After its critical success in 2019, Rody Vera’s Nana Rosa returns to the Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero Theatre stage through the University of the Philippines’s Playwright Theatre (UPPT), as the closing production of the company’s 28th theatre season.
Under José Estrella’s direction, Nana Rosa tells the story of Maria Rosa Henson, the first Filipina to reveal her struggle as a sex slave of Japanese soldiers during the Second World War. In April 1943, Henson was abducted by the Japanese troops while working for the guerilla movement in Pampanga. For nine months, she was forced to be a comfort woman. The play covers her early years in Pampanga, to her abduction during the war and to her later years after coming out as a comfort woman in 1992.
Nana Rosa is produced by the UPPT, an auxiliary company of Dulaang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas that stages original Filipino plays. The play continues Dulaang UP’s clarion theme this year Daluhong as it continues to persistently assault and demand reparation for the thousands of Filipino comfort women, whose stories have been erased, and are still being erased from our own pages. An estimated number of more than a thousand Filipina have been sexually abused by Japanese soldiers during the occupation period. Many of which came forward to tell their stories after Henson’s coming out. Meanwhile, nearly 40 years later, the Japanese government continues with its revisionist streak as it tacitly ignores all demands by women and human rights activist groups for justice and a formal apology.
In the face of the burgeoning global turmoil, the production remains timely with its strong stance on violence against women, historical revisionism and military sexual slavery. Nana Rosa hopes to
continue to call everyone to remember the bravery of one woman, and the incredible female solidarity that brought her story to the open.The play also calls everyone to remember the names of all the women who have braved through the unimaginable so they may never happen again.
Nana Rosa will run from February 27 to March 22, 2019. Regular tickets are priced at Php 500. Discounts are also available for bulk purchases, UP students, UP Staff, and senior citizens. For other information, contact Nico at 09175198879, or at upptnanarosa.marketing@gmail.com. You can also purchase your tickets online on KTX and Ticket2Me.
