After three successful Rak of Aegis runs, and an original Filipino production, FnL, the Philippine Educational Theatre Association (PETA) simmers down from the fitful comedy-musical first half of the season with the grounding of a world classic in February 2015.

With Loy Arcenas as director and Rody Vera as playwright of the Filipino adaptation of the Chekhovian classic, Arbol de Fuego is bound to succeed. Not to mention, it has a stellar cast led by Cherie Gil as the Filipino Madame Ranevskaya, Enriquetta Jardeleza-Sofronio.

Adapting a Chekhovian play is not a new game for Arcenas and Vera as the two first worked with Tanghalang Pilipino’s Tatlong Mariya, which is based on the acclaimed writer's earlier work, Three Sisters. Vera also wrote the scripts for Arcenas’ Cinemalaya 2011 and 2012 film entries, Niño and REquiemme. 

“Much of Chekhov’s work is about change and ‘its inevitability and impossibility,’ which gives it a political context however subtle it may be,” said Arcenas. The director found similarities in the Filipino and Russian aristocratic culture, making it easier for the two to bring the Russian lavish estates to the haciendas and azucaleras in the Philippines. “We still very much operate on a class system: the people who have the people who don’t have, the people who think they have, the people who pretend they have, and the people who want to have,” Arcenas explained. 

When the two started planning to bring the Madame Ranevskaya to the Philippine shores, Arcenas and Vera thought of many places to substitute the lush cherry orchard. “We thought orchard of what? Mangoes? Lanzones?” Vera said. “The production was then put aside and we collaborated for Tatlong Maria and the Cinemalaya entries. But there is something with Chekhov’s characters that would bring us back to the orchard. Although there is sadness, bitterness, and pain in his plays, the writer treats his characters with comic mockery, an operatic rendition of reality." 

For Vera, the classic characters portraying the high society life are not proud and magnificent but rather human, with their tears and errors to prove it. The two considered the farms and rice fields of central Luzon, the coconut plantation of southern Luzon, but the lifestyles of sugar barons of Negros, the sugar lands and haciendas of Negros all seemed as the best fit for the Ranevskys and their cherry orchard. “The Negrenses are witness to the relationship between the haciendero and the dumaan, the sacadas and the slaves, which are products of the feudal system, as well as to the opulence and malice that it has brought,” Arcenas said. “We decided to set it in the late ‘70s, when Marcos made Roberto Benedicto his sugar czar, which brought about the downfall of the sugar industry and the gilded lifestyles of the sugar barons,” Vera said. 

And from there, the Russian slowly became Filipino and found its new home—the Hacienda Carmen. The Ranevsksys became the Jardeleza family, Enriquetta and her brother Adriano, better known as Adjie. The ensemble included Yaya Kane, Pindot, the bookkeeper, Manoy Iking, the aged mayordomo, and so on. Vera then thought of having the road leading to the hacienda mansion, the Balay Dako, shaded by rows of flowering arbol de fuego or firetrees, the source of national pride for the Jardelezas, much like the cherry orcard is to the Ranevskys. “It is a symbol of magnificent beauty and empty void of a high class society that is full of desires yet losing its grips on its wealth and power,” Vera said.

Discover the beauty of Hacienda Carmen’s arbol de fuegos in PETA’s newest production. Arbol de Fuego opens on February 20, 2015 with shows from Fridays to Sundays, 3:00pm and 8:00pm at the PETA Theater Center, No. 5 Eymard Drive, New Manila, Quezon City. 

For show buying and ticket information, contact PETA at 725-6244 or 0917 5765400 or contact Ticket World at ticketworld.com.ph 891-9999.