Tanghalangpilipino

25 years of dramatizing the best of Philippines Theater and awakening the cultural consciousness of the
Filipino audience

FACT SHEET

“Pepe at Teodora”
Direction by Roobak Valle

Pepe is a monologue written by Malou Jacob

that tackles the question of Rizal’s heroism from a
different point of view. The monologue of Jose Rizal on
the events of his times has been faithful to his own
utterances, actions and writings. His view of the present
is what the author thinks his reactions would be in the
light of, especially, his letters where he revealed his
innermost thoughts and emotions.

The monologue focuses on the roots of Rizal’s

oppression while exploring the relationship with his
family and country, always reminding the audience that
although a hero, he was first and foremost an ordinary
human being, an ordinary Filipino. We ever share a
common plight: exploitation by a foreign power.

Rizal also shares the Hamlet in us artists. Like

Shakespeare’s hero, Rizal’s tragic flaw was his vacillation, his indecision - making him
all the more human, all the more like you and me. Rizal is us. We are Rizal.

Teodora by Rene Villanueva focuses on Rizal’s mother

Teodora Alonzo, as a young mother and as a grieving
mother who visits her son in Fort Santiago before he is
shot. In her letter of appeal to the governor, she described
herself as one who, “in the last years of her life and at the
advanced age of seventy-one, is going to have the
greatest and most poignant of sorrows, that of witnessing
the death of her unfortunate son, a victim of fatality and
unfortunate circumstances which have surrounded him.”
Dona Teodora, haunted by the death of her son, finally
finds it in her heart to forgive her enemies just before her
own death. As an overwhelming sense of peace washes over her she reaches out to
the audience, in effect becoming the mother of us all.

Teodora Alonzo is also the personification of another facet of the Filipina. She is the
young mother, the businesswoman, the pious, mature lady, and the woman who has
been disfigure by tragedy.

Cast:
PEPE Roeder Camañag
TEODORA Sherry Lara

Running Time: 1 hour and 15 minutes

Reviews:

“…from all counts well-written, well-acted and well-directed plays.”

- Basilio Esteban S. Villaruz; Manila Times, Feb. 8, 1990

“...succeeded not just in enfleshing with Spartan clarity the lives and loves of our
heroes, but also in going beyond historical presentation to forge a stinging commentary
about the way we are…”
- Mozart A.T. Pastrano, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Aug. 28, 1993

“While educating audiences on Philippine history, the plays manage to tug at their
heartstrings.”
- Amadis Ma. Guerrero, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Aug. 27, 1993

“Tanghalang Pilipino is to be felicitated for having produced in still another coup,

meaningful, memorable, magnificent theater.”

- Leonor Orosa Goquingco, The Philippine Star, Aug. 20, 1993