This is the second in a series that I am writing for Ateneo and the Sesquicentennial. It's called The Ateneo Heritage and it appears on ateneo.edu. I don't know if they will compile this somewhere down the road. It's keeping me busy aside from my day job and other writing gigs so I'm sorry if I haven't been able to properly look at sports. But on deck is football, the Gilas-RP Team, and the Ateneo Blue Eagles and other UAAP/NCAA teams.
The Blue Ghost
The Passion Play of Fr. Henry Lee Irwin S.J.
by rick olivares
The Passion Play of Fr. Henry Lee Irwin S.J.
by rick olivares
The old man held his colegiala audience in sway. He was older now, this thin yet tall American who spoke about the power of drama to a group of students from St. Scholastica’s College.
Suddenly, he clutched his heart and paused mid-sentence. He leaned forward and gasped for air. The students froze and were gripped with fear and helplessness.
The American fell to the floor; his fingers, and eyes bulging. Finally, one student broke out of her state of shock and yelled, “He’s having a heart attack! Someone call a doctor!”
The urgent cry galvanized everyone into action. A few broke sprint records as they rushed to the school infirmary. By the time the panting school doctor arrived, Henry Lee Irwin S.J. picked himself up with a spryness that belied his age and pronounced with muted pride, “That, class… was acting.”
As a young man growing up in Connecticut, the call of theater and the bright lights of Broadway beckoned him. Only there was a louder voice, one that stopped him in his tracks. A voice whose message was loud and clear that he instead become like Him, a fisher of men.
Henry Lee Irwin, arrived in the Philippines in 1921, as a part of the first batch of Jesuit teachers and administrators. He was a scholastic then and enjoyed teaching in an Ateneo that rapidly becoming Americanized. He was in country for three years before he returned to America where he finished his theological studies and was ordained a priest.
By 1929, Fr. Irwin returned to the Philippines and the Ateneo. He quickly found himself in the classroom teaching Philosophy, Theology, and Rhetoric. He took charge of the Ateneo Dramatics Guild where he was at his element.
Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, and King Lear -- all under Fr. Irwin's oversight -- played to packed audiences first at the Manila Grand Opera House and later at the Ateneo Auditorium. He even had one of his students, Teodoro Evangelista play Lady Macbeth so convincingly that left the mixed male and female audiences stunned.
“A youth trained in dramatics is never at a loss,” he once exclaimed with the pride of a father as he talked about the growth of theater in the school and in the country. He made such an impression on his students that many of them adopted a life of teaching using the stage or film to communicate what they learned in school: Lamberto Avellana, Raul Manglapus, Onofre Pagsanghan, and Leon Ma. Guerrero.
“Theatrics is a key to the development of the human personality. It allows for expression and confidence,” he would always reason.
Fr. Harry, as he was fondly called, was at his most eloquent when he spoke about plays. He dissected mystery and morality plays as if he were a military man pouring through intelligence reports. And he was able to stage an original number titled The Blue Ghost before he was called away for other duties.
When Japanese warplanes flew over Manila on December the 11, 1941, a wave of fear enveloped the Jesuit priest’s body. “This wasn’t for show. This was real,” thought the priest.
When the Japanese Imperial Army took over the country, Fr. Irwin was first interred at the Ateneo grounds in Padre Faura then later at Los Baños concentration camps where his health suffered.
After the Liberation of the Philippines and the subsequent re-opening of the school, many feared that the priest had lost his zest for life and teaching. But once he was nursed back to health, the fire and passion in his eyes returned.
Fr. James B. Reuter S.J., who aside from moderating the Ateneo Glee Club and serving as trainer for the men's basketball team of yore, once told a story about Fr. Irwin and another Jesuit Fr. Martin Zillig, who both had many a spirited debate about many a thing.
“At the end of the day, the priests would gather at the recreational room at the Jesuit Residence for small talk about the day’s events. Both Fathers Zillig and Irwin were highly opinionated and they would continue their discussions at the balcony only for the former to storm off in anger muttering, 'Jackass! Jackass!'
“When Fr. Zillig fell sick and lay dying, he asked for Fr. Irwin to stay by his bedside.
