Lament for the littlest fellow

Playwright: Jethro James I. Bodoso (HUM014-A15)

Lament for the Littlest Fellow

Edith L. Tiempo

The littlest fellow was a marmoset.

He held the bars and blinked his old man’s eyes.

You said he knew us, and took my arms and set

My fingers around the bars, with coaxing mimicries

Of squeak and twitter. “Now he thinks you are

Another marmoset in a cage.” A proud denial

Set you to laughing, shutting back a question far

Into my mind, something enormous and final.

The question was unasked but there is an answer.

Sometimes in your sleeping face upon the pillow,

I would catch our own little truant unaware;

He had fled from our pain and the dark room of our

rage,

But I would snatch him back from yesterday and

tomorrow.

You wake, and I bruise my hands on the living cage.

Characters:

Marmoset

Wife

Husband

Scene 1: Zoo

[C: on the right part, is a big cage with a marmoset inside, while on the left part are the couple facing the cage]

Marmoset: (holding the bars of his cage while having eye-to-eye contact with the couple)

Husband: I think the marmoset knows us. Look he keeps on staring at us and keeps blinking his big wide eyes.

Wife: What are you saying? That this small creepy creature knows us? How? And why? (She’s now starting to get confuse on what her husband is saying)

Husband: (He holds his wife’s hands and forcefully put it around the bars)

Wife: (she’s now totally confused of what’s happening) Wait! What are you doing to me??? I’m not a marmoset to treat me like that! Stop it! Will you?

Marmoset: (makes lots of noises, coaxing mimicries of squeak and twitter, as if he’s having a party inside his cage because he now have a companion)

Husband: Now he thinks you are another marmoset in a cage.

Wife: What are you saying?! No! I’m not a marmoset! And never will!!! (Really confuse and problematic at this point, her forehead wrinkles because of lots of confusions)

Husband: (laughing at her, as if he’s bullying his own wife)

Wife: (“Why he’s telling me I’m a marmoset? Why he keeps on forcing me that I’m a marmoset? Oh no, I can’t really understand him.”)

[The couple will go home; however, the wife seems still in the zoo, because in her head she can’t erase the big question mark that her husband made.]

Scene 2: Bedroom

[C: They will now enter the room, walking ahead is the husband, followed by his wife, as if the husband is supreme over his wife. R: the cage with the marmoset inside, however, even though he’s at the stage, he’s no longer part of the next scenes, he is just inside the mind of the wife, STILL thinking why her husband told her that she’s a marmoset.]

Husband: (undresses himself, taking off his socks, shoes, accessories seriously, and just throw them around)

Wife: (helps her husband undressing himself, collecting all the scattered belongings of her husband, like his socks and shoes, as if she’s a slave working for him)

Marmoset: (quiet and just observing the actions of the couple)

[They are now going to bed, to have enough sleep, so the lights are dim, the sensuality and intensity of heat inside the room rise, because we all know they are married couples and they are currently enjoying their privacy]

Husband: (Taps “kinakalabit” his wife and asking for something. “Nangangalabit” means something different here; we all know what it is)

Wife: Please not now, I’m very tired due to long hours of our trip and side-seeing in the Zoo today. There’s still tomorrow, isn’t?

Husband: I WANT IT NOW… You can’t reject my request, you should obey me!

Wife: Please, I don’t want to argue with you tonight, we need to have rest.

Husband: No (now loosing his patience) you should not disobey me my littlest fellow, because you rejected what I’m asking from you, you’ll suffer the consequences! (Now acting as if he’s revenging to a person who did a terrible sin to him, because he now thinks that his masculinity was offended and his wife is now gaining superiority over him.)

[A large black cloth was raised to cover the entire stage and to block the next scenes]

Wife: (screaming due to pain because she was forced by her husband to do a sexual intercourse or “Marital Rape”)

Marmoset: (going crazy inside his cage, as if he also feels the pain of the wife)

[The cloth was being lowered slowly and then it will be completely removed.]

Husband: (as the cloth is being lowered the husband leaves the room for a while to attend his personal needs and to escape from what he had done)

[A very slow and gloomy instrumental music is being played, to made the feelings of sadness and pain of the wife more intense and to make it more realistic]

Wife: (is now at the center of the bed, her hair is disorganize and her clothes are scattered all over the room; crying and staring at the air, as if she’s crazy and out of her mind; covered with blanket and positioned like a baby, embracing her knees; due to the pain she suffered earlier)

Marmoset: (is now again quiet, but seems mourning or very sad and about to cry as if one of his family or another marmoset died or suffering to an injury)

...UP... by Jethro Bodoso-->FINAL

When I'm at the mountain's peak,
I saw lots of ants down there,
I'll CRUSH them with my feet's flair,
and KNOCK them with just one FLICK!

