A Playwright's Pet Peeve

One of my major pet peeves as a playwright is when some people stage someone’s play without his or her written permission, or even without his or her knowledge. Worse, when they stage that play, they issue tickets without bothering to give the playwright a decent honorarium or even tickets to the performance. Especially when it’s so hassle-free to do so.

That’s precisely what happened to me and some of my playwright-friends recently, ever since our book, 10 X 10 X 10, came out early this year. In my case, the first time was when a Bacolod or Iloilo City-based college staged my play Eyeball last August without my knowledge. I don’t know if that production issued tickets or what, but if it did I hope they get bad karma from that. How did I learn about it? From a press release that was published in the internet version of the Daily Visayan Star early last month. I was like: So, how come I didn’t know about this?

Then came the theater-arts class productions at FEU and the University of Makati (UMa). I’m not really bothered about these two, because at least they informed me a few days before the actual show. Plus, it’s free admission, so there’s no royalty issue to be concerned about. I watched both shows. The one at FEU was adequate at best, but the one at UMa… Putangina. Binaboy talaga. And the lowest point in it? The uber-effeminate guy who played the heroine’s gay best friend in my play—and who, incidentally, was also the director—lectured to two female characters (who were not in the play at all) while wearing a Darna bustier (!). I just sat there, speechless, eyes wide. Talk about taking liberties. My friend, who happens to be the Humanities department chairman at UMa, approached me afterwards. I was about to talk when he said, half-jokingly: “O, huwag ka nang magsalita.” He had good reason: he knows very well how painfully blunt I can be with my comments.

And last Thursday night, I learned from Allan that the College of Saint Benilde’s Dulaang Filipino has started staging five 10-minute plays, including mine and his, without the benefit of a contract. I was like: Syet, anobanamanto?! To be fair, we were aware that the group was planning to stage our plays, but not that soon and not without a contract. So the next morning I went to the school and met with the head of its Office of Culture and Arts. After explaining the situation to her, she quickly apologized for what she called the “glitch” and made up for it by immediately printing out contracts for me and the other affected playwrights and increased our honorarium. I signed mine almost immediately and, as far as I know, so did the others later that day.

Once I have signed my contract, I sneaked inside the school’s plush theater to see what remained of the show (yes, that’s right; the production was on its second day that day). Afterwards, the show’s director, Palanca-winning playwright George de Jesus III, introduced me to the cast and started an impromptu open forum with his young actors. The girl who played my physically challenged heroine commented that she found her character challenging to relate to, herself being, in her words, “maganda.” I thought then: Uh. Yeah. Sure. And when the guy who played the heroine’s gay best friend asked me if he can wear women’s clothes so that it would be easier for him, I deadpanned: “Uh, no.” George just grinned, slightly embarrassed for his student performers.

Ah, the things I need to do to get some respect, the things that I have to put up with. Unfortunately, they’re part of the risks of having a play—or a poem or short story, for that matter—published in a book, open for unscrupulous people to use without permission for whatever reason. Sheeesh.