“As Fr. Irwin packed a few belongings to take with him to the hospital, his eyes burned with tears and he began to mumble, ‘I know, I know. He wants me there so he can look me in the eye one more time and say, ‘Jackass! Jackass!’”
The anecdote, humorous it may be, underscores the close-knit fraternity of the Jesuits and Fr. Harry’s compassion. Towards the 1970’s, Fr. Irwin fell ill and retired from teaching. Instead he tended to his garden outside the Jesuit Residence and walked around the campus befriending and giving impromptu lectures to students about school, life, theater, and just about anything. He pushed students to explore life and live it to the fullest.
One of his former students, Onofre Pagsanghan put up the Dulaang Sibol for the Ateneo High School. In the elementary level, the Ateneo Children’s Theater behind the direction of Mariano Singson Jr. thrived. In the college, there are Tanghalang Ateneo, Entablado, and Blue Repertory. All have continued the very best tradition that began way back in Intramuros all the way to Padre Faura and eventually to Loyola Heights where the first Ateneo plays there were held at the college covered courts.
On August 20, 1976, the father of Ateneo Theater made his final stage exit. He spent 61 of his 84 years on earth in the Society of Jesus with 54 of them in the Philippines. He was buried at the Sacred Heart Novitiate in Novaliches like so many of his fellow Jesuits.
In 1987, the Ateneo Grade School began to raise funds for a planned Php 87 million theater. Finally construction began in January 1994 and was completed 14 months later.
On December 9 of that same year, the Fr. Henry Lee Irwin Theater opened with three shows, Pasasalamat, Pagdiriwang, at Paanyaya; a multi-part celebration that included many of the Ateneo’s famous alumni in the field of theater and the arts as well as renowned performers from the University of the Philippines and in the local industry.
The theater was packed way passed its 1,100 seating capacity.
Today, the theater is home not just to grade school plays but also other university events such as the recent speech by the former Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Tony Blair.
As always, it plays to a capacity crowd.
Never let it be said that Fr. Irwin couldn’t bring the house down. And that wasn’t acting.
Commentary from my pop:
Hi Rick,
Good article. I know about this act of his as if he was having a heart attack. He did that several times, to his dramatics class at the Ateneo. Among those he trained aside from those that you mentioned were Tito Rod, whose best performance was doing a soliloquy of a man going crazy (I hope I am right, maybe you can ask Tito Totit or Tito Ed; they would know better) and Tito Rogel (although he was a product of both Fr. Irwin and Fr. Reuter).
Dad
Next: The Manila Observatory and Fr. Nicholson vs Smokin' Joe Cantada.
Suddenly, he clutched his heart and paused mid-sentence. He leaned forward and gasped for air. The students froze and were gripped with fear and helplessness.
The American fell to the floor; his fingers, and eyes bulging. Finally, one student broke out of her state of shock and yelled, “He’s having a heart attack! Someone call a doctor!”
The urgent cry galvanized everyone into action. A few broke sprint records as they rushed to the school infirmary. By the time the panting school doctor arrived, Henry Lee Irwin S.J. picked himself up with a spryness that belied his age and pronounced with muted pride, “That, class… was acting.”
As a young man growing up in Connecticut, the call of theater and the bright lights of Broadway beckoned him. Only there was a louder voice, one that stopped him in his tracks. A voice whose message was loud and clear that he instead become like Him, a fisher of men.
Henry Lee Irwin, arrived in the Philippines in 1921, as a part of the first batch of Jesuit teachers and administrators. He was a scholastic then and enjoyed teaching in an Ateneo that rapidly becoming Americanized. He was in country for three years before he returned to America where he finished his theological studies and was ordained a priest.
By 1929, Fr. Irwin returned to the Philippines and the Ateneo. He quickly found himself in the classroom teaching Philosophy, Theology, and Rhetoric. He took charge of the Ateneo Dramatics Guild where he was at his element.
Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, and King Lear -- all under Fr. Irwin's oversight -- played to packed audiences first at the Manila Grand Opera House and later at the Ateneo Auditorium. He even had one of his students, Teodoro Evangelista play Lady Macbeth so convincingly that left the mixed male and female audiences stunned.
“A youth trained in dramatics is never at a loss,” he once exclaimed with the pride of a father as he talked about the growth of theater in the school and in the country. He made such an impression on his students that many of them adopted a life of teaching using the stage or film to communicate what they learned in school: Lamberto Avellana, Raul Manglapus, Onofre Pagsanghan, and Leon Ma. Guerrero.
