Truly, seldom it is for a person, without any formal training in theater, to produce a drama. A drama that is exceptional in cleverness and fervent in emotion, while using a language which is definitely foreign to his native land and to himself.
Philippine Literature, in the early
part of the 20th century, had unraveled a bonanza within a bonanza.
He is the unparallel Wilfredo Ma. Guerrero. He came from a very gifted family,
raging from the first painting teacher of Juan Luna to the founder of El
Renacimiento and La Vanguardia, name it and their family had have it.
“Three
Rats” is one of the most anthological play of Guerero. It is about the
typical love-triangle-revenge between a couple and the husband’s best friend.
But what made this play matchless among the other plays that I had watched and
read is its very keen plot.
This one act realistic drama is set
in a glamorous living room, decorated with objects and designs that manifest
the membership of its tenants to the upper class of society. Such items are
magazines, telephone, lamp, tables, and a balcony which are all arranged in a
manner that they portray the refined taste of the owners.
Let it be known to the readers that
this writer wants to put an emphasis to the existence of the magazines in the
set because such item, based on his interpretation, has a meaning and
importance to the play. During those days, in the early part of 20th
century, having and reading magazines was a privilege given only to those who
could afford to buy with their surplus money and of course to those who had the
luxury of time and were able to read. An ordinary preoccupied person, instead
of buying and reading useless articles, would spend their money and effort for
their personal progress. They would probably buy foods and devote their many
for their children’s education rather than collecting magazines. This emphasis
on the magazines is highlighted because the writer focuses on the social status
of the characters in the drama. Such status may, and hopefully, would explain the
characters’ specific behaviors and beliefs towards the things, issues, and
relationships that surround and involve them with one another, which would be
expounded on later as this analysis progress en route to the theme of the
drama.
More than just being letters put
into a perfect arrangement; “Three Rats”
exposes the realities of life: sin, anger, and death set in a social conflict.
Euripides, a great Athenian tragedian, once said that “Death is the debt we
must all pay.” From that statement it has not been clear what made the cause of
man’s debt is. After some reflections, this writer realized that the reason for
man’s debt is also the reason for his death. Hours of reflection would entangle
a word floating in one’s mind, and the word is “immorality.” Sacred scripture
would speaks about the cause of death which is the original sin rooted to the
disobedience of Adam and Eve to God’s command. Death is the punishment for
sins. Though the Old Testament interprets this as death by execution, it refers
more to spiritual death or suffering.
Morality is the rightness and
wrongness of a thing. It is based on the eternal laws, which are the laws of
God, the commandments of God. People add the prefix “im” to negate such word,
morality into immorality. Therefore, immorality is the disobedience to the
commandments of God. From the title itself, “RAT” means the person who is
guilty of breaking the law, “I’d call them a couple of rats,” the character Adrian said, pertaining to his
wife and his best friend, with whom she had an intimate relationship.
The Athenian tragedian’s saying and
this simple analysis about the cause of man’s death are quite true in the theme
of Guerrero’s “Three Rats.” Even
though some authors of literary books said that this drama was a love triangle.
This analysis prepares to describe it as a drama of revenge, through murder.
This drama evolved in the revenge of Gonzalo to the immorality of his wife and
best friend, Nita and Adrian respectively. By putting a small amount of cyanide
in a cup of coffee, a cup ironically given by Adrian as a wedding gift to the
couple, and deceiving Adrian into drinking it, Gonzalo had succeeded in staging
his revenge against the lovers. For his wife, Gonzalo far more enjoy to let
Nita live in her cursed life. “I’ll let you live,” as Gonzalo said, “but I’ll
let you breathe, eat, and sleep every second of your cursed life.” And he
concluded his conversation with Nita: “Dying is so easy…”
“Three Rats” shows the
anger of a person, towards the disloyalty of persons close to him. Here the
playwright suggested that “rats,” disobeyers of laws, must die by all means, to
the extent of murdering persons closed to him either by physical death or
emotional torture. Going back to the saying “Death is the debt we must all
pay,” it could be said that Adrian had really paid his debt, debt caused by his
and Nita’s, treachery to Gonzalo.
