‘Beast of Broadway’ is more ‘colonially’ corrosive than ever

In the ’70s, a rally was held at the CCP by Filipino theater artists to bewail the rise and dominance of the “monster” they named “The Beast of Broadway” (!). It was their dramatic way of protesting the colonial mentality that had led many artists and theater buffs to prefer foreign plays and musicals over the homegrown variety, thus resulting in the weak and poorly supported development of our own dramaturgy and musical theater.

Well, it’s 2011, and what do you know, the “Beast” of Broadway has become even bigger and nastier! It’s time for all of us to again see it for the negative force and influence it has become.

Things are much worse now. In the ’70s, there were only three or four production groups that dished out “Broadway” fare

—today, there are many more, and they have well nigh dominated the theater scene, and gotten the bulk of the sponsorship money needed to make shows end up in the black, so that their production companies can keep on producing.

Worse, aside from local “Broadway” productions, we now have foreign artists and troupes that stage American or British musicals here, and thus further deplete the funds that should more productively go to develop local theater—which needs all the help it can get.

Aside from the financial fallout, the cultural detritus is even more tellingly tragic, because it perpetuates the old cliché that “foreign” is better than “local.” It isn’t true, of course, or is true only in the superficial, glitzy sense—because, what’s really important is that our theater speak of and to our unique sensibility and experiences. This absolutely cannot happen if 70 percent of our theatrical productions are oriented toward the west, and Filipino performers play foreign characters that Filipino audience members can’t really relate to.

It’s time, therefore, for each Filipino theater artist to reconsider his options. If his work is aiding and abetting the corrosive effects of colonial mentality, he should consciously decide to do more productions about Filipinos, from here on in. He doesn’t have to change his stripes overnight—a gradual transition will do just fine, but he should initiate it now.

Potential

The choice is a simple one: If he agrees that our pervasive colonial mentality is one of the formidable forces that have kept us from fulfilling our potential as a people and nation, he should decide to not contribute to it and do more Filipino stories, instead. He should stop being part of the problem, and start contributing to its solution. That’s it.

As for the members of the Filipino theater audience, the choice is similarly clear: Continue patronizing foreign works and thus perpetuate the colonial mentality that still has many of us in its seductive embrace—or, start using part of your entertainment budget to consciously support local productions that tell stories about you and your countrymen.

To start with, if in 2011 you spent P10,000 for tickets to “Broadway” productions and such, in 2012, consciously decide to spend half of that on Filipino works. Is that too much to ask, when the nation’s cultural and psychic well-being is at stake? —Who knows, while supporting productions that tell our stories, you might even find yourself!