Performing the Nation Onstage: An Afterthought on the University of the Philippines Sarsuwela Festival 2009

This report is a descriptive narrative of the events during the University of the Philippines (UP) Sarsuwela Festival 2009. The centerpiece of the festival was the series of sarsuwela performances staged in February. The sarsuwela, a Philippine traditional theatre form, served as a venue to express confined and unexpressed emotions against the colonial masters and has been and still is appreciated by Filipinos from all walks of life. Toward the end of this paper, a discussion on how sarsuwela may be used as a tool in discovering the (Philippine) nation and (Philippine) identity vis-à-vis the context of institutionalizing national theatre as compared to the sectarian komedya, which was earlier proposed by partisan scholars to be a Philippine national theatre form.