Another look at Magno Rubio
Playwright by Lonnie Carter
Based on a short story by Carlos S. Bulosan
The Romance of
Magno Rubio is a play that romances the senses in order to reach deep to find
the soul.
It engages the ear
with the lyricism and rhythmicity of lines uttered in verse, at one point
resembling the chant of ethnic drums:
Mag-no-Ru-bio.
Fi-li-pi-no Boy
Mag-no Ru-bio. Fi-li-pi-noy
At another,
percussioned by arnis sticks:
For every pod of pea I pick
One mil is what I earn
For every little mil,
one
word is what I buy
And still at
another, lolling, quiet, reverential, as if a prayer, or the anti-thesis of it:
What does it profit a man if he
loses the whole world
But keeps his soul
What does it--if he never has
any of the world to begin with
What does it--if he comes
to this land and he is meek?
and he does not inherit the
earth
For the
earth is not his
No matter that his hands
and feet
and face and eyes
are encrusted with the
earth…
There is, too, the
casual, inadvertent blending of ethnic instruments and the ease with which the
characters go in and out of multi-languages-- English, Spanish, Cebuano,
Tagalog -- and different regional accents.
Visually, there
are many inspiring moments. The movement
and slapping of sticks accompany verses; tak-tak-tak for a slow verse; takatak-katak-katak for a
faster terse verse.
The character
Magno erupts into a sequence of stylized movements to depict his frenzy of
picking and planting fruits and vegetables to earn more money for his
Clarabelle. Eventually, the movements
actually become that of “eskrima” and “arnis”, a Filipino form of martial
art. A fight sequence between Magno and
Claro transforms into a comical slow motion.
And most visual of all is the poignant solo dance of Magno with a chair:
a ballet of man, chair and shadows in dim light.
Pictured: (L-R foreground) Orlando Pabotoy and (L-R rear) Jojo Gonzalez, Ramon de Ocampo,
Ron Domingo and Art Acuna
Photo credit: Lita Puyat
Ron Domingo and Art Acuna
Photo credit: Lita Puyat
Photo: Lita
Puyat
Cast of Characters: (L to
R) Ron Domingo as Prudencio, Orlando
Pabotoy as Magno Rubio, Ramon de Ocampo as Atoy/Clarabelle and Jojo Gonzales as
Claro; not pictured is Art Cuna as Nick)
Texturally, the
paucity of props and stage does not keep us from feeling the fabric of the
play. On the contrary, the scarcity
drives home the point of poverty, the material depravity, “the life of dogs and
pigs and brown monkeys”. One can almost
feel the rough wood of the bunkhouse and the swirl of dust beneath the
farmhands’ feet. One can almost feel the
sting of mosquitoes in the early night.
The characters are
so close to us, the audience, separated only by strands of wire, making us
feel, telling us, that, we, are all Magnos and Claros and Prudencios and Nicks
and Atoys, all with our own personal Clarabelles…
From the stage we
hear the imploring, Bulosan, in our collective unconscious;
If you want to know what we
are,
Look upon the farms,
Or upon the hard pavement of
the city.
You usually see us working or
waiting for work,
And you think you know us, but our outward guise
Is more deceptive than our
history…
So Magno Rubio is
a fable, a folktale. It tells of a
four-foot six-inch illiterate Filipino migrant farmhand and his ill-fated love
for the Arkansas America America
Photo: Lita Puyat
But like most
fables and folktales, Magno Rubio tells more than it seems.
It tells the
universal tale of our exodus, our struggles, trials and tribulations in a new
land. It tells us that in our
loneliness, it becomes more important to understand who we are and where we
came from. It tells us that in the face
of false hopes, of ill-fated dreams, of the Clarabelles, it becomes more
important to be different, like the bamboo is different because it bends to strong
winds but never breaks; like the Molave is different, strong in its rootedness
and resistant to rot. It tells us that
in the face of our invisibility in a greater society that hardly sees us, much
less knows us, it becomes more important to live these lines:
For there will be days when we will stand together
Fighting for our right to stand together,
I think they will understand why we should
Stand together in our time.
As Magno Rubio drags you through a gamut of
emotions and makes you laugh and cry and angry and wistful as you move with
Magno, Claro, Prudencio and Atoy through the scenes, allow yourself to
celebrate your brown legacy, exult in your heritage; revel in the ancestry of
your birth. Feel proud, for when all
things are said and done, flat noses, coconut heads, turtle arms all, size has
got nothing to do with love.
By Gabriela
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