Abstract
On the occasion of the 2017 National Arts Month in the Philippines, José Estrella directed Faust, a contemporary Philippine adaptation written by Rody Vera. This chapter looks at Faust as an allegory of the current Philippine political landscape. Specifically, it traces how the journey of Faust in search of the most ideal and perfect knowledge parallels the contemporary political affairs in the Philippines. The chapter reads the characters of Faust, Mephistopheles/Mephisto, Gretchen and the mangkukulam (witch) as relatable figures to Filipino audience, especially since they are presented as reminders that in an era of what many have identified as post-truth, someone will always emerge to tell the real story.
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Notes
- 1.
In many introductory notes about Faust , Mephisto is characterised as a cultivated, witty and cynical servant from hell. Some scholars point out Mephisto as an embodiment of a complex doctrine of philosophical nihilism and negation. See, for example, David Hawkes, The Faust Myth: Religion and the Rise of Representation (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); Rolf-Peter Janz, ‘Mephisto and the Modernization of Evil,’ in Goethe’s Faust: Theatre of Modernity, ed. Hans Schulte, John Noyes and Pia Kleber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 17–31 and Peter Huber, ‘Mephisto is the Devil—or is he?,’ in Goethe’s Faust: Theatre of Modernity, ed. Hans Schulte, John Noyes and Pia Kleber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 32–39.
- 2.
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Penguin Books, 1976), 252.
- 3.
See Paul B. Clarke’s critique on Arendt in ‘Beyond the Banality of Evil,’ in British Journal of Political Science 10, No. 4 (1980): 417–39, and The Autonomy of Politics (Aldershot: Avebury, 1988).
- 4.
Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind 1: Thinking (London: Secker and Warburg, 1978), 4.
- 5.
Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, 276.
- 6.
Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, 276.
- 7.
Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco, ‘Understanding the Contemporary in Philippine Theatre,’ in Art Archive 01: A Collection of Essays on Contemporary Philippine Visual and Performance Arts, ed. Patricia Tumang (Manila: The Japan Foundation, 2017), 53.
- 8.
Jacques Rancière, Dis-agreement: Politics and Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 11.
- 9.
Rancière, Dis-agreement, 19.
- 10.
‘Tanglaw ng Lahi Award,’ Ateneo de Manila University, accessed March 10, 2018, http://www.ateneo.edu/tanglaw-ng-lahi-award.
- 11.
Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco, Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines (Quezon City: The University of the Philippines Press, 2015), 139.
- 12.
Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco, ‘The Theatre of José Estrella,’ The Theatre Times, August 26, 2016, accessed February 20, 2018. https://thetheatretimes.com/theater-jose-estrella/.
- 13.
In The Origin of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt analogises the concentration camps to hell, hence, the coinage of hell-on-earth. Arendt’s assertion of hell-on-earth is not simply an external analogy, but that the emergence of total domination is closely and strangely related to the religious belief in hell, that it materializes this belief by incarnating it in immanence. In a strict sense, the camp realizes hell on earth (Tiatco, Entablado, 139–158).
- 14.
‘The UP Charter,’ University of the Philippines, accessed July 2, 2018, https://www.up.edu.ph/index.php/about-up/the-up-charter/.
- 15.
University of the Philippines Diliman Information Office, ‘Salaysayan: K’wentong Bayan, Kaalamang Bayan,’ Printed Souvenir Program, 2017, 25–26.
- 16.
Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco and Bryan Levina Viray, ‘Performing Human Rights: Pista Rizalina’s Interrogations of Martial Law, Extra-Judicial Killings and Historical Revisionism at the Cultural Center of the Philippines,’ JATI: Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 23, No. 1 (July 2018): 217.
- 17.
‘Philippines: Events of 2016,’ Human Rights Watch, accessed February 20, 2018, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/philippines.
- 18.
Manuel Mogato and Clare Baldwin, ‘Special Report: Police Describe Kill, Rewards, Staged Crime Scenes in Duterte’s Drug War,’ Reuters Online Report, April 18, 2017, accessed March 10, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-duterte-police-specialrep/special-report-police-describe-kill-rewards-staged-crime-scenes-in-dutertes-drug-war-idUSKBN17K1F4.
- 19.
Juliet Perry, ‘Philippines to UN: Reports of Extrajudicial Killings are based on “Alternative Facts,”’ CNN Online, 9 May 2017, accessed March 10, 2018, https://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/09/asia/philippines-war-on-drugs-alternative-facts/index.html.
