By JOSEPH G. LARIOSA
(© 2011 Journal Group Link International)
CHICAGO (jGLi) – Except for a Philippine nationally-known
actress Cherie Gil, the rest of the cast of Bienvenido
Noriega’s “Bayan Bayanan, Letters From Home” play were
unknown outside the Filipino-American community in
Chicagoland. Yet its three-day debut last weekend at St.
Scholastica Academy Theater at Chicago’s Roger’s Park
neighborhood, played to a full house.
I would say the 1,000-capacity theater became a virtual
classroom laboratory, promoting the Tagalog language when
the play directed by Dr. Anton Juan, Ph. D., was delivered in
Tagalog with snatches of English and French to educate the
audience that its setting was in Europe – Geneva, Switzerland.
But one of those who watched the play, Gordon Hannon, an
educator and CEO of The Catalyst Schools, a Chicago private
elementary school, was so fascinated by the play, he watched it
twice “because I wanted to understand what the play was all
about despite my difficulties in understanding Tagalog.”
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