This revenge of Gonzalo was perhaps not only anchored on the
betrayal of his wife and his best friend to him, but also in his belief that
“One should be attached to nobody and to nothing.” This belief of Gonzalo was a
clear manifestation of the influence of material things, namely money and
worldly allurements in his outlook in life. As his own words affirms it: “Sorry
Nita, business worries and all that sort of things,” as he consoled Nita. His
other words were also influence by his belief, as Nita corrected him in one of
his lexis, “Gonzalo, you can’t confuse love with the material.”
Guerrero had made use of only three characters in this drama. Each
of these characters were well constructed by the playwright to make it one of
the most outstanding one-act plays in his time.
Gonzalo, the leading character
in this drama, was the husband of Nita and the best friend of Adrian. He was
skillfully made by the playwright to create a realistic drama with the
character as its dominating element. Gonzalo, as described by the playwright,
was a tall person with compelling personality. About twenty-seven years old, he
possessed a warm and attractive charm, except for his piercing eyes which could
flash with contempt when the occasion called for it. In the drama, he wore a
white suit and a flashing red tie. He spoke with a low caressing voice. He was
a businessman by profession as he: “I made that big deal in Baguio.”
It seems that as the drama progressed the persona of Gonzalo also
progressed. In the beginning he was, as his actions and words showed, a
businessman doing his usual business, making things sure and clear. As the
drama reached its climax, Gonzalo became a moralist, an instant moralist. By
affirming the opinion of his cousin Chita in the issue of morality, “Perhaps
she’s right Nita. Perhaps we’re becoming decadent (immoral).” Gonzalo, by
judging such moral issue, manifested his critical mind in the field of
morality. Other words of Gonzalo showed this moralist ego of him. One of these
instances was when he reacted to the opinion of Adrian and Nita to the issue of
murder: “To kill the wife because she is unfaithful is for the husband to admit
that he has lost her…” As the pinnacle of the drama drew nearer and nearer the
persona of Gonzalo also changed. This time he turned to be a linguist. He
carefully analyzed the word adultery by means of a descriptive and structural
point of view: “The word adultery. The moderns have such a revolving dread of
such an ugly, repulsive, old-fashioned word that they had substituted it for. ‘So-and-so is having an affair with- is in
love with somebody else,’ and such similar, charming, harmless phrases. But the
word adultery itself they avoid and abhor. To the moderns adultery doesn’t
exist any more.” When the drama reached its turning point, Gonzalo revealed his
real persona in the drama, an avenger: “Destroy him (Adrian),” as Nita asked
him what he would do with Adrian.
Until the end of the drama,
Gonzalo kept on changing his persona of avenger that is being a murderer and an
unforgiving person, while maintaining his friendly persona in the face of his
dying best friend.
The antagonist is the source of the problem of the protagonist and
this kind of character defines Nita, the wife of Gonzalo. She was an attractive
woman of nineteen petite, with laughing eyes, and a gentle voice. Her
expression was innocent, and there was a subtle aim of adolescence about her.
In the beginning of the drama, Nita enters the set, wearing a striking black
evening gown, as noted by the playwright, with a large tray, pot of coffee, and
two cups.
Nita projected the typical woman in the modern world where she once
a part of, a woman of no fear, an inquisitive but still a tactful lady.
Throughout the drama, Nita would always ask Gonzalo with questions and even
sometimes favors: “How much can you afford?” (pertaining to Gonzalo’s granted
gift by her own choice), and sometimes she would also tell stories: “You know
what your cousin Chita said in the party?” (her introduction to her act of
telling story to Gonzalo).
But more than just being an ordinary upper class woman, she tried to
mask her adulteress persona with the wax of loveliness, caress, and unforgetfulness.
In front of Gonzalo, she was a loving wife, concern with the health of his
husband, and mindful of informing her husband to celebrate their wedding mensiversary.
