THE PHILIPPINE REPORTED BY:

DELA PENA, LORENZO,

NICOLAS, NOGRALES,
KOMEDYA OCTAVIANO, RAMOS
OBJECTIVES:

ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS

1. What is Komedya?
2. What are the conventions of Komedya?
3. What are the technologies (stagecraft) used in Komedya?
4. Who are the important figures in the development of Komedya?
5. How does Komedya contribute to the understanding of Philippine society and
culture?
HISTORY
THEATRE OF THE SPANISH GOLDEN AGE:
• Dramatist Felix Lope de Vega speech (1600s)
• He introduced "Tragicomedy" and became "comedia“.
• In France, plays take place over the course of one day and in one
place, that they strictly adhere to a single tone and genre, and that
they concern themselves only with the lives of kings and nobility.
• Lope and other comedia writers rejected these rules.
• Spanish had been attending secular and religious dramatic
productions.
• Comedia were performed by professional troupes.
• It demanded increasing skill on the part of the writers.

FELIX LOPE DE VEGA

HISTORY OF KOMEDYA
Philippine komedya is a descendant of the comedia fathered by
Spanish playwright Lope de Vega in the 16th century.

Comedia de santo
(lives of saints)

Comedia de capa y espada Comedia a fantasia (stories of far

(contemporary events) away kingdom)
HISTORY OF KOMEDYA
• The very first komedya in the Philippines is written by Jesuit
Vicente Puche (1598)
• 17th Century: Spaniards used comedia de santo to
Chirstianize the natives. (Martirio de Santa Barbara)
• 8th Century: Komedya about the lives and loves of
European royalty and their battles with the Moros of the
Middle East had appeared.
• Poet Jose dela Cruz (Huseng Sisiw)

JOSE DELA CRUZ

(HUSENG SISIW)
HISTORY OF KOMEDYA
• 19th Century: The komedya had
blossomed into the most popular play
in the theatres of Manila.
• In no time, komedy began to appear
in the non- Tagalog regions.
• With its rise to popularity, the
komedya was standardized in terms of
script and performance.
• Francisco Baltazar sought to elevate
the play to a higher level of artistry.
FRANCISCO
19TH CENTURY KOMEDYA
BALTAZAR
PERFORMANCE
 • By the end of 19th Century, the komedya became the
target of attack.
• From 1878 to 1887, Tagalog and Spanish writers, who
had formal education in the arts and sciences and had
been exposed to literature and theatre which were
more realistic in content and form, launched several
diatribes against the "ignorant" komedya.
• Severe attacks of Severino Reyes and Vicente Sotto.
SEVERINO REYES • With the decline of the feudal order and the
weakening of the economy, komedya began to lose its
traditional sponsors in provinces.
• With the rise of a more specific education and spread
all over the country of radio, film, and TV which
provided new and riveting shows audiences began to
abandon the komedya in the different regions.

VICENTE SOTTO
CONVENTIONS
DRAMA TEXT:
• Draws stories from European
romances
• Written by community poets
• Stories of kings and queens, sultans
and caliphs, princes and princesses,
generals and knights, and love and
courtship, as well as challenges,
battles, and magic and miracles.
STORY OF PRINSESA
MIRAMAR AT
PRINSIPE LEANDRO
PRINSESA MIRAMAR AT PRINSIPE LEANDRO (SUMMARY)

• TOURNAMENT: Whoever wins will be the husband of Sultan

Graturko’s daughter.
• LATE-COMER: Prince Leandro asks to be allowed to compete
despite arriving after the tournament has been declared finished.
• DISPLEASED: Prince Leandro’s father, King Felipo, orders the prince
to be imprisoned for having married a Moro princess.
• WAR: The Sultan take this as an insult and declares war.
PRINSESA MIRAMAR AT PRINSIPE LEANDRO (SUMMARY)

• TREATY: A truce was made after the children of the two leaders
plead to come to an agreement and establish peace.
• REPENTANCE: In deep regret of his anger, King Felipo kills himself.
• LAW OF THE LAND: Before the acceptance of the marriage, the
Moro must first be baptized.
• QUESTION: Everyone agrees to be baptized, except the Sultan. He
taunts by asking if the Christian God is the true one, why does He
not bring King Felipo back to life.
• RESSURECTED: Lighting strikes the king’s corpse and revives him.
PLOT:
- Revolves around Moros and Christians.
Presumed to be enemies
- Conflict arises when one of each faith
falls in love with the other
- Other complications to thicken the plot
- Always ends in conversation,
reconciliation, and order
CHARACTERS:
- hierarchy: rulers, heirs, generals, subordinates
- Most of the time, the protagonist is a prince
- Other princes and princesses provide subplots
- Rulers: declaration of war; women: emotion
and beauty
- Pusong/lokayo: clown, social commentator
VERSE:
Plosa: Twelve-syllable rhyming quatrains Monorhyme: is constant and consistent
Example:
Example:
(LOVE SCENE) Mga kamahalan
Walang kailangan na mabuhay pa ako Miramar, paalam
Kung ikaw ay wala mahal kong Leandro
Tapos na ang lahat, tapos na irog ko
Ang kaligayahan layaw ko sa mundo

(BATTLE SCENE) LANGUAGE:

Kapag nagka gayun, Sultan ay tandaan
Bubuga ng apoy ang alpangheng taglay
Ipag-hihigante ang Prinsesang mahal
Ang aking lilipulin ang kakritianohan.
-Familiar choice of words, familiar figures of
speech
-Easily understood and absorbed
VALUES
• Honor and respect: “Regulates all
social relationships”
• Love: Mainly romantic, but also
filial and comradely
• Love is the basal values of honor
and respect
• Heroism and villainy
EXAMPLE: (from Prinsesa Miramar)
ROLANTE Sa gawang pag-ibig lahat pantay-
pantay
Walang inuuri maging sino ka man
Maro ma’t Kristiyanong may dangal na taglay
Dapat na igalang ng sandaigdigan.
FLORITA Moro ma’t Kristiyano sa gawang pag-ibig
Dapat na igalang ang pusong nais.
STAGE PRODUCTION

GARDEN SETTING/
STAGE FOREST SETTING
STREET OR MOUNTAIN
COSTUMES AND SPECIAL EFFFECTS

ROYALTIES’
MEN’S COSTUMES COSTUMES

WOMEN’S
COSTUME
PRODUCTION
• Prominent members (Hermano and Hermana Mayor)
• Older Komedyantes (director, apuntador, director de
musica, director de magia, traspunte)
• Young members
• Merchants and businessmen
• Craftsmen and seamstresses
• Rest of the community
MESSAGES OF TRADITIONAL KOMEDYA

1. Reaffirming the pueblo's hierarchy of the authority.

2. Komedya endorsed the Christian religion.
3. The superiority of Christianity also implied the superiority of the
race to which Christians belonged.
4. The Komedya created and propagated a culture of fantasy, that
defied the laws of geography, history, and logic.
EXAMPLE VIDEO OF TRADITIONAL KOMEDYA
(SAN DIONISIO PARANAQUE)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVR8-Ehpc6s
INDIGENIZATION OF KOMEDYA
If one were to look back at the history of komedya, the process of
indigenization seems to have been effected in five ways:
1. According to Isabelo de los Reyes, who defended the komedya against
the attacks of Severino Reyes and other sarsuwelistas in 1902, the
komedya may have been brought here by Spain but it has become truly
Filipino.
2. In using the native languages, the komedya necessarily got indigenize
to some degree, localized even, depending on the specific language
used.
INDIGENIZATION OF KOMEDYA
3. There were attempts on the part of some writers to use the komedya
as a way of making statements about the colonial situation under Spain.
4. If censorship could ban a komedya from the stage, no one, not even
the friar or alferez, could censor the words and antics of the pusong or
locayo.
5. The komedya was indigenized because it played a vital role in the way
the natives related to the sacred.
REVITALIZATION OF KOMEDYA
• Komedya is called upon to also play a larger role in the creation of
a national theatre in particular, and in the building of the nation in
general.
• It is a cultural form that the country cannot allow to simply die or
fade away.
• At the same time, however, the komedya, like other traditional
forms, cannot be simply preserved the way it is.
• In addition, the new komedya needs to adapt to the hectic pace of
urban life.
• In 1962, progressive civic leaders of San Dionisio, Parañaque, headed by Dr.
Angel Mendoza, wanted to introduces changes into the traditional komedya.
• To pump new blood into the komedya, Dr. Mendoza asked Dr. Felicidad
Mendoza to direct the new script.
"Rodante"
"Princesa Perlita"
• In 1994, a new experiment at creating the new komedya was staged in
Dongalo, Parañaque, this time with the children of the Dongalo Elem. School.
• Like new komedya on the open-air entablado, new komedya in a closed venue
requires script and production to be trimmed down to just a two or three-hour
performance which is the normal length of a performance in the modern
theatre.
REVITALIZATION
CCP in 1990: lauched and
implemented a carefully planned
and systematic effort to revitalize
the komedya. The Komedya ng
San Dionisio (TKSD) theater group
was made the focus of the effort.
Torneo I
Phase I CCP (CULTURAL CENTER
OF THE PHILIPPINES)
Phase II
REVITALIZATION
The CCP effort at revitalizing the komedya was anchored on the
conviction that the komedya as theater form could be invigorated
by:
1. The writing of new komedya at the community level, using
aesthetics that conform to community standards.
2. Replacing the threadbare and culturally offensive theme of the
conversion of Muslims to Christianity with themes dealing with more
significant and/or contemporary problems and issues.
3. Conforming to a more modern approach to playwright through.
4. Preserving the characteristic features of the komedya.
BAGONG KOMEDYA (PUTRI ANAK)
• One of the year-long series of events celebrating the UP College of Music’s
centennial year, Putri Anak features a composite text from the celestial
maiden narratives common in South East Asian cultures and showcases
performance elements adapted mostly from the San Dionisio Komedya,
which includes, among others, the dicho, loa, marcha, pasadoble, sintahan,
laban, and gran batalla.
• The production also showcases Komedya movements, enhanced by Filipino
and Southeast Asian performance traditions, with inspiration taken from
Indonesia’s Tari Java (Javanese court dance), India’s Bharata Natyam, and
the martial arts sagayan, arnis, and pencak silat.
BAGONG KOMEDYA (PUTRI ANAK)
• Bagong Komedya responds to the need for a contemporary Filipino performance by
combining the rich music and performance traditions of the Philippines and its Asian
neighbors that will hopefully be appreciated by the more cosmopolitan taste of a
present-day audience, according to director and Asian theater scholar Jina C. Umali.
Angela Baguilat and Jeremy de la Cruz, the production’s co-directors, created the
choreography to the music composed by Verne de la Peña.
• Putri Anak seeks to present a theatre of peace and unity, free of religion-based
discrimination and violence, and which instead celebrates Asian culture, heritage and
artistic expression.

SOURCE: PHILIPPINE PRIMER (2017)

PUTRI ANAK SCENES:
CONCLUSION:

1.The creation of New Komedya

2.Promotion of the New Komedya
3.Research and Dissemination