From ‘Martir sa Golgota’ to the 4K clarity of ‘The Chosen,’ how media became our modern senakulo.
Philippine Lenten rituals are more than just prayers and quiet acts of devotion. They are spectacles of faith by communities of devotees with their versions of the passion and death of Jesus Christ. And all of these rituals—the senakulos that began in houses, parading through the streets, and onstage in the town plaza; the grand processions of antique santos portraying scenes of the last days of Christ’s life; the hooded street flagellants with their bloody backs; and the public crucifixions of long-wigged Kristos—became scenes of what we expect from Holy Week.
The rituals of Lent, however, changed through the years when the performance arts were redefined. Professional theater stepped in, and soon, what was before community performances transformed from street to stage and had an audience change.
Passion play and Papet Pasyon
What could probably be considered an early shift from community to formal theater production happened during the Japanese occupation in 1943 when Martir sa Golgota (advertised as a “passion play”) was staged at the Manila Metropolitan Theater on Holy Week. The Japanese military had banned Western forms of entertainment (from books and radio programs to movies), and Filipinos were looking for means of relief from the boredom and fear of an occupied country. The stage play became the answer, and groups like First Dramatic Philippines (founded by Francisco “Soc” Rodrigo and Narciso Pimentel) and the pre-war Barangay Theatre Guild by husband-and-wife team Lamberto Avellana and Daisy Hontiveros-Avellana (the couple who later became National Artists for Theater) began productions to entertain the public.
Martir sa Golgota was already staged in an English version before World War II at the Ateneo de Manila. It was entitled “Passion Play” before it was adapted and translated into Tagalog by Francisco “Soc” Rodrigo and directed by Narciso Pimentel, Jr. Many of its actors and actresses later became famous personalities after the war. Among the actors was guerilla captain Manuel Colayco, who was killed during the liberation of the Santo Tomas Internment Camp in 1945.
The Lenten theater continues today. The most unique was the Papet Pasyon, a senakulo about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ with the Gospel characters featured as handmade puppets. This puppet play was created in 1985 by National Artist for Theater Amelia Lapeña-Bonifacio and performed by Bonifacio’s group, Teatrong Mulat ng Pilipinas.
Cinema changed Lent. There was a time when the season meant religious or Christ-themed films screening at movie houses with glass-fronted ticket booths and lobbies with billboards and wooden standees of actors and actresses in action poses. No malls then until Ali Mall was built in the early 1970s. The streets were quiet out of the respect for the solemnity of the week, with the infrequent roar of the few jeepneys plying the routes for Visita Iglesia travelers.
The cinematic Christ
The post-war era saw a slew of religious films that were spectacles with grandiose sets and featured the big stars of Hollywood. Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments featured Charlton Heston; The Greatest Story Ever Told with Max von Sydow, The Robe with Richard Burton, and King of Kings with Jeffrey Hunter.
The first time I saw The Ten Commandments was in Remar Theater along Aurora Boulevard in Cubao when I was in my early teens. My father and I entered a super-crowded theater—there were no restrictions on filling up movie houses before, and we had to stand near the door—and just sweated through the first hour of the three-hour movie. When the much-awaited Parting of the Red Sea scene started, there were shouts and applause as the film played its magic. We left a few minutes after that scene as the theater was hot and the air-conditioning was barely cooling the place with the large crowd. We had an early dinner at this new hamburger outlet called Jollibee beside the nearby Coronet Theater.
Rock music + the hippie movement = hip musicals
The ‘70s saw the coming of rock music and the hippie movement. And to the consternation of the Catholic Church, two rock musicals on the Jesus story were produced—Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell (with its classic hit Day by Day that became a church choir song,). These musicals were stage productions in Europe and the US before they evolved into the movie classics we know today. The Church bashed JCS and his bevy of hippie apostles and followers as they sang through the story of the last days of their Savior while young men and women dressed in undershirts and tank tops and bell-bottomed jeans followed their Christ to his journey of faith. It was the time of being groovy in the name of the Lord.
The small screen and Pinoy adaptation
TV and radio during Holy Week meant the sound and picture of white noise as channels and stations went off the air. It was the only period where media people could go on vacation if they didn’t pull Lenten duties at work. But it wasn’t long before TV channels and radio stations started announcing “Lenten schedules.” The producers of the variety show Eat Bulaga had a Lenten special every Holy Week featuring the show’s hosts as the cast. RPN Channel 9 in the late 70s had a Pinoy version of Jesus Christ Superstar with singer Boy Camara as Jesus and TV host Jeanne Young as Mary Magdalene. The same channel used to have a televised senakulo that ran for several hours and was the only show that aired on Good Friday before it got the rights to show the six-hour TV miniseries of Jesus of Nazareth with an all-star cast led by Robert Powell as Jesus, Anne Bancroft as Mary Magdalene, and Laurence Olivier as Nicodemus during Holy Week.
Probably a religious viewing we also had on TV that had the Church’s blessing was Fr. Patrick Peyton’s Rosary Crusade series, which showed the story of Jesus Christ through the scenes based on the Rosary. The Sorrowful Mysteries are, of course, timed to be shown during Holy Week.
Controversial takes
The Last Temptation of Christ was probably the only film about Jesus that would not make it for a Lenten screening. In fact, it didn’t make it to any movie house here.
Directed by Martin Scorsese, it was banned in several countries, including the Philippines, in 1988 for its portrayal of a human Jesus struggling with human emotions rather than as a divine Savior. A controversial scene was Jesus having sexual relations and later a family with Mary Magdalene. The movie was based on a novel by Greek author Nikos Katzantzakis, who was later excommunicated by the Greek Orthodox Church, while the book was placed on the Vatican list of forbidden books. Today, controversy about the movie has lessened considerably.
Then we had a Jesus story again in the movies with all the blood and gore of the tortured and crucified Christ in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ in 2004, which tried to be authentic to the real-life suffering of Jesus. A story that became legend about the movie was when Jim Caviezel, the actor portraying Jesus, was struck by lightning in two incidents during the filming in Italy. In one of the incidents, Caviezel was said to have looked up to the sky as he glowed in electric light from the lightning bolt and said, “Guess you didn’t like that scene, huh?”
The digital shift
Cable TV changed Lent, and the viewing population moved from the movie screen to the 32-inch color screen with all the electronic effects of digital TV. Cable movie audiences were treated to a new biblical story of Jesus with the title The Chosen that is now on its fifth season on Netflix.
The solemn season was no longer that solemn as holiday economics took priority over religion. Malls are closed during Maundy Thursday and Good Friday but are open by Black Saturday. Easter Sunday brings a return to the normal with the pomp of celebration with bunnies and Easter eggs. Masses and other Christian services greet the morning of the Resurrection with a chorus of “Hallelujah” from Handel’s Messiah.
Then the reality of our everyday life returns the Monday after.
From the hooded flagellants of the streets to the rock-opera ‘groovy’ Jesus of the 70s, Philippine Lent has always been a visual spectacle.
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