This document provides context and summaries for the play "Ang Paglilitis ni Mang Serapio". It discusses absurdism, expressionism, and symbols in the play. The protagonist Mang Serapio faces accusations of taking care of a child, which breaks the rules of the "Federacion". The play uses symbols to represent its themes rather than being taken literally. It also features characters that represent types rather than people.

1. ANG PAGLILITIS NI
MANG SERAPIO
Paglilitis. Mas lalong masaya sa
Federacion

2. ABSURDISM
• A style of drama popularized in France after World War II that viewed human
existence as meaningless and treated language as an inadequate means of
communication.
• man seeks some measure of happiness in a reasonable and predictable
world, what he seems to get is unhappiness in a chaotic and unpredictable
one
Absurdism stressed that the world is
unreasonable, illogical, incongruous, and out of harmony.
The word „absurd‟, then, meant not ridiculous, but without meaning.

3. A B S U R D I S W I T H O U T M E A N I N G …
• Doesn‟t tell a story in favour of communicating an experience;
• ABSURDISM abandoned a dramatic unity based on casuality and replaced
it with one whose source, and indeed whose very presence, was not always
clear
• Absurdism quality devaluates (reduces) language as a carrier of meaning
• ABSURDISM: what happens on stage often transcends and contradicts what
is said there.

4. ABSURD PLAY IS OFTE N…
• Often constructed as a circle (ending just where they began, after
displaying a series of unrelated incidents)
• Often the intensification of a single event (ending just where they had begun
but in the midst of more people or more objects)

5. EXPRESSIONISM
• A style of theatre popular in Europe after World War I and typified by
symbolic presentation of meaning, often as viewed from the standpoint of
the main character; distortions of time, space, and proportion are common.
• Expressionism plays were often didactic and cautioned the world against
impending cataclysms such as:
-uncontrolled industrialism,
-rampant impersonalization,
-and the modern industrial state.
(and much more)

6. E XPRE SSION IS…
• Seldom tells a simple story; more often, EXPRESSIONISM developed as
episodic examinations or demonstrations of a central idea/opinion
• unfolded in a world of bizarre and garish colors, jagged angles, and oddly
proportioned objects
Actors, often dressed identically, moved in mechanical or puppet-like ways
and often spoke in disconnected or telegraphic conversations. They bore
names of types rather than people: (eg.
“Hukom”, “Tagapagtanggol”, “Saksi”, “Bantay”)
Conventional ideas of time and space collapsed

7. REFERENCES
• Cameron, Kenneth, M. and Gillespie, Patti P. The Enjoyment of Theatre, 5th
Edition. Copyright 2000, 1996 by Allyn and Bacon, A Pearson Education
Company.
• Harrop, John and Epstein, Sabin R. Acting with Style. Copyright 1982 by
Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 07632.
• NO internet sources (definitely book-researched)

8. SYMBOLS . . .
The entire drama or play of “Ang Paglilitis ni Mang Serapio” is riddled with
symbols!
Not just riddled, but bleeding, haemorrhaged!
• THUS;
In order to keep the spoilers away, we (the Serapio group) would like to keep
this part hidden for the audience, it‟s best fitting that way…

9. • This play is NEVER to be taken literally, as this play is symbolic, allegorical, not
for the shallow in mind, but meant to those who are willing to stop down their
tracks, take a look around, think, and witness what the things around has
become.
• In other words, this version of “Mang Serapio” play was RESEARCHED. This is NOT one
of those “put up just because I like it” shallowness. The conceptualization of this
version went through the abyss, catalyzed through the synapses and neurons, the
concepts stabbed and were buried alive, then were resurrected to become images
and words in the script, all, to be brought alive in this drama.
Thus, we can only reveal the SYMBOLISMS of the Serapio play AFTER the play itself is finished.
(unless of course, Ma‟am Garcia wants us to do so beforehand)

10. CONFLICT OF THE PLAY
• The protagonist in the story, Mang Serapio, faced accusations of committing a
supposedly crime of “taking care of a (his) child”; which, in the rules or laws of the
„Federacion‟, is met with serious consequences since taking care of a child, or
children, or in the case where any other „pulubi‟ (beggar) is caught or known to be
taking care of anyone besides himself/herself, will prompt him/her to spend more
than what he/she could. In the words of the character “Unang
Tagapagtanong”, Serapio was, is, and will be tempted to spend money for the sake
of the child under his care, spending the supposedly “tax” money intended for the
Federacion.

11. THEME
•“Even if it’s difficult and
unjust, one must live through
his fate and deal with the life
he has been given…given by
those who thinks they are

12. OTHER ELEMENTS