The God Stealer

I find it surprising that the start of 2012 had me seeing a lot more theater productions compared to concerts and music performances that this blog is initially all about. And more remarkable is that those that I’ve seen so far are straight plays. One of these plays that I’ve seen recently was The God Stealer, adapted from the short story of the same title by F. Sionil Jose, National Artist for Literature held at the Far Eastern University Auditorium. This production, directed by Dr. Rustica Carpio was staged by the FEU Theater Guild in cooperation with Gantimpala Theater.

The play also featured some members of the FEU Community like teachers and other personnel which was a surprise to some of the students who watched the performance once they recognized them on stage. The play touched on the theme of Filipinos losing their identity, culture and heritage in the name of progress, commercialism and western ideas. Afterwards, F. Sionil Jose was given the Cultural Award since he was an alumnus of FEU High School batch 1943. A book signing session was also held and many availed of the chance to have their copies of his award winning books signed by the National Artist.

F. Sionil Jose

It was my first time to see a play inside the FEU Auditorium and it was indeed a different atmosphere compared to the music performances/concerts that I was able to experience there before. The production was by a campus based company and despite that, they gave a decent effort which was no less made possible under the direction of Dr. Carpio, who herself has decades of experience as an actress whether it be on the stage, television or in the movies.

Seeing the production made me more aware of the different cultural activities that FEU has to offer and that their performances are always open to the public. I was glad to meet F. Sionil Jose once again since we did so just some days before at the Cultural Center of the Philippines when we both watched Eyeball. And while there were some events that happened at around this time, I chose to watch this because I wasn’t only interested to see how theater productions are staged over at FEU, but I believe that National Artists should be recognized and their work be continued to be patronized and celebrated.