- 20.
Nicole Curato, ‘We Need to Talk About Rody,’ in A Duterte Reader: Critical Essays on Rodrigo Duterte’s Early Presidency, ed. Nicole Curato (Quezon City: Bughaw/Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2017), 1.
- 21.
Curato, ‘We Need to Talk About Rody,’ 1.
- 22.
For an example of phenomenology of evil in Faust, see Huber, ‘Mephisto is the Devil,’ and for a reflection on modernity, see Albrecht Schöne, ‘Faust—Today,’ in Goethe’s Faust: Theatre of Modernity, eds. Hans Schulte, John Noyes and Pia Kleber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 17–31.
- 23.
Bonifacio Ilagan, ‘Crossing Borders: Philippines Activist Theater and Martial Law,’ Kritika Kultura 14 (2010): 112.
- 24.
Rodolfo Vera, ‘Faust,’ (Unpublished Typescript, 2017), 22.
- 25.
Jodesz Gavilan, ‘Rights Groups Slam Cayetano’s Defense of Drug War before UN,’ Rappler Online, March 1, 2018, accessed March 10, 2018, https://www.rappler.com/nation/197171-human-rights-groups-slam-alan-peter-cayetano-defense-drug-war-united-nations.
- 26.
In an online report, Marc Jayson Cayabyab (‘House Gives Commission on Human Rights ₱1000 Budget for 2018,’ Philippine Daily Inquirer Online, 12 September 2017, accessed March 10, 2018, http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/930106/house-budget-deliberations-chr-p1000-budget-speaker-alvarez), explains that the decision of the House of Congress on the ₱1000 budget for the Commission on Human Rights apparently was the result of Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez ‘making good his word to give the commission, long critical of the administration’s war on drugs, a measly budget, which would render it ineffective in its operations next year.’
- 27.
These are not in the typescript. These lines were inserted by the dramaturgical team.
- 28.
These lines are Imelda Marcos’s actual remarks from her interview found in a documentary film Imelda, DVD, directed by Ramona Diaz (Philippines: Unitel Pictures, 2003).
- 29.
Hawkes, The Faust Myth, 151.
- 30.
Hannah Arendt, The Origin of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1985 [1951]), 446.
- 31.
Arendt, Totalitarianism, 446–7.
- 32.
Rome Jorge, ‘Faust: Reminagined as Post-Truth Philippines,’ Philippine Daily Inquirer Online, 25 February 2017, accessed July 15, 2018, http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/255268/faust-reimagined-post-truth-philippines/.
- 33.
Michael Lim Tan, Revisiting Usog, Pasma, Kulam (Quezon City: The University of the Philippines Press, 2008), 67–8.
- 34.
Tan, Revisiting Usog, 69.
- 35.
In the typescript, playwright Vera wrote that the English version he used for the adaptation was David Luke’s translation of Faust published by Oxford University Press in 2007.
- 36.
‘Challenging Traditional Politics,’ Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism [no author cited], PCIJ Blog, accessed August 1, 2018, http://pcij.org/blog/2008/01/31/challenging-traditional-politics.
- 37.
Aries Joseph Hegina, ‘Davao City Improves to 5th in Ranking of World’s Safest Cities,’ Philippine Daily Inquirer Online, 24 June 2016, accessed March 10, 2018, http://globalnation.inquirer.net/125132/davao-city-improves-to-5th-in-ranking-of-worlds-safest-cities.
- 38.
Manuel Cayon, ‘First President from Mindanao Seen Bringing Discipline to the Whole PHL,’ Business Mirror Online, 11 May 2016, accessed March 10, 2018, https://businessmirror.com.ph/first-president-from-mindanao-seen-bringing-discipline-to-the-whole-phl/.
- 39.
Tan, Revisiting Usog, 74–5.
- 40.
The People’s Republic of China (China) has been claiming several islands in the Philippine territory. On 12 July 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration proclaimed that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources in the sea areas falling within the constructed ‘Nine-Dash Line’ of the Chinese government. China had breached its obligation under the convention on the international regulations or preventing collisions at sea and Article 94 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea concerning maritime safety. Finally, the report also states that China violated its obligations to refrain from aggravating or extending the parties disputes during the pendency of the settlement process. For further information, see ‘The South China Sea Arbitration (The Republic of the Philippines v. The People’s Republic of China,’ Permanent Court of Arbitration, accessed August 20, 2018, https://pca-cpa.org/en/cases/7/.
