SITUATING PHILIPPINE THEATRICALITY IN ASIA: A CRITIQUE ON THE ASIAN-NESS / PHILIPPINE-NESS OF PHILIPPINE THEATRE(S)

In this essay, a homogenized / essentialized Philippine theatre identity proposed by the celebrated Philippine theatre scholar Nicanor G. Tiongson in his seminal essay “What is Philippine Drama?” is interrogated. Tiongson’s essay has become a canon in Philippine Theatre Studies. It will be argued that his assertion of homogeneity in the theatre culture of the Philippines is not exclusively a local scholarship articulation. Pieces of literature on Asian Theatre Studies (or in a microcosm level – the Southeast Asian theatre scholarship) oftentimes invoke a direct opposition of the West and the East and that the East is a singular cultural entity. In the first few pages of the essay, the concept of “Asian-ness” as implicated in Asian Theatre is scrutinized. Following this is an argument on how Tiongson’s essay engages in the same essentializing exercise as in Asian theatre discourse. It will be asserted that the continuous theoretical discourse should not be focused on the construction of an Asian theatre identity or in the case of the Philippines, the Philippine theatre identity but the affirmation of Asian theatre identities or the Philippine theatre identities.