(Tanaga) by Jethro Bodoso-->BEFORE

When I'm at the Mountains peak,
I am the strongest of all
They'll look up, because they're weak
unlike me,I'm STOUT and TALL

LAUGHTER by Maningning Miclat

(source:ABOUT MANINGNING.Web.24 July 2009.[http://www.maningning.com/home.htm].)

This poem is an example of ironic poem. At the first stanza, the boy she is addressing to, left her, but she is courageous, she laugh, laugh and laughed; until he totally left her. Laughter ironically represents the girl's sadness and sorrow because the boy totally leave.

2nd stanza:However, before he left her, he begged the girl to forget everything about him. Maybe the boy is preparing her for his total absence. And the girl did so.

3rd Stanza:Unfortunately, everything she experienced and felt to the boy's departure, was saved and written to the poems she made. That's why, she and all the readers will feel what she felt before. But maybe she don't want to totally forget the boy, because she love him so much.

4th Stanza:This poem is really ironic, because she said that the mood of the poems she writes is sad, but she's laughing. At this part she's now reminiscing the times she's with the boy, their happy moments. As she is remembering those sweet moments, she felt sad and disappointed with their current status.

5th Stanza:At this part, the girl maybe suffering to some big problem or obstacle. Because she gets her strength to the boy. But she used the word "maybe", because she knew not all relationships ends happily ever after.

6th Stanza:The boy don't want to talk to her anymore and not happy with her company,in fact, he ignored her. Maybe because the boy saw other things that captures his attention, maybe another girl?

7th Stanza:And at this part, the boy totally left her. Maybe his patience is finally gone and he don't love the girl anymore. I just want to clarify that the 1st stanza was used to introduce or give us a hint on what the poem is all about, and on the succeeding lines, she was narrating their relationship before and its comparison to their current status.

8th Stanza:So after the boy left, that's the time he understand why the girl is kept on laughing. It's because of him, he is her life, her strength, and the reason to keep moving and to fight against all the odds.

SERVANT GIRL by Estrella Alfon

(source:H.O. Santos.The Best Philippine SHORT STORY.Web.7 July 2009.[http://www.sushidog.com/bpss/stories/servant.htm].)

I really felt what Rosa is going through, what her mistress was doing to her, I really felt PITY for her. While the mistress was beating her, I thought I was the one being beaten. Rosa is a very good person, a healthy, down to earth female specimen acutely conscious of her own physical attractions, and that’s why people reading this specially the women and her co-servants might cry as they read this story.

Rosa is sharply aware of the interest of the two men who circle her like fighting cocks ruffling their feathers at a hen. First, there is the girl's fantasy about the cochero, whom she conceives as different from other men, more gallant, gentler, and to whom she gives the name "Angel." Besides him, Sancho, her admirer, seems brutish and rude.

I REALLY FELT BAD for Rosa when her Angel, Pedro, met her again and act as if they never saw each other before. But on the contrary, Rosa was awakened from her “DAYDREAMS” between her, Pedro and Sancho. These daydreams really gave Rosa the courage and the guts to survive the whole day with her mistress and her never ending abusiveness and cruelness, however, that is completely wrong, you met this guy in just one night and you think that as if they’ll getting to be married tomorrow?

After all of what had happened, she came back to her mistress and takes good care of her in spite of its brutality. ROSA is really a VERY VERY good person; no intensifiers can highlight the word “GOOD”. She’s a model not just to her co-servants but also TO US. If your going to think deeply in your heart, Rosa is better than us, even though she’s is just a servant.

The story raises issues--about class and about gender--which it does not really explore or resolve. It ends on a quiet note, with apparent acceptance of the way things are.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Let us treat these people (servants) as people, they are also people like us with equal rights and responsibilities, yes, they are being payed for their hard works BUT are you buying his/her whole identity/body/personality? NO! So don’t act as if you own them! If you do any brutality to them, who’s the animal then?

the mysteries behind "The Summer Solstice" by Nick Joaquin

(source:St. John the Baptist.Web.2 July 2009.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_the_Baptist].)
St. John the Baptist

John the Baptist (died c 30) was a mission preacher and a major religious figure who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River in expectation of a divine apocalypse that would restore occupied Israel. John followed the example of previous Hebrew prophets, living austerely, challenging sinful rulers, calling for repentance, and promising God's justice.

