FRANCIS TANGLAO-AGUAS says telling stories helps us to discover ourselves.

I grew up in a culture where there was a love for performance, and by performance I don’t mean just acting; I mean storytelling. We didn’t have a television at home, so we would tell stories instead.

A lot of these stories were Japanese war stories. When we disrespected our elders, my grandma would talk about how they would get whipped if they didn’t kowtow to the soldiers. Our maids also told us scary stories about the tiyanak, the ghost of an unborn child, and the mananggal, who can cut her body in half.

Later, when my neighbours got a TV, we would watch shows together. Then, on our way home, we would retell and recreate the stories we’d seen. I now see those moments of storytelling as my first ventures into playwriting.

I wrote and directed my first school play when I was in fifth grade, around ten years old. It was pretty irreverent, because it had a character based on our principal. But, surprisingly, I got very little flak for it. When they realised I could write, they even set up a junior speech and drama club for my grade.

My first play
“When the Purple Settles” was the first full-length play I wrote. My niece, Hannah, had just been born – the first person in my family to be born since we moved to the United States.

I found myself wondering what we would tell her when she began asking difficult questions about our family’s history. Why had we left the Philippines? Why did we get to live in the United States when the rest of our relatives were in the Philippines?

So I wrote the play in the hopes that it would help provide a frank answer to her when she wanted to know the truths about our family and where we came from.

The play tells my life story, plain and simple. But, in a way, I think it is also everyone’s story because every family has a secret, a lifechanging secret that takes a lifetime to heal, to settle.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that it would win the Palanca Award. It was really amazing for me. That award is extraordinary, and it’s been won by writers I admire.

But, to me, what I do is not extraordinary. Making theatre is just something I do that allows me to be me. We do it naturally as kids: we pretend, we play-act and we perform. I just do it as a grown-up.

Tell your stories
Often when I write today, I do my best to go back to how I perceived and experienced everything as a child. We have our own struggles, dreams and convictions when we are younger, and we see the world differently.

So start writing now. Create a journal or a blog, even if only for yourself. Don’t worry whether it is good or not. One day, you will read it again, and realise why you could not resist the urge to document your feelings, your dreams, and your thoughts.

About Francis Tanglao-Aguas
Francis Tanglao-Aguas is a playwright, director, actor and university professor. He grew up in the Philippines but, when he was a teenager, his family migrated first to Nigeria, then to the United States. He has described this experience in his most famous play, “When the Purple Settles”. This play won the Don Carlos Palanca Award, his country’s national literature prize.

Today, he works at the College of William and Mary, teaching theatre, speech and dance. He has just completed a journey through various countries in Asia, where he carried out research into traditional folktales.