MORYON by FEU Theater Guild Runs October-November 2026
The FEU Theater Guild is opening its 93rd season with MORYON, a Filipino adaptation of Guy de Maupassant’s Mother Sauvage that moves the story to Japanese-occupied Marinduque and places the Moriones tradition at the center of its world. Written and directed by Dudz Teraña, MORYON runs at the FEU Center for the Arts Studio from October 1 to November 28, 2026, with performances scheduled throughout the two-month run.
It is a fascinating choice of setting for a story built around grief, violence and the complicated line between justice and revenge. MORYON takes place on Holy Thursday in Mogpog, Marinduque, during the Japanese occupation, while the Moriones tradition continues around its characters and masked devotees take to the streets in acts of faith and penance even as war changes the lives of the people living behind those traditions.
At the center of the play is Caridad, a mother waiting for her son Joaquin. Joaquin is a young guerrilla who wants to prove his worth in a world that has long underestimated him, but when the realities of war finally reach Caridad’s doorstep, she is forced into a decision that puts her faith, her idea of justice and her love for her son against each other.
That is where MORYON becomes more interesting than a simple transplantation of a French story into a Filipino setting. The Moriones tradition is not just scenery here, because its masks, rituals and expressions of faith give the play another layer while an entire community publicly performs devotion and penance and Caridad deals with something much more private and much harder to contain.
What happens to faith when grief becomes unbearable, and what does justice look like when the person asking for it is also hurting? How much can someone endure before the beliefs that once guided them begin to change?
Those questions already exist in Maupassant’s Mother Sauvage, but relocating them to wartime Marinduque gives MORYON a distinctly Filipino context. The story now sits at the intersection of occupation, family, Catholic devotion, local tradition and survival, while even the title carries more weight because there are the literal masks of the Moriones and the things people carry underneath them.
Who stars in MORYON?
Maria Alexandra Mayano and Maria Ysabel Delos Reyes alternate as Caridad, while Dave Bambang and Aldin Covarrubias alternate in the role of Esteban. MORYON is also being mounted by a largely student-led FEU Theater Guild production team.
Kirstan Erin Wayne Orbegoso serves as assistant director, with Maria Ysabel R. delos Reyes as executive director, Trisha Tan as finance director, Marjorie E. Uson as production manager and Danielle Schwartz as head stage manager. The creative and technical team includes production designer Althea Carla H. Sibulo, technical director Martin Gabriel L. Mesina and multimedia director Johann Edgar S. Oliveros, while Edrud Adriyel Madalan serves as marketing director, Irish Jane L. Oliveros as publicity director and Zoe Trinity C. Sisam as house manager.
MORYON 2026 performance schedule
MORYON will be staged at the FEU Center for the Arts Studio in Manila on the following dates. The house opens at 6:00 PM, while the performance starts at 6:30 PM.
October 2026:
October 1, 2 and 3
October 8, 9 and 10
October 15, 16 and 17
October 22, 23 and 24
October 29 and 30
November 2026:
November 5, 6 and 7
November 12, 13 and 14
November 19, 20 and 21
November 26, 27 and 28
If you are heading to FEU specifically for the show, it may be worth arriving earlier than you normally would for a theater performance. FEU Theater Guild is encouraging audiences to arrive around 30 to 60 minutes before MORYON for a free guided walk around the FEU Art Deco campus, which also makes this one of those Manila theater trips where the venue itself can become part of the experience rather than simply the place where you watch the show.
MORYON ticket prices
Tickets for MORYON are priced at ₱150 for FEU students, faculty and staff, and FEU or FTG alumni with Alumni ID; ₱250 for non-FEU students with valid ID; ₱500 for FTG alumni without Alumni ID and the listed PWD and senior citizen rate; and ₱700 for the general public.
For ticket updates and other announcements, you can follow the Far Eastern University Theater Guild on Facebook, @feutheaterguildofficial on Instagram and TikTok, and @ftg1934 on X.
There is already a lot happening inside MORYON before anyone even steps onto the stage, with a French source story, the Japanese occupation, Marinduque, the Moriones tradition, Catholic faith, guerrilla resistance and a mother being pushed toward an impossible moral choice. What makes me most curious, though, is how all of those elements will meet in performance.
A production like this can easily become overly concerned with explaining its historical and cultural setting, so the more interesting possibility is for MORYON to trust that setting enough to let Caridad remain at the center of it. Underneath the masks, the occupation and the larger questions about faith and justice, this is still a story about what grief can make a person do, and that feels like the part worth watching.