Some scholars maintain that he was influenced by the Essenes, who were semi-ascetic, expected an apocalypse, and had rituals similar to baptism, although there is no direct evidence to substantiate this. John's baptism was a purification rite for repentant sinners, performed in "living water" (in this case a running river) in accord with Jewish custom. John anticipated a messianic figure who would be greater than himself. Jesus was among those whom John baptized. It has been suggested that Jesus may have been a follower of John. Herod Antipas saw John as a threat and had him executed. The ministry of Jesus followed John's, and some of Jesus' early followers had previously been followers of John. John, like Jesus, preached at a time of political, social, and religious conflict.

Accounts of John in the New Testament are not incompatible with the account in Josephus, whose authority is respected. Here, Jesus is the one whose coming John foretold. Herod has John imprisoned for denouncing his marriage, and he is later executed. Christians commonly refer to John as the precursor or forerunner of Jesus, since in the Gospels, John announces Jesus' coming. He is also identified with the prophet Elijah, and is described as a relative of Jesus.

Because Scripture described John as endowed with prenatal grace, the feast day of his birth (June 24) became celebrated more solemnly than that marking his martyrdom (August 29). John is regarded as a prophet in Islam, as well as in the Bahá'í Faith. and Mandaeism. In art, John's head often appears on a platter because that is what Herod's stepdaughter, Salome, is said to have asked for. A theme of Christian art is the Beheading of St. John the Baptist. He is also depicted as an ascetic wearing camel hair and with a staff and scroll inscribed "Ecce Agnus Dei", or bearing a book or dish with a lamb on it. In Orthodox icons, he often has angel's wings, since Mark 1:2 describes him as ἄγγελος (angelos) (messenger).

Imprisonment and beheading

The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (Caravaggio)
(source:St. John the Baptist.Web.2 July 2009.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_the_Baptist].)


The presumed 'Head of St John', enshrined in Rome
(source:St. John the Baptist.Web.2 July 2009.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_the_Baptist].)
According to the canonical Gospels, John the Baptist's public ministry was brought to a close when he was imprisoned on orders of Herod Antipas. The synoptic Gospels state that Herod Antipas reacted to John's condemnation of his marriage to Herodias, the former wife of his half-brother Herod II. Josephus locates John's imprisonment in the fortress of Machaerus on the southern extremity of Peraea, nine miles (14 km) east of the Dead Sea (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities XVIII:5:1–2). Matthew relates that the imprisoned John sent messengers to Jesus to ask him whether he was the Messiah. Jesus indirectly answered in the affirmative and described John in terms of a return of the prophet Elijah (Matthew 11:2-15).


Said to be the Head of John the Baptist, in reliquarium, Residenz, Munich
(source:St. John the Baptist.Web.2 July 2009.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_the_Baptist].)


This is the tomb which lies beneath a monastic Church in a Coptic Christian Monastery in Lower Egypt. The bones of St. John the Baptist were said to have been found here.
(source:St. John the Baptist.Web.2 July 2009.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_the_Baptist].)
Regarding John's death, Josephus states that Herod had John killed to preempt a possible uprising. Matthew links John's death as well with Herodias, as he related that her daughter Salome so much delighted Antipas with a dance that he vowed to grant her any wish to which, after asking her mother (Herodias), she demanded the head of John the Baptist. (Matthew 14:6-8) The Gospels date John's death before the crucifixion of Jesus. Josephus places John's death no later than 36 CE. Neither Josephus nor the Gospels state where John was buried, though the Gospels state that John's disciples took his body and placed it in a tomb and then told Jesus all that had occurred, to which Jesus replied that there had been no greater son of woman than John the Baptist (Matthew 14:3-12). In the time of Julian the Apostate, however, his tomb was shown at Samaria, where the inhabitants opened it and burned part of his bones. The rest of the alleged remains were saved by some Christians, who carried them to an abbot of Jerusalem named Philip.

Festivity

In many Mediterranean countries the summer solstice is dedicated to St. John. The associated ritual is very similar to midsummer celebrations on the Anglo-saxon world inspired in the Celtic festivity of Samhain.(source:St. John the Baptist.Web.2 July 2009.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_the_Baptist].)