- 41.
Nestor Corales, ‘Duterte Admits He Was Wrong on 3–6 Months Drug War Deadline,’ Philippine Daily Inquirer Online, 17 April 2017, accessed March 10, 2018, http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/923503/duterte-drug-war-deadline-drugs-war-on-drugs-campaign-extension.
- 42.
Corales, ‘Duterte Admits He Was Wrong.’
- 43.
Walden Bello, ‘Rodrigo Duterte: A Fascist Original,’ in A Duterte Reader: Critical Essays on Rodrigo Duterte’s Early Presidency, ed. Nicole Curato (Quezon City: Bughaw/Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2017), 77–92.
- 44.
Anna Cristina Pertierra, ‘Celebrity Politics and Televisual Melodrama in the Age of Duterte,’ in A Duterte Reader: Critical Essays on Rodrigo Duterte’s Early Presidency, ed. Nicole Curato (Quezon City: Bughaw/Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2017), 219–230.
- 45.
For a long time, China has been using the Nine-Dash Line argument to show the maximum extent of its territorial claim to the South China Sea. However, the actual demarcation of the line has never existed until 7 May 2009 when China submitted a new map to the United Nations, showing the extent of the territorial claim. The Philippines lodged a diplomatic protest against China for claiming the whole of the South China Sea illegally. Other Southeast Asian nations affected by the territorial claim such as Vietnam and Malaysia also lodged their protest a day after China submitted its map to the UN. The Philippine government through then President Benigno Aquino III filed a case against China to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, an arbitral tribunal constituted under Annex VII to the 1982 United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). On 12 July 2016, the court ruling states that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within “ Nine-Dash Line.” At the same time, the court ruled that China had breached its obligations under the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, and that China violated its obligations to refrain from aggravating or extending the parties’ disputes during the pendency of the settlement process. Despite this, China has continued to build artificial islands in the South China Sea (West Philippine Sea in the Philippines), particularly in the territorial claim of the Republic of the Philippines. And as reported in Rappler Online by Paterno Esmequel II, 93% of Filipinos want the Philippines to reclaim China-occupied islands (https://www.rappler.com/nation/235204-filipinos-want-philippines-regain-china-occupied-islands-sws-survey?fbclid=IwAR3j3KkoLSApPLL8wTUi0bsfvQAXOGoeBUdxPm8baTActQMEgy-eEFCdEA8). President Rodrigo Duterte is known for his strong affiliation with the Chinese government. Television and news online have reported that Duterte does not want to offend China since she has been bringing investments to the country. Even the president’s spokesperson Salvador Panelo has been continuously downplaying China’s territorial grabbing in the West Philippine Sea. Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales have been very vocal about the legal rights of the Philippines to the West Philippine Sea and have been calling Filipinos to defend its territory. Carpio has even slammed Duterte’s administration for refusing to use the landmark ruling.
- 46.
Hannah Arendt, The Jewish Writings, ed. Jerome Kohn and Ron H. Feldmen (New York: Schocken Books, 2007), 265.
- 47.
According to Vera, as noted in the typescript, this is scene 21 (‘By a Shrine Inside a Town Hall’) in Luke’s translation.
- 48.
Arendt, The Origin of Totalitarianism, 157.
- 49.
Hannah Arendt, Essays in Understanding: 1930–1954: Formation, Exile and Totalitarianism, ed. by Jerome Kohn (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994), 133–135.
- 50.
Arendt, Essays in Understanding, 132.
- 51.
Arendt, The Origin of Totalitarianism, 434.
- 52.
Arendt, The Origin of Totalitarianism, 435.
- 53.
Translations in English are provided in the typescript (Vera, ‘Faust,’ 60).
- 54.
Translations also provided in the typescript (Vera, ‘Faust,’ 60–1).
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Acknowledgement
This chapter is supported by the University of the Philippines Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs through the Enhanced Creative Work and Research Grant (ECWRG 2017-2-06). I express my sincerest gratitude to the said institution.
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Tiatco, S.A.P. (2020). Staging the Banality of Social Evil: Faust and/in Philippine Contemporary Social Politics. In: Tan, M., Rajendran, C. (eds) Performing Southeast Asia. Contemporary Performance InterActions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34686-7_5
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