But none of these deceitful acts of Nita had escaped the critical and observing
eyes of Gonzalo. In the end Nita’s heart was broken by her husband’s revenge,
for he knew the treachery of his wife from the beginning of the drama. The last
part of the drama revealed to us the true identity of Nita, as the words of her
husband were uttered in his mouth with diction and conviction: “A pretending,
deceiving, lying behind my (Gonzalo) back. You will live with that ugly word
adulteress in your heart.”
Adrian, the foil in the drama, played a major role for the success
of the plot of the drama. He was the childhood friend of Gonzalo and eventually
his best friend. In fact, they were classmates throughout their grade school:
“Adrian and I (Gonzalo) went to grade school together.” A bar examinee passer
yet unsettled in life, Adrian has a restless nature, as Gonzalo described him.
In the drama, he was also a pretending, deceiving, lying person just like Nita,
his partner in the crime of adultery. Though the best friend of Gonzalo, he
managed to be the secret lover of his best friend’s wife. This offense had put
his life into a tragic end, being poisoned by his own best friend. But in the
end, it seemed that Adrian wanted to confess his and Nita’s secret to Gonzalo,
but the poison that he had drunk prevented him, leaving Gonzalo a satisfied
sinner, while Nita was turned into a hysterically sobbing lover, sinner, and repentant.
The sequence of actions and events
had contributed a lot to the effectiveness of the drama. This drama’s plot is
only one of its kinds and a perfect one. Unique, because it doesn’t follow
traditional chronological sequence of events, wherein the denouement comes
after the climax; instead, the playwright placed the denouement in line with
the ascending events that lead to the peak of the drama. Perfect, simply
because it had served its purpose.
The reason behind this unique
arrangement is the awareness and consciousness of the protagonist to the
conflict of the drama. From the beginning of the drama, Gonzalo had already
known the betrayal of his wife, Nita, with his best friend, Adrian. There is
already a pre-set problem in the drama, which involves the characters. The
protagonist does not encounter his problem in the particular scene when the drama
takes place. So he is able to plan his revenge during the ascending events of
the drama. This hint on the pre-set can be observed in the words and actions of
Gonzalo, as noted by the playwright: “I had my suspicions- that’s why I went up
to Baguio. I could have come back in a day or two- but I wanted to give you
(Nita) and Adrian the satisfaction of a last, romantic, evil fling!”
The drama began as Nita entered the
set carrying a tray with a pot of coffee and two cups while Gonzalo was seated
and reading the paper. Since the problem is already known to the protagonist,
the absence of the conflict, the moment when the protagonist encountered the
problem, is implied. The pretensions, deceptions, and lies of Nita and Adrian about
the truth in their relationship to Gonzalo had increased Gonzalo’s fury towards
them. These actions had buttressed Gonzalo’s plan of revenge. The denouement,
the trickiest part of the drama, occurred during the ascending events of the
drama. It is when Gonzalo put the cyanide on the coffee in the cup with the
intension and plan at the back of his mind, of letting Adrian drink the coffee,
because as has been started earlier, Gonzalo already knew their treachery to
him. The pinnacle of the drama happened when Gonzalo revealed his knowledge of
the betrayal to Nita and Adrian, and his plan of revenge against them. This is
the best moment of the drama for it had cleared all the cloud of doubt and
curiosity in the reader’s mind. As Nita pleaded for Adrian’s life in exchange
for her, the descend of energy could be observed but the excitement on what
will happen next still remained. The cyanide coffee drunk by Adrian had
satisfied and fulfilled Gonzalo’s plan of revenge.
References:
Agapay, Ramon B. (1991). Ethics and the
Filipino.
Philippines:
Capitol Publishing House, Inc.
Del Castillo and Medina. (1974). Philippine
Literature:
From Ancient Times to the Present.
Philippines:
Philippine Graphic Arts, Inc.
Recillo, Maria Luisa B. (2002). A Manual in
Literature.
Colegio
de San Juan de Letran-Calamba.
No comments:
Post a Comment