(source:Noel Vera.The Historical Battle Of The Sexes.Web.2 July 2009.[http://www.bigozine2.com/movies06/NVtatarin.html].)
Tatarin
It explores the pagan forces in the Christian community, and the superiority of women to imperious men. It portrays and contrasts the men and women who simultaneously celebrate the recently-introduced feast of St. John the Baptist and the ceremonial acts of the tatarin, a pagan ritual to the moon led by female priestesses.(source:Tatarin.Web.2 July 2009.[http://en.wikipilipinas.org/index.php?title=Tatarin].)

The tatarin ritual is an affront to that patriarchal state which the Philippines has inherited from its Western colonizers. Guido (Carlos Morales), Paeng's cousin who relocates from Europe to take part in the pagan rituals, relates that women have always been powerful; that before there were kings, there were queens; that before there were priests, there were pagan priestesses; and that the sun bows down to the moon (which symbolizes femininity). You see Lupe's surprise of her undiscovered power upon hearing those words and while her legs are fondled by the very masculine Guido while her husband peeks through their balcony.(source:Francis Cruz.Lessons From the School of Inattention:Oggs' Movie Thoughts.26 June 2007.Web.3 July 2009.[http://oggsmoggs.blogspot.com/2007/06/tatarin-2001_26.html].)

It presented the ancient pagan dance ritual that is "Tatarin," a celebration which coincides with the feast of St. John the Baptist.

"Tatarin" uses the backdrop of the American occupation, the period where the picturesque "Tatarin" ritual awakens the goddesses in the quiet, passive spirits of a mistress of a mansion, Lupe and her maid Amada. Drawn to worship of a centuries-old Balete tree, Lupe and Amada are caught in a trance that liberates them from all their inhibitions.

"Through ceaseless chanting, Lupe and Amada empower the weakest of their sensibilities," Tikoy(director of tatarin:movie) explains. "And by some form of erotic pagan dance, they rouse to frenzy the most savage of their desires that from long ago, had been shackled to frigidity by men who dominate their world."(source:Filmmaker Tikoy Aguiluz directs Nick Joaquin classic.24 November 2001.Web.3 July 2009.[http://www.emanila.com/pilipino/various/ggr_tatarin_aguiluz.htm].)

"The Persons Behind the Philippines' literature foundation"

(source:CITATION for Nick Joaquin.31 August 1996.Web.21 June 2009.[http://rmaf.org.ph/Awardees/Citation/CitationJoaquinNic.htm].)
Nick Joaquin:Philippines' premier literary artist

Joaquin mastered the Philippines' most popular and widely-read literary form, the newspaper column. In offerings titled "Jottings," "Small Beer," and such, he dished out regular rounds of history, opinion, and gossip with such flair, candor, and intelligence that he managed to raise this quotidian newspaper exercise to an art. Long recognized as the Philippines' premier literary artist, Joaquin has influenced and inspired generations of aspiring writers. English is his preferred metier and he uses the language masterfully to convey his own quintessentially Filipino persona. As he explains, "Whether it is in Tagalog or English, because I am Filipino, every single line I write is in Filipino." We should really recognize him for exploring the mysteries of the Filipino body and soul in sixty inspired years as a writer.(source:CITATION for Nick Joaquin.31 August 1996.Web.21 June 2009.[http://www.rmaf.org.ph/Awardees/Citation/CitationJoaquinNic.htm].)

(source:Michael Viola.Filipino American Hip-Hop and Class Consciousness:Renewing the Spirit of Carlos Bulosan.15 April 2006.Web.21 June 2009.[http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/viola150406.html].)
Carlos Bulosan:Witness to the Filipinos' "HARDSHIPS"

Bulosan was involved in writing more political news, working for the Philippine Commonwealth Times and at least two other newspapers in the Stockton-Salinas areas that focused on the problems of the Filipino workers, according to Evangelista(one of the best biography writer of Bulosan’s life). With the end of the Depression and the start of World War II, during which the Philippines and the United States were allies in the fight against Japan, the status of Filipinos in the United States began to change slightly. In 1943 he published The Voice of Bataan, written in memory of the soldiers who died there. In his short life, Bulosan rose from an impoverished childhood in colonial Philippines to become a celebrated man of letters in the United States, despite deeply entrenched racial barriers. His books and poems bore unsparing witness to the racism and hardships Filipinos encountered in their adopted home(source:Biography:Carlos Bulosan.Web.21 June 2009.[http://www.answers.com/topic/carlos-bulosan].).