions into a living, breathing entity—unsettlingly human, with the ensemble fluidly embodying different, often cross-gendered personas, and eerily inhuman, as the stage reflects the cyclical nature of fate. The butaka—the “lazy chair” of the old rich—rises and falls at the center of the mandala-like stage, becoming a daring experiment in form and revolt.
Catch BALETE on October 5 and 6, with shows at 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., at the Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The play runs for about 2 hours and a half, including a 15-minute intermission.
Get your tickets now:
- Google Form (LINK)
- Ticket2Me (LINK)
- Ticketworld (LINK)
- Klook (LINK)
Ticket prices:
- VIP: Php 2,000
- VIP (20% Discount for Season Pass Holder, Senior Citizen, PWD): Php 1,600
- VIP (10% Discount for Students): Php 1,800
- Regular: Php 1,500
- Regular (20% Discount for Season Pass Holder, Senior Citizen, PWD): Php 1,200
- Regular (10% Discount for Students): Php 1,350
Don’t miss this landmark production that promises to leave audiences spellbound!
