Playwright Bienvenido M. Noriega, Jr. wrote his first play “Down the Basement” at 19 when he was on his scholarship for his Masters in Economics at UP in 1972. He enrolled in a playwriting class under the indefatigable Prof. Amelia Lapena Bonifacio for credit as a graduate elective. Ironically, his first play was in English and subsequent prize winning plays were all in Pilipino. Playwright Bienvenido grew up in Isabela and could only speak Ilocano and Ibanag and barely in Tagalog when the family migrated to Manila when he was 13.
The first play he wrote, Down the Basement was an experimental play about illusion and reality mixing in one person . It was an expressionist debate between a person speaking in English representing illusion and one representing reality speaking in Pilipino. The one-act play was published in the UP Literary Folio of that year.
Playwright Bienvenido M. Noriega.Jr. surely was inspired to write more plays then by now National Artist in Theatre Amelia Lapena Bonifacio. Wouldn’t it be nice if the student becomes a National Artist in Theatre as well?
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