The live drama performed by the IPAG which is
entitled after the name of the main character “Ming Ming”, and directed by Steven Patrick C. Fernandez is a story of a teenager who remained
innocent with the concealed realities behind her identity all throughout her
life and was once forbidden with freedom until the last minute of her life.
The theme of the
drama was mainly of a Muslim society. It focused mainly on the Muslim culture
specifically the “Maratabat” or pride.
At first, it was very hard to comprehend. The
characters performed in a way of shifting continuously and quickly from one scene
to another without a certain clarity to every idea portrayed, thus created the
confusion. After a long process of perceiving, as the play went on,
uncertainties were cleared out with the fact that it’s comprised of three
generations. “R” was the grandmother or Ina
who stood for the first generation. She was one of the Muslim women who was
engaged in an arranged marriage at her young age with a man that she really
didn’t love at all. The worst thing was, the man that she truly loved, the one
she offered her heart was certainly her husband’s brother. She chose to
surrender everything for the sake of her family because any refusal appears to
be demoting their own culture arousing their Maratabat and so she was strongly
forced to agree for their image to be preserved, remaining untainted. On the
other hand, “P”(Ming Ming’s uncle), the man mentioned above, although the reality
caused him too much to suffer, yet again in the of the family he gave up
everything he held, his secret affection for R was doomed to be forgotten.
Perhaps, such situation annoys us in the first place because we’re not numb of how
difficult it is, self-sacrificing for others being deprived of pure happiness
which is similarly giving away your soul for pride’s sake or even for others
benefit. However, it revealed how genuine our Muslim brothers are when their
culture and religion are concerned. They live their lives raising up their
culture no matter what, taking all the odds.
The next
generation was represented by “ I “, R’s daughter ( Ming Ming’s mother) who was
kind of rebellious. She was again to marry somebody that her heart never
yearned, the sultan’s son who had absolutely disgusting features. But, I
insisted her freedom and fled into the city with the hatred of being committed
to the Sultan’s son. Her main alibi was she wanted to finish her studies and
was then allowed to set foot for college. There, she found her once joyful fate
which gradually turned out into a grief-stricken one. She fell in love with her
Economics Professor and later on got pregnant. Perhaps, she never regretted
anything because their love for each other was overflowing. Yet, her family could not accept her fate and
they were preoccupied of what the Sultan’s son would have in mind if he’ll know
that his fiancée was a disgrasyada
and so with the other people. And again, for honor’s sake, the identity inside
her womb remained undisclosed and the Sultan’s son owned Ming Ming as truly
his.. This part of the drama portrays the great variance in terms of the
attitude towards the same situation between the R and I generation. The
seditious character of I basically shows that there was a particular change in
manner which we could conclude as influenced by the time she belonged that’s
kind of modernized, she was even bound with a colonial mentality. Unlike her mother who was very easy-going with the
demands of their family, she tried craving for independence and freedom just
that she was not totally successful and still got married with the one she
refused to many times.
Now here comes
the hidden identity, Ming Ming. She was once the baby inside I’s womb and was
said to be following the footsteps of her mother. “Kung ano ang puno, siya rin ang prutas.” – these were exactly the words
of her grandmother(R) directing to her personality. Indeed, she inherited the
rebellious character of her mother. But now, it’s getting worse! She indulged
to the different precarious vices in her generation. This made her being locked up in a room where
darkness dominated, in a room where she had to suffer and pay for all her
misdeeds. Here, we could compare and contrast the past generation and our
present generation. Shall we say, our present generation were much more
distorted when it comes to attributes towards life be it the widely-spread
vices which basically lead us to nowhere but darkness that built up the great change. Perhaps others didn’t notice it but it did give a lesson
most especially to us teenagers who commonly got lost in the right track,
something that we could ponder on ourselves for an effective realization. Back to
the story, Ming Ming now got hopeless as if nobody really cared. Just like a
cat, she was in a very limited world of darkness, waiting for somebody to give
her food which was her only hope for survival and after all, back to the
darkness where she dwelt with herself alone. The heavy punishment, her
seemingly endless sufferings made her came to a point of giving up. The last
moment she had with her life was when she held the bottle of valium. She drank
it , took her last breath then went asleep forever.
The
drama really had the power to engross the spectators. It satisfied our expectations. It gives a lot of lessons such as knowing better the structure of
Muslim traditions, etc. The best part of
it, the most impressive thing is the director’s unusual way of depicting the
story. Everything went on a flashback. Ming ming was already dead when the
story was told. She was then a ghost when the darkest secrets behind her
identity were unleashed. Imagine, FOUR
CHARACTERS IN THREE GENERATIONS. Isn’t that amazing? Here’s more, that’s
why the names of the supporting characters are R,I and P because if we piece
them altogether, this would result to RIP Ming Ming. Ming Ming, a spirit!!! The
twists were really awesome and 100 pesos is worth paying for. That’s truly an
outstanding piece which calls for a toss of victory.
