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FACTS ABOUT THE PLAY

Title: New Yorker in Tondo

Author: Marcelino Agana Jr.

When was it published: around the 1950’s

Type of play/genre: Comedy

CONTENT

Setting: Tondo

When it is set: not mentioned

The plot: the play is about a girl who goes to New York and falls in love with it, to the point of neglecting her childhood memories in her motherland. She acquires all the New Yorkish ways and even forces her mother to do the same. Until, she was visited by her childhood friends, Tony, Nena and Totoy. Near the end, the secret love between the characters is revealed – the two pairs ending up on each other’s arms, Nena and Totoy, and Tony and Kikay. Kikay also returned to her old self and accepts Tony’s forgiveness.

Characters: Kikay – daughter of Aling Atang; fiancée of Tony; balikbayan from New York; New-Yorkish

                  Tony – childhood friend of Kikay; engaged to Kikay and, at the same time, to Nena; simple guy

                  Nena – childhood friend of Kikay; secretly engaged to Tony; tomboyish

                  Totoy – childhood friend of Kikay; has a secret crush on Nena; kanto boy

                  Aling Atang – mother of Kikay; forced to live the way her daughter wants it to be: the New York way

Message: The play conveys the message that wherever we go, we should never forget the very place where we come from. For in the end, it is where we shall return because it is our home.

LANGUAGE:

You unspeakable cad!

Shameless hussy

So Chi-chi

OPINION:

1. Hilarious; Amusing

*very Light but striking; Candid

2. For the first scene, I used normal lighting, preferably white and yellow light, to elicit a sense of lightness since, the play is a comedy. With regard to the costumes, anybody else except Kikay has the average pambahay clothing, while Kikay shall wear a New York-oriented clothing. With the scenery, since there is only one required set, it would be Aling Atang’s sala.
3. I would like to recommend this play to everybody else because, aside from inciting a riot of laughter, it also evokes the love for our Mother Land/culture or any place we consider as home, together with the people in it.
4. This is the first time I’ve read a play that conveys this message and there is only a handful of plays written in Filipino that I’ve read or watched.

SUMMARY:

     The play opens with Tony visiting Aling Atang’s house in secret hope of seeing his childhood sweetheart, Kikay who has gone to New York for a year to study Beauty Science. There is a brief conversation between Tony and Aling Atang about how her daughter has become and she wants to be called FranCESca because, according to her, it is what her New York friends call her. Until, Totoy comes, then Nena. The latter is secretly engaged to Tony when Kikay, Tony’s fiancée at that time, left for New York. And the reason why the two came is to inform Kikay of their relationship but Nena gets impatient because Tony doesn’t seem to have the guts to say so.

     Shortly, after awhile, Kikay goes out of her room and meets her childhood

friends. Tony, Nena and Totoy remember their childhood days, but Kikay seems so distant and aloof to the same memory she has with her friends. In this part, one could already assume that Kikay can’t get over her New York memories which is shown in the line ‘you can’t understand this emotion I feel for our dear old tree over there in New York’.

          Tony brings up the topic of him being engaged to Kikay, but Kikay seems to have let go of Tony which is shown in the line, ‘you got engaged to a girl named Kikay. Well, that girl doesn’t exist anymore’. Nena comes in and after knowing the situation, blurts out the she and Tony are engaged while the latter was still engaged to Kikay. This ignites the line of conflicts among the characters. In the course of their arguments, secret love among the characters surfaces. Totoy was secretly in love with Nena and defended her from Tony and Kikay. Nena then leaves the house with his new found love. Kikay and Tony is left behind, and through Tony’s confession of love, Kikay comes back into her senses. The play ended with Kikay, forgetting her New York name, Francesca which symbolizes her realization that there is no place like home.