"Ramayana La'ar": A play for diversity
Bringing a staged version of a Hindu epic
to a theatre audience at Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall took some
courage, Francis Tanglao-Aguas, assistant professor of world and
multicultural theater at the College, admitted following the successful
run of “Ramayana La’ar” (Rama’s Journey) in March. The presentation, a
creative combination of dance, multilinguistic dialogue and evocative
scoring, was billed not as a play but as a sacred performance. Judging
from the record-setting audiences, the enthusiastic reviews and the
lingering discussion generated on campus, the professor’s courage was
well-applied.
Of course, when “Ramayana La’ar” was scheduled as a Main Stage
performance, there was no precedent nor even a script, there was only
actor, screenwriter and filmmaker Tanglao-Aguas gambling that he could
bring to fruition an idea he had been researching for 10 years.
“When I proposed it, I did not have the final product,” he said. “The
rehearsal was the creative process, so it was intense.” Thirteen of the
students who ultimately appeared in the epic had been enrolled in the
professor’s Asian performance class. He had to train another 35 theatre
and non-theatre majors. Drawing upon relationships he had established
with members of the College’s multicultural organizations, he assembled
both crew and cast. Referring to the choreography alone, he said,
“People usually take five years to train; I gave it to our students,
and they learned it within four-and-a-half weeks.” As cast members and
director collaborated in both a story and a performance-style that
seemed foreign to many, Tanglao-Aguas found himself repeatedly asking
for trust that the final product would speak to those who would view
it. “I kept telling them to trust the story and the fact that 2.5
billion people who believe it can’t be all wrong,” he said.
Tanglao-Aguas’ “Ramayana La’ar” is an interpretation
of the 5,000-year-old Hindu story in which Rama, an incarnation of the
god Vishnu, comes to earth to demonstrate the righteous path (dharma).
Encountering numerous trials, Rama steadfastly seeks to serve the
interests of others before pursuing his own quest to re-unite with his
exiled wife, Sita. On stage, the the performance includes the clashes
of armies, an encounter with monkey-characters speaking in a multitude
of tongues and a beautiful scene of reconciliation as Rama is re-united
with his wife.
“The whole piece is a prayer for peace,” Tanglao-Aguas said. “That’s
the irony. There’s so much killing—one hour of conflict in the second
act alone. But Rama honors everyone he kills. He gives them
conversation.”
Conversation, that is, without dialogue: That was one of many surprises
facing the student actors. Said senior Adam Schartup, who was cast as
Rama, “I didn’t speak a single word. The action was mimed, carried
forward with hand gestures.” Schartup, an English major, continued, “A
lot of people had no idea what they were getting themselves into when
they signed up.” During rehearsals, cast members spent hours going over
fundamentals of South Asian performance, including the value of
movement. As the students started to adapt, Schartup recalled that
Taglao-Aguas threw out the script, realizing that it would “get in the
way.”
“As we reheased, a lot of the time it seemed that we weren’t exactly
sure what we were doing, but there was obviously a lot of trust that we
could get across to people,” Schartup said. “It was strange, it was
different and it worked.”
Being a member of a cast that featured students from multi-ethnic
backgrounds was among the rewards of participating in the “Ramayana
La’ar’ production. As the group worked toward a final product, the
input of students from India and from Southeast Asia was granted extra
weight, but it remained a collaborative process.
Feedback received by Schartup was positive. “Even those who didn’t
really like the performance said that the show made an impact,” he
said. “We’ve gotten e-mails from people who said they were crying at
the end of the show and from others who said they were so impressed
that the College was taking on a show that was so diverse.”
Tanglao-Aguas laughed when it was suggested that
“Ramayana La’ar’ helped bring the world to the campus. “The world is
here,” he said. “Diversity is not about numbers but about getting to
know the people who are here. If nobody spends time getting to know one
another, diversity is useless. Numbers mean nothing.”
In his second year at William and Mary, Tanglao-Aguas, who grew up in
the Philippines, has become an adviser to many multicultural groups. He
said that he values the relationships he has made with people from
various cultures, and he encourages others to “fully accept”
differences because “when you tolerate something you’re saying it’s
painful but when you accept somebody it means there is love.” During
his brief experience on campus, he said he has come to know the College
as a “family” capable of modeling diversity for the world. “We have
amazing students who come from all walks of life,” he explained. “They
compare with the best in the world in terms of their motivation,
character, intelligence, self-motivation and integrity. These students,
when given respect and space, rise up.”
For Tanglao-Aguas, it seems mildly ironic that performance of “Ramayana
La’ar” occured duing what appears to be a resolution of a debate about
the appropriate way to present a cross in the College’s Wren Chapel.
Tanglao-Aguas said he was not as concerned with whether to display the
cross or not to display the cross as he was with the nature of the
conversation.
“What was really sad to me about the cross was how the family
communicated with each other about the problem, that so much hurt was
hurled,” he said. “Instead of talking to make a connection, people were
talking to make a disconnection.”
That does not accurately reflect the College, he said. Concerning the
enthusiastic turn out for “Ramayana La’ar,” he continued, “Here you
have 1,500 people come watch a Hindu epic that is labeled as a sacred
performance. That’s William and Mary!”
