Rizal’s Dreams Create Quintos’ Play



Dreams, say the believers, are the premonitions of the subconscious. But they need not be conveyed only in a state of stupor, as in a stage play depicting stories behind the scenes of an actual creation as Jose Rizal’s dark novel El Filibuterismo, or a blog that chronicles someone’s meanderings. Floy Quintos made much of Rizal’s dreams, which were often melancholic, frightful, even terrifying.



Take, for instance, those that dealt with death.
Interpreters say that to dream of relatives dying means misfortune awaiting any of them. To dream of one’s self dying may not exactly mean that but is an omen bad enough to worry about. Take note of the following dreams of Rizal:



· When he was on his way to Barcelona from Calamba, Laguna, he dreamt that while in Singapore, his brother Paciano had suddenly died. [i]
· Rizal also dreamt of himself almost die. While in Madrid on December 30, 1882, he dreamt that, while imitating an actor dying onstage, he felt vividly that his breath was failing and he was rapidly losing strength. Then his vision dimmed and dense darkness enveloped him – they were the pangs of death. He wanted to shout for help to Antonio Paterno, certain that he was about to die. He awoke weak and breathless. [ii]



To dream of serpents indicates a serious disease. Usually dreams of this kind result in depression for the dreamer.



· In Singapore one Saturday, Rizal dreamt that he was travelling with his sister Neneng and eventually came to a port. The place was full of vipers and snakes. On the path leading to a house, there were many hanging boas, some dead, some alive. As they walked -- Neneng ahead of Rizal, the reptiles menaced them. One angry serpent obstructed their path. Neneng walked away safely but Rizal was caught by his shirt. Defenseless, he grew weak. As the snake was about to overwhelm him, he started to imagine death in the form of loathsome rings. Pedro, the town carpenter, arrived, and dealt the snake one fatal blow. [iii]
· On July 28, 1884, from Marseilles to Manila, Rizal dreamt meeting with his father who looked more pale and thinner than usual. When he was about to embrace him, his father withdrew, pointing at the floor. Rizal saw the head of a black stag and a large snake moving to entwine him.[iv]



In the play “Isang Panaginip na El Fili,” there is a dramaturgical pattern of Rizal’s dreams. The playwright-director employs Rizal’s dreams to provide a window for viewing how Rizal could have written his novel. Quintos attempts to interpret Rizal’s dreams on stage by creating characters and reconstructing moods and objectives. He replots Rizal’s dreams as the play’s narrative thread.



In the prologue, we are quickly drawn into an unfolding plot that reveals two of Rizal’s actual dreams -- those of his parents and of his fiancée Leonor Rivera. The characters in the dreams appear to seek a stage to play out their tragedies and comedies. Rizal, in fact, had two such dreams about them:



· In Singapore one day in May, Rizal dreamt of a rather complicated journey that brought him from Pointe Galle, obviously in Europe, to his hometown in Laguna. He saw his parents who were unconcerned about his long journey. It also occurred in his dream that he needed to start his trip all over again, crossing the seas, and that he had to borrow a hundred pesos to make it in a ship’s fourth class deck. [v]
· On January 25, 1884 (four years before he started writing the Fili), Rizal had a very sad dream while in Madrid. Returning to the Philippines, his parents didn’t show up to receive him; and Leonor had been extremely unfaithful. [vi] (Leonor eventually married an Englishman.)
Interpreters claim that to dream of counting money and finding a deficit means financial woes. Rizal dreamt a similar one; in fact, in Paris where he wrote the Fili, he was in dire straits. This is narrated by Tunying, Quintos’ fictitious character.



Rizal’s dream of death is fulfilled in the play’s epilogue, just as it starts with his dreams and weaves through them.



There is another kind of dreaming that may be considered in the context of the life of the hero. Take, for instance, Isagani, who could represent the Filipino youth who dream of progress and greatness for their beloved country. Isagani articulates Rizal’s dreams about commerce and industry, social harmony and equity. Curiously, Isagani’s love interest, Paulita, dismisses them as “Dreams, nothing but dreams” – just as some of us today, more than a hundred years since Rizal’s martyrdom at the Luneta, remain unmindful of his ideals, especially of his hope for a new social order.[vii]



So does Quintos’ play remind us.


[i] Writings of Jose Rizal, Volume 1, Reminiscences by Jose Rizal, published by Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission, Manila, 1961, p. 57
[ii] Ibid., p. 63
[iii] Ibid., p. 61
[iv] Ibid., p. 143
[v] Ibid., p. 61
[vi] Ibid., p. 90
[vii] La Liga Filipina