Malacañang Made Us
Since 2002, the Queensland Premier Drama Award has developed and premiered 39 plays on the Queensland Theatre Company stage. This year’s award-winning play, Malacañang Made Us, is the first Filipino-Australian story on a major mainstage with a collaboration between writer Jordan Shea and director Kenneth Moraleda, both Filipino-Australian artists.
The play begins with a ‘brief yet spicy history of the Phillipines’, brought to life by 18-year-old Leo (Mark Paguio), a rising star on social media known for his historical hot takes on his motherland.
Born in the Philippines but brought to Australia early in life, Leo still yearns to return home, study there and make a real political impact with friends he’s met online. But his father Martin (Mike Zarate) won’t allow it.
The play then plunges 40 years into the past where the People Power Revolution is at its peak in Manila. Two young brothers, Martin (Miguel Usares) and Ernie (Marty Alix), find themselves at a protest outside Malacañang Palace, the official residence of the president of the Philippines. As President Marcos flees, the two brothers join the throng to storm the gates of power, exhilarated by the hope of a better future.
Malacañang Made Us: suburban Brisbane
Back to the future, the brothers reunite in suburban Brisbane after Ernie (Marcus Rivera) comes to live there after being fired from his airline job. Martin tells Ernie of his son’s desire to study in the Phillipines, and Ernie confides his worries over Leo’s political activism online, as Marcos’ heir is poised for election victory in Manila.
The play weaves in and out of past and present. While the young brothers continue to make their way into the palace in Manila 1986, Leo begins to make plans to protest in Brisbane 2022. Family secrets surface when the threat of being watched by the Filipino government becomes very real.
Can ordinary people make a difference? Can they make a difference when the place they call home is no longer where they live?
At its heart, Malacañang Made Us is less about politics and more about families marked by upheaval, bound by a need to belong.
Malacañang Made Us: shifting timelines
Director Kenneth Moraleda deftly navigates shifting timelines, making the past not just something that shapes the present, but a history that lives in all. There’s a lot of information to absorb and one missing piece could make the audience feel in limbo.
The performances keep the story on track, pulsing with authenticity and grounded in lived diasporic experience. Both sets of brothers, young and old, embody a tight-knit bond only a shared history can bring.
Mark Paguio as 18-year-old Leo is a little grating at times, but perhaps that’s the point. Still, if he’d said ‘literally’ one more time, some patrons might have literally left the theatre.
Jeremy Allen’s set design holds Manila 1986, Brisbane 2022 and the online realm in one versatile space. It’s a political playground, from the palace to the people.
The stark white structure of Malacañang Palace stands proud upstage centre, a constant presence of the Marcos’ wealth, corruption and the Philippines’ enduring political turmoil. Costumes draw on first-hand photos of the revolution, while Leo and his online friends burst with the colour and energy of the younger generation.
Nevin Howell’s video design is integral to the storytelling. Projectors transform the stage from palace to nightclub, protest to online world. Iconic Filipino graphics and archival video from the 1980s revolution add rich historical texture.
Malacañang Made Us: powerful moments
One of the most powerful moments comes when the cast recreate a photo from the People Power Revolution. We shift from a 2022 nightclub to a tableau of the ensemble gathered around a golden throne. Then the image flashes above them: young activists sitting on Marcos’ actual gilded furniture in 1986. The collision of past and present is fleeting, but its impact is profound, a visual reminder that actions from the past still echo today.
Sam Cheng’s immersive soundscape and Christine Felmingham’s lighting design evoke a sense of time travel, with shadows and sound drifting in and out like memories you can almost touch. Stage Manager Jacinta Way and the tech team deserve credit for seamless transitions between timelines.
The Filipino diaspora is Australia’s fifth-largest migrant community, and this production marks a significant cultural milestone, a full Filipino-Australian cast at the forefront of a mainstage show. Even the printed program celebrates the moment, with Filipino and English text presented side by side.
Malacañang Made Us reminds us that sharing your story, your history, might just help history not repeat itself.