“Theatrics is a key to the development of the human personality. It allows for expression and confidence,” he would always reason.
Fr. Harry, as he was fondly called, was at his most eloquent when he spoke about plays. He dissected mystery and morality plays as if he were a military man pouring through intelligence reports. And he was able to stage an original number titled The Blue Ghost before he was called away for other duties.
When Japanese warplanes flew over Manila on December the 11, 1941, a wave of fear enveloped the Jesuit priest’s body. “This wasn’t for show. This was real,” thought the priest.
When the Japanese Imperial Army took over the country, Fr. Irwin was first interred at the Ateneo grounds in Padre Faura then later at Los Baños concentration camps where his health suffered.
After the Liberation of the Philippines and the subsequent re-opening of the school, many feared that the priest had lost his zest for life and teaching. But once he was nursed back to health, the fire and passion in his eyes returned.
Fr. James B. Reuter S.J., who aside from moderating the Ateneo Glee Club and serving as trainer for the men's basketball team of yore, once told a story about Fr. Irwin and another Jesuit Fr. Martin Zillig, who both had many a spirited debate about many a thing.
“At the end of the day, the priests would gather at the recreational room at the Jesuit Residence for small talk about the day’s events. Both Fathers Zillig and Irwin were highly opinionated and they would continue their discussions at the balcony only for the former to storm off in anger muttering, 'Jackass! Jackass!'
“When Fr. Zillig fell sick and lay dying, he asked for Fr. Irwin to stay by his bedside.
“As Fr. Irwin packed a few belongings to take with him to the hospital, his eyes burned with tears and he began to mumble, ‘I know, I know. He wants me there so he can look me in the eye one more time and say, ‘Jackass! Jackass!’”
The anecdote, humorous it may be, underscores the close-knit fraternity of the Jesuits and Fr. Harry’s compassion. Towards the 1970’s, Fr. Irwin fell ill and retired from teaching. Instead he tended to his garden outside the Jesuit Residence and walked around the campus befriending and giving impromptu lectures to students about school, life, theater, and just about anything. He pushed students to explore life and live it to the fullest.
One of his former students, Onofre Pagsanghan put up the Dulaang Sibol for the Ateneo High School. In the elementary level, the Ateneo Children’s Theater behind the direction of Mariano Singson Jr. thrived. In the college, there are Tanghalang Ateneo, Entablado, and Blue Repertory. All have continued the very best tradition that began way back in Intramuros all the way to Padre Faura and eventually to Loyola Heights where the first Ateneo plays there were held at the college covered courts.
On August 20, 1976, the father of Ateneo Theater made his final stage exit. He spent 61 of his 84 years on earth in the Society of Jesus with 54 of them in the Philippines. He was buried at the Sacred Heart Novitiate in Novaliches like so many of his fellow Jesuits.
In 1987, the Ateneo Grade School began to raise funds for a planned Php 87 million theater. Finally construction began in January 1994 and was completed 14 months later.
On December 9 of that same year, the Fr. Henry Lee Irwin Theater opened with three shows, Pasasalamat, Pagdiriwang, at Paanyaya; a multi-part celebration that included many of the Ateneo’s famous alumni in the field of theater and the arts as well as renowned performers from the University of the Philippines and in the local industry.
The theater was packed way passed its 1,100 seating capacity.
Today, the theater is home not just to grade school plays but also other university events such as the recent speech by the former Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Tony Blair.
As always, it plays to a capacity crowd.
Never let it be said that Fr. Irwin couldn’t bring the house down. And that wasn’t acting.
Commentary from my pop:
Hi Rick,
Good article. I know about this act of his as if he was having a heart attack. He did that several times, to his dramatics class at the Ateneo. Among those he trained aside from those that you mentioned were Tito Rod, whose best performance was doing a soliloquy of a man going crazy (I hope I am right, maybe you can ask Tito Totit or Tito Ed; they would know better) and Tito Rogel (although he was a product of both Fr. Irwin and Fr. Reuter).
Dad
Next: The Manila Observatory and Fr. Nicholson vs Smokin' Joe Cantada.
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