‘Papet Pasyon 2025’ returns to CCP
The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) and Teatrong Mulat ng Pilipinas present “Papet Pasyon 2025,” at the Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez on April 6, 2:30 p.m. and 6 p.m.
Written by National Artist for Theater Amelia Lapeña-Bonifacio, “Papet Pasyon 2025” features and explores in its storytelling the important Biblical moments commemorated during Holy Week. It begins with Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, His outburst at the Temple, His miracles, His agony in the garden at Gethsemane, His final supper with His 12 disciples, Judas’ betrayal, and Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection all the way to Easter Sunday.
A young boy who received a miracle from Jesus acts as a central storyteller in this play based on Biblical passages and Filipino traditions during Holy Week.
This puppet play is a celebration, a feast of Filipino traditions and heritage. It is a senakulo, a folk-religious and theatrical retelling of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but featuring wooden puppets smithed by master woodcarvers of the woodcarving town of Paete in Laguna.
Teatrong Mulat continues the panata initiated by Lapeña-Bonifacio in 1985. First staged at the CCP, Papet Pasyon has been performed annually in various venues such as churches, schools, and other performing spaces in Metro Manila and Bulacan. It found its permanent home at the Amelia Lapeña-Bonifacio Teatro Papet Museo in Teacher’s Village, Quezon City, in 2006.
Marking its 40th anniversary, “Papet Pasyon 2025” returns to where it all began—at the CCP—welcoming both seasoned and new generations of Mulateers (as the Mulat Theater puppeteers are fondly called) to continue their decades-long panata each Lenten season.
Directed by Teatrong Mulat artistic director Amihan Bonifacio-Ramolete, “Papet Pasyon 2025” is free to the public.
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