VILLASPER, Denise Anne C.

BSMT-2A

09-03-2015

Rain, Rain Go Away

AMBON ULAN BAHA is a two-hour modern zarzuela that
highlights environmental concerns and focuses on the preservation of
Philippine forests. It also deals heavily on Filipino values, the importance of
education, religion, family and youth. It also carries relevant commentaries
on socio-economic and political issues of the times. It aims to educate its
audiences especially the youth about issues of urgent and national
importance.
Among all the characters in the play, the one that I liked the most is
the character of Nonoy because he embodies the typical Filipino men in the
present, successful yet soft in the inside, full of dreams and stands in what
he believes, and a deep lover. I love how he interprets the modern
probinsyano man, from how he dresses, speaks and moves. Nonoy also
showed his soft side when love started to occur between him and Inday.
A play would not be effective to the audience without the props and
set design, and costumes. The production staff of this play really made an
effort to maximize the use of everything that they have put in the stage,

from how they have shown the farm, to their homes and down to the
chaotic scenarios we have here in Metro Manila. In terms of the characters
costumes, I would like to commend the one in-charge of the clothes really
studied the characters roles because they were able to show the different
personalities each character has in the play. The colors of the clothes are
really alive and appropriate on the scenes, made it more realistic. Even
when you only look at them on the stage, audience will already have an idea
who are they going to portray.
Everything has also its own flaws that are evident to the audience
sight. One of this is the frequent blocking problems in the stage. Most of the
time, Dr. Anton acted facing the sides causing them not to see the emotions
of the actors. Second are the script and some explicit lines in the play. I
guess, the approach is appropriate for adults who are more aware of these
kinds of topics, but college students? I guess, not for now since most of us
arent really mature enough to understand some concepts that sometimes
they tend to misunderstood. I just hope that they must create plays
depending on the people who are going to watch.
A theater play needs technical aspects in order to create the mood
needed for the scenes and to fully understand the emotion that the story
wants to convey. Some of these are the music, lights, sound systems, and

effects. In the play AMBON ULAN BAHA, music became evident as one of
the important elements in the play. The creativity in creating music jive
well as the lyrics of the songs became a replacement to the ordinary
delivered lines. Also it helped in creating good choreography that is used in
the play, the body movements and dances really give another taste and
spice to the ordinary way of theater play, the choreography really made the
play complete.
In terms of technical and sound systems, some flaws that Ive seen
when watching the whole play is the late activation of the microphones.
This happens when a character enters the scene. This problem is followed
by the difficulty to understand what they are saying because of the late
activation of the microphones. As for the lights they are right and steady.
The light shifting is on time, the dim lights then shift into the next scene.
The lights really help the audience, as well as the actors to embrace the
feeling that the scene wants.
Its just somehow frustrating how most of us reacted with just
watching a play because it was another requirement by your teachers but I
dont know whether theyve been conscious about our lack of
environmental resources or how relevant the play was nowadays. This

should be an eye-opener for everyone, I hope there will be another show for
this in due time.