"KUDETA!" OPENS TONIGHT!. Jan 11 2008

TANGHALANG PILIPINO: Kudeta!

"KUDETA! (The Coup)", Tanghalang Pilipino's initial 2008 offering, opens at 8:00 P.M. tonight at the Tanghalang Huseng Batute (Studio Theater) of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

A coup has toppled the government and the President is held captive in an undisclosed location. Young military officers consolidate their position by trying to get the President to sign a document confessing to crimes he has committed against the nation. To regain power, the President must use everything in his possession.

Philippine headlines? No, they're from an independent Trinidad and Tobago , the setting of “Kudeta!” (The Coup), a “wickedly funny play” written by Mustapha Matura and directed by Floy Quintos from the Filipino translation by George de Jesus III.


Celebrated actor/writer/ director
Mario O’ Hara returns to the stage to star as President Eddie Jones, now facing the very same officers he sent for training in the Sandhurst Royal Military Academy. The Tanghalang Pilipino Actors Company comprise the ensemble of coup plotters as well as characters past and present that inhabit the President’s life and dreams.

Playwright Mustapha Matura was born in Trinidad in 1939 and moved to London in 1961. In 1974, he was named The Most Promising Playwright by the Evening Standard and is now considered one of the leading theater figures in Britain .

“The Coup” was commissioned by the Royal National Theater of Great Britain in 1991. Its run enjoyed great acclaim, with critics calling it an “untidy and intermittently very funny play about an evidently untidy and intermittently funny country,” making for a “knowing, affirmative and fun evening.”

“Kudeta!” performance dates are January 11,12,18,19, 25,26, February 1 and 2 at 8:00 P.M. and January 12,13,19,20, 26,27 and February 2 and 3 at 3:00 P.M. at the Tanghalang Huseng Batute (CCP Studio Theater) of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Production design by Tuxqs Rutaquio, lighting design by Dennis Marasigan, sound design by Janice Carol Dee and direction by Floy Quintos.

Tickets at Php500 (regular) and Php250 (student) are available at Ticketworld (8919999), CCP Box Office (832-3704) and Tanghalang Pilipino (8323661/8321125 locals 1620 and 1621.) Discounts available for block sales.

Visit our website www.tanghalangpilipino.com.