Twenty-five years of Teatrong Mulat’s Papet Pasyon

One more reason to celebrate with the Grand Dame of Philippine Puppetry

When Amelia Lapeña-Bonifacio penned her Papet Pasyon, she wanted to bring together a Filipino cultural tradition and an art that was not homegrown. The result was a play that opened the eyes of children, not only to the art of Asian puppetry but also to the beauty of their own cultural heritage.

An hour and a ten minutes long, the full-length puppet play has been entrancing countless children and their parents every year since 1985. Now on its 25^th year, Papet Pasyon still continues to bring the story of Christ’s Passion to life with its cast of brown-skinned, flat-nosed and round-faced puppets.

Lapeña-Bonifacio, recently awarded the title ‘Mother of Puppetry in the Philippines’ by the U.P. Department of Speech Communication and Theater Arts, believes that, by borrowing and adopting puppetry techniques from neighboring Asian countries (such as the bunraku of Japan and the wayang golek of Indonesia), one can bring to Filipino children a knowledge and awareness of their cultural roots—not only as Filipino children, but as Asians.

“I was apprehensive to stage ‘Papet Pasyon’ because the play challenges orthodoxy, starting from the Filipino face, quite far from the tall noses and fair skin. Also, National Artist Lucrecia Kasilag, then president of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, suggested the Little Theater (now the Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino) as the venue for its premiere,” shares Lapeña-Bonifacio, who is fondly called “Lola Amel” by all the kids (and the adults) who have watched the puppet plays. “What I did not know then was how enthusiastic the reception would be to the changes. A German director commented, ‘I don’t know why you want to see the Passion Play at Oberammergau, when you have puppets like these. Just look at that face (referring to the Virgin Mary puppet)!’”

The Papet Pasyon of Teatrong Mulat ng Pilipinas will have its 25^th annual run this Palm Sunday, the 28^th of March 2010, 3pm and 5:30pm, at the Amelia Lapeña-Bonifacio Teatro Papet Museo, 64 Mapagkawanggawa St., Teachers Village West, Quezon City. ADMISSION IS FREE. For more information, call the Teatrong Mulat office at 929.0895, call/text 0918.9032040, or email mulatpuppets77@yahoo.com.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2010 at 9:09 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.