By Jaime Calilung
Theatre has always been a vehicle for culture and history. We have an idea how the American Revolution transpired because of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton. Better yet, we are familiar with the general concerns of 16th-century Europe through Shakespeare’s timeless dramas. Such historical movements are centuries detached from our present-day lives, yet through theatre a piece of the human condition from the past remains. If the stage can immortalize such things from far away times and far away places, one might ask how well it does for something much closer to home.
Our very own OSD-Kultura sought to address such a question. OSD-Kultura is the arts and culture program of the CSA Office of Student Development whose initiatives are centered around the development of artists and arts programs in the university. In November 2025 they launched their Kultura Arts Management Program (KAMP) laboratory component by staging a dramatic reading of O’Donnel by Jerry O’Hara, a historical drama of the events of the Bataan Death March. The initiative was spearheaded by director William Herbert Sigmund “Herbie” Go and Ms. Patty Villacorta, the Student Affairs Officer in charge of OSD-Kultura.
Herbie is no stranger to the stage. Having a wealth of experience in the industry, such as being the co-founder the Virgin Labfest (the Philippines’ premier annual festival of untried, untested, and unstaged one-act plays) and former Artistic Director of Tanghalang Pilipino (the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ resident theater company) — among many other accomplishments, Herbie brought his talents to the University of Asia and the Pacific as a part-time professor teaching Theatre. He had chosen to stage O’Donnell in an effort to address students’ lack of familiarity with theater that tells our own national history. The script was written by Jerry O’Hara, a veteran Filipino playwright, director, and actor, and was first staged in the Virgin Labfest’s 18th Season (2023). Two years later, Herbie brought it to the UA&P Arts Lab with the help of OSD-Kultura and a handful of spirited student-volunteers.
The play takes place in World War 2 Philippines, following the events after the fall of Bataan and the subsequent Death March. After a brief prologue showing the march against the backdrop of narration, the main drama occurs in the titular Camp O’Donnell, a military camp where Filipino soldiers are left to die. More than 70,000 of them were captured by the Japanese and moved from Bataan to San Fernando, until they reached Capas, Tarlac. The story zooms in on the interactions between a small group of soldiers who perish one-by-one not to the blows of guns or warfare, but to disease, starvation, and in-fighting. A sergeant who’d gone insane yells commands at his subordinates, thinking himself to be General Douglas MacArthur, while the other soldiers struggle with the depleting rations and the slow death by dysentery.
The play continues with the back-and-forth arguing between the soldiers about how to survive their bleak circumstances, rather unsuccessfully as they drop dead like flies one-by-one, all the while the lunatic continues rambling about how Corregidor has fallen. The play climaxes when he is finally put out of his misery by one of the more sane soldiers, who is revealed to be his brother-in-law, and the only other remaining soldier from their group flees the camp, narrowly avoiding sprays of the Japanese gunners. In the end, only one remains. He laughs to himself, mourning the loss of his comrades. Curtains.
By the end of the production, Kultura transformed the Arts Laboratory into a facsimile of Camp O’Donnell itself. But being a dramatic reading, Kultura’s recent staging of O’Donnell isn’t yet the fully-realized play. However, to label it simply as a “dramatic read” would not do justice to the quality of the production Kultura and its volunteers managed to put out with what little time and resources they had. Though the actors held printed scripts for their reading, their binders disappeared in their convincing performances and dramatic delivery. The staging was further complemented by a small koro of women who elevated the performance with narration and singing. “I don’t want to romanticize it, but it’s something to be proud of,” says Ms. Patty Villacorta.
Patty Villacorta took on the role of the play’s producer, helping realize Herbie’s vision by designing the set, assisting with the costumes and make-up, and handling other administrative roles. The actors themselves were student volunteers that came from the different theater-organizations of the university, namely Dulaang ROC and ViARE. Some of the actors are well-established in the university scene, and others emerging. Notably, Francis Tabago, who played the role of Isleta, made his acting debut in the university as the lead role of O’Donnell.
Kultura’s staging of O’Donnell is a testament to the storytelling power of theater, as well as its capacity to be a vehicle for both culture and memory. Many students know about Macbeth, Hamlet, and even about the American Revolution through theater — but how well would we be able to recite a verse from our own mother tongue’s libretto? This isn’t necessarily indicative of deficiencies in our education, but rather of our focus towards “popular culture” instead of our own. Theater can remedy that. The stage doesn’t shove lessons and history down your throat, but it simulates the experiences that can teach you them. Names, dates, and locations become real situations when you’re face-to-face with the soldier mourning the loss of his comrades amidst the inevitability of his own death. The stage doesn’t ask for your permission to teach; it puts you as an observer of human experience, in a position where you can’t help but empathize. Suddenly, the past becomes real and history is lived — and with it, the memory and heritage that was buried under years and years of forgetting. The soldiers might have been fictional characters, but the experiences from which the drama was shaped are no less real.
Theater isn’t a textbook, but it will teach you in ways that a book can’t. With its wisdom comes the heritage attached to those experiences, the memory of a people’s struggle in one of the darkest hours of our nation and of personal encounters with grand historical events. Maybe if we watched more plays like O’Donnell, then we can remember our own history just as well as we can quote Lin-Manuel Miranda. Maybe then, if we watched plays about our own country and history, we would be educated about our own heritage as much as we are entertained.
O’Donnell will be returning to the university this coming April, just in time for The Day of Valor (Araw ng Kagitingan). This time around the project team aims to revisit it as a fully-staged play, with a complete set and a fully realized vision. Students, faculty, staff, and outsiders alike are invited to watch as OSD-Kultura opens its doors to everyone, making the arts accessible to all. When the time comes, try not to miss out on this rendition of O’Donnell as culture and memory are revived through theater.
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