“Intramuros. The old Manila. The original Manila. The Noble and Ever-Loyal City…”
With these words, Nick Joaquin begins a verbal painting of the Philippine capital as it had been in medieval times, when it was the nucleus of Spain’s colonization of the country. It was the translation of European aspirations on tropical soil, leaving behind both exquisite beauty and harrowing trauma.
Hence Joaquin’s obsession with what he called the Tropical Gothic.
A National Artist for Literature who lived from 1917 to 2004, Joaquin wrote some of the most vivid literature describing the post-colonial Philippines. This selection comes from his 1950 play A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino set in the days right before the fall of Manila in World War II and right after its liberation. It describes the old beauty and the near-total destruction of Intramuros.
In this reading, theater actor Gabriel Tiongson breathes life into Nick Joaquin’s beautiful, heartbreaking, and yet hopeful ode to the “city of our affections.”
LIT by Rappler is a new series that features selections from the best of Philippine literature, brought to life in performance and immortalized through video. This episode was made possible by the Nick Joaquin Foundation, Rosario Joaquin Villegas, Andrea Pasion-Flores, and the Intramuros Administration. – Rappler.com
Narrator: Gabriel Tiongson
Videographer: Franz Lopez
Production assistant: Ramil Cedeño
Graphic artists: Emil Mercado, Alyssa Arizabal, David Castuciano, Nico Villarete
Producer, director, video editor: JC Gotinga
Supervising producer: Beth Frondoso