A Beautiful Daisy

She is in her 80s now, and I haven't ever met her, but judging from her memoirs, The Drama Of It, A Life on Film and Theatre, Daisy Hontiveros Avellana, National Artist for Theater, is a beautiful lady.

Everything about her exhudes freshness-- a lifetime devoted to a singular passion, an idyllic childhood in a provincial town in a placid time, triumphant early years in U.P. before the war, a beautiful story of love and struggles with a genius who was not above designing her bridal gown, and now the quiet years, of affectionate remembering.

How I enjoyed reading this book! edited by my friends Monina Allarey Mercada and her daughter, An-Mercado Alcantara. Of her life during the Japanese Occupation, which saw a golden age of Philippine theatre, and her helping her husband Bert, as writer and over-all aide, produce and direct plays, and this man of hers horsing around with a Japanese officer to save his family from harm, and before that Bert's group of bright Ateneans, doing their thing in college theatre and later, during the War, fighting in Bataan and as guerrillas.

I like her evocation of Binan, where Daisy and Bert shot Nick Joaquin's Portrait of the Artist as Filipino which turned out to be one of their most memorable collaborations. Bert and Daisy founded the Barangay Theater Guild, which put on plays on radio and stage. She wrote the story for Sakay, Bert's first directorial job, now a classic.

Mrs. Avellana is a lady of great humility, a fact quite evident in this book. She could have gone on and on about the plaudits, and the talent and fortitude that won them, but does not. Or about her distinguished siblings, including Lenny and Father Ed Hontiveros, or her artist daughter Ivi, or her summa cum laude father, a Supreme Court Justice, and chooses not. She praises her grandchildren and great grandchildren

I like the quietness and tenderness of these memoirs. Did many people know Daisy wrote short stories as well? They are here, told with a clear sure voice. Especially precious is a still photo from Sakay, with Leopoldo Salcedo and, unnamed here, Arsenia Francisco.

Carmen Guerrero Nakpil who writes the Foreword, notes she wishes she had written this "splendid memoir" herself. Splendid too was their time and the people, including the valiant youth, who lived in it.

Read this book about a life of abiding freshness.