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Fish Hair Woman

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Submitted By caminadetin
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Christine A. Caminade

Thirst for Freedom, Justice and Peace

The play, Fish-Hair Woman, was a beautiful production by the Harlequin Theatre Guild of De La Salle University. It had a unique diversity from death and love, an enemy and a sweetheart, war and an impassioned serenade and more. Only four chambers, but with infinite space like memory, where there is room even for those whom we do not love.
The most noticeable thing about the production would perhaps be the set-up. The “Theater-in-the-Round” setup of the play was designed by Joseph Duran, and is reminiscent of the “Arena Theater” of ancient Greece and Rome. What I loved about this structure is the intimacy that it establishes with the audience. Fish-Hair Woman made me feel like I was part of the play. In addition, what makes “Fish-Hair Woman” different from the other Theater-in-the-Round productions that I have seen is that it’s not just about the audience surrounding the stage – the audience is actually a part of the stage. The plot happens all around – scenes happen in front, people enter from the sides, and flashbacks may happen from the mounted stage behind you. The story is mainly about Estrella, the fish-hair woman who uses her 12-metres-long hair like a net to retrieve the dead from the river when pro-government forces and guerillas sweep through the village where she lives. She is the one who remembers and suffers. Her story and those around her are central to this play, but the stories that are woven here are about much more. About life and death, of course. And politics and war in the Philippines. About parents and children and siblings. About the past and whether or not we can ever escape it. About history and memory. About a fascinating group of characters. And about finding joy in the face of pain. She is joined by her older “sister”, Pilar, who joins the communist insurgents; and Tony, the Australian journalist who Estrella loves. Estrella is actually the child of an encounter between a young girl and one of the most powerful men in the country. The 15- year old girl dies giving birth, leaving Estrella in the care of the devastated but loving Mamay Dulce. Dulce is the mother of the adventurous, brave and rebellious Pilar who falls in love with Kumander Benito and the Communist cause vowing to rise above the oppressive regimes, and all those who destroy the lives and dreams of the once passionate farmers forced to become tenants on their own land.
Now the play goes way back. Back to the time where Estrella was first born and where tragedy immediately struck. It could be seen that her life was full of ups and downs. Because of the grief that Pilar, which was her real mom’s friend, felt, the latter tried to kill the baby Estrella. Tying her head around a rope and hanging her on a tree. However the brother was quick to stop the act and save the baby Estrella.
The play focuses on the political turmoil of the first-quarter storm in the Philippines during Marcos’ regime. It is a play set during war and yet it is not really about war. It is about people, “those whom we love and hate”, about how we use and manipulate stories to “save” or” kill”, and, about collective grieving, collective responsibility. You could see from the play that simple men who were just planting crops suddenly became soldiers who were thirsty to kill. It was also understood that education played an important factor. Most of the people back in the day were not privileged enough to go to school so they did not really know what was morally right or wrong. Aside from that, we could also incur that power was something not everyone could have but was what everyone craved for. There was even a scene where a pregnant Pilar was raped by a soldier who was abusing his power forcing her to have a miscarriage. Freedom and justice were also two things that most of the netizens wanted. You could see all throughout the play that the people wanted revenge. They wanted to avenge their dead parents or siblings or even neighbours. Grief and loss were what they experienced and wanted to fight for. There were even scenes that when an enemy or soldiers would die they would spit on their grave as signs of disgust and disrespect.
In a nutshell, the play is complex, nuanced and beautiful. More interestingly, it deliberately evades easy answers and is brutal towards well-intentioned white liberals, local tyrants, shallow politicians and media; it prefers to spell out the complexities of faith and love and humanity. It was a play about memory and forgetting in the face of conflict and community suffering and loss. The setting focuses on the forced disappearances in the town of Iraya, where dozens of bodies are pulled from the local river, victims of either guerrilla, paramilitary or military forces. The characters are lost Australian journalists, corrupt political warlords, small-town gravediggers and midwives, drug-addicted children of victims, their stories told in a complicated but satisfying interesting of stories told as magic realism, journalism, travel-horror, political thriller, village tragedy, and hideous farce.
It was truly a beautiful and rich play. Aside from the wonderful script and the amazing setting, what made the play better was the actually the actors themselves. It was evident that they put their heart and soul to the play. I was astonished myself because there were parts that I became teary-eyed or outraged because of the cruelty that they felt. The imagery is particularly strong. I love the idea that the magical is metaphorical. For instance, Estrella’s hair is memory. The reason why it is so long is because it grows a hand span each time she remembers. Memory makes the people who have disappeared re-appear. It may be painful but it saves lost people, places and histories.
At the end of the play, when Estrella was killed because it was found out that it was she who shot her father, I finally felt peace and happiness because finally, Estrella was happy and in the hands of her family. It was again, such a beautiful play and I was glad to have seen it.

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