Two Liberation Plays

by Mig Alvarez Enriquez

PREFACE These two liberation plays may not have Liberation as their common theme, but various aspects of liberation are certainly underscored in both of them. "A Tale of Two Houses" which tells of the destruction of two houses, one traditional, the other modern, during the Second World War, has a sequel "The Fourth of July, Twice Told," a tale seemingly fraught with political implications. However, not having been conceived together as one, each play depicts a theme of its own. "A Tale of Two Houses" was written and published in Manila Review 15 in 1978. "The Fourth of July, Twice Told" was seeded in mind much later, after a visit to the Aguinald shrine in Cavite where I learned from a tourist brochure that President Macapagal had changed the country's independence celebration date from the Fourth of July to June 12th in fulmfillment of a promise he had made to President Aguinaldo at the latter's death bed. When I wrote the first play, all I had in mind was the recreation of snatches of scnenes I had seen in life which delighted me immeasurably for their tragi-comic poignancy and their significance in term of understanding the human being as a Filipino. But reviewing the two plays for other than political and social simply made their presence felt unobtrusively as parts of the day and age. Subsequently, when Vilma the New Day editor suggested the use of lieration as a tie-up of the two plays in book form, I readily agreed and happily so! I do hope that my public will have fun reading the plays' cast of characters prove Shakespeare absolutely right in his Puckish denunciation of all humanity--"What fools these mortals be!" Happy reading! ---The Playright

96 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1991