‘Lola Basyang’ goes to the ballet
Luz Fernandez as Lola Basyang keeps her audience of kids absorbed in the stories she tells them in Ballet Manila’s Tatlong Kuwento ni Lola Basyang. Photo by Ocs Alvarez
Lola Basyang is the most popular grandmother of Philippine literature. Wearing traditional Filipino dress, perched on her rocking chair with a book in her arms, she has gained iconic status for being a master storyteller.
She has kept generations of children entertained with her countless tales about faraway kingdoms, enchanted musical instruments, elves and a host of charming creatures, princes and princesses falling in love, and ordinary folk facing extraordinary adventures. In her every story, there is always a lesson to take to heart.
Lola Basyang is the iconic storyteller of Philippine literature, perched on her rocking chair with a book of countless tales in her arms. Photo by Ocs Alvarez
From stories written by Severino Reyes and later adapted into comics form by his son Pedrito, Lola Basyang has leapt off the pages through the decades and entered Filipino consciousness through television shows, plays, musicals, films and even ballet. The last happened when Ballet Manila spun three of her stories into dance form, dubbing it Tatlong Kuwento ni Lola Basyang, which later on resulted in a sequel of another three stories.
But just who is Lola Basyang? Here are some interesting tidbits we uncovered about the dearly loved grandmother and the writer who assumed that persona:
Severino Reyes was 75 years old when he wrote the first Lola Basyang story, Ang Plautin ni Periking, about a kindhearted boy who has a magical flute and a flying carpet.
While Severino Reyes used “Lola Basyang” as a pen name for his stories, the name and character are said to have been based on a neighbor named Gervacia Guzman de Zamora or “Tandang Basyang,” the matriarch of the Zamora clan in Quiapo, Manila. It is said that she was a doting grandmother who told stories to her grandchildren after supper almost every day.
Reyes’ short stories, known under the series title Mga Kuwento ni Lola Basyang, first came out in 1925 in Liwayway, a Tagalog-language magazine that he was a founder and editor of. The series eventually became the magazine’s most-widely read prose feature.
Severino Reyes is recognized as one of the pillars of the zarzuela. Way before creating Lola Basyang, he was writing zarzuelas and even founded and directed in 1902 the Gran Companie de Zarzuela Tagala which traveled extensively.
In 1949, Reyes' son Pedrito Reyes, decided to revive the Lola Basyang stories in comic book form. Pedrito used his father's original scripts to produce the comics that appeared in the earliest issues of Tagalog Klasiks.
In 2006, Anvil Publishing, Inc. relaunched Mga Kuwento ni Lola Basyang, a series of children’s books based on the tales written by Severino Reyes and retold by Christine Bellen. The stories that were turned into ballet came from this series.
Luz Fernandez, who would play Lola Basyang in the two ballet trilogies, first became part of the cast of Lola Basyang on radio in the 1950s. Dramatizing different stories on air, it became a widely followed series. She also portrayed a storytelling grandmother in the television show, Ora Engkantada, although the character was not called Lola Basyang.
Severino Reyes is said to have completed over 400 Lola Basyang stories, a rich collective resource that perhaps explains why they continue to inspire versions across different media today, almost a century after the first story was first written.
