PHILIPPINE THEATER Theater in the Philippines is as varied as the cultural traditions and the historical influences that shaped it through the centuries. The dramatic forms that flourished and continue to flourish among the different peoples of the archipelago include: the indigenous theater, mainly Malay in character, which is seen in rituals, mimetic dances, and mimetic customs; the plays with Spanish influence, among which are the komedya, the sinakulo, the playlets, the sarswela, and the drama; and the theater with Anglo-American influence, which encompasses bodabil and the plays in English, and the modern or original plays by Fihpinos, which employ representational and presentational styles drawn from contemporary modern theater, or revitalize traditional forms from within or outside the country.

The Indigenous Theater The rituals, dances, and customs which are still performed with urgency and vitality by the different cultural communities that comprise about five percent of the country’s population are held or performed, together or separately, on the occasions of a person’s birth, baptism, circumcision, initial menstruation, courtship, wedding, sickness, and death; or for the celebration of tribal activities, like hunting, fishing, rice planting and harvesting, and going to war. In most rituals, a native priest/priestess, variously called mandadawak, catalonan, bayok, or babalyan, goes into a trance as the spirit he/she is calling upon possesses him/her. While entranced, the shaman partakes of the sacrificial offering, which may be a chicken, a pig, a carabao (depending on the gravity of the spirit’s anger) or simply rice uncooked or in cakes, rice wine, and betel nut. This act, which represents the death of the supplicant at the hands of the spirit, adapts itself to the occasion for which the ritual is held. Among the Tagbanua of Palawan in southern