By YOLANDA L. PUNSALAN
DANI Girl, the musical, will melt your heart.
On its last weekend run (July 24 to 27, 8:30 p.m. Matinee, 3:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday) Dani Girl is good respite from the toxic political bickerings.
Sandbox Collection’s latest offering at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza in Makati City revolves around nine-year leukemia stricken Danica Lyons in a pediatric oncology hospital room in Pittsburgh.
Only four actors –Dani; Raph, the guardian angel; Marty, her imaginary roommate; and the mother. Too young to have watched the theater showing of the 1977 epic space movie, Star Wars (frequently referred to in the play), the actors deliver performances of pain that inspires, of suffering that uplifts.
At the Talkback portion after the musicale, a question was raised as to whether the group sought a spiritual adviser to help them get through the difficult, painful scenes.
Director Christopher “Toff” de Venecia, a little bit embarrassed replied,”Oh, honestly, no, we don’t have a spiritual adviser.”
He said they have to draw from their stock of faith and spirituality. And he has an ample stock of them with what he had gone through, particularly the death of his sister, KC in December 2004.
The young De Venecia said Dani Girl is about the Big C. “But it’s also about friendship and family. It’s about hope beneath fear and despair. It’s about God.”
Pamela Imperial, who plays the Mother, said. God is our spiritual adviser.”
She summed it all up for the rest of the crew when she said, “From our personal experiences of loss and pain, we had moments of realizations how it is to lose someone. Each one could relate in his own way. In my case, I was most touched when the mom and Dani faced each other one last time, with mom finally accepting the fact that she had to let Dani go.”
De Venecia added, “ For me, the effect of the scene when Dani recognized God in front of her, even if He wasn’t the God that she might have learned in textbooks, or the God as we expect him to be wearing elegant robes, was a breakthrough moment. It made me further believe seeing the face of someone we love, is seeing the face of God.”
Death is heavy stuff but dialogues and songs lighten the subject and make it engaging. The tone of suffering bravely and confronting the inevitable with pride and dignity is set at the beginning through a song sung by Dani when she bade goodbye to her teddy bear who had ovarian cancer.
She sang:
And so I offer this prayer.
The world is cruel
The world is unfair.
But if there is a god anywhere,
Please bless my poor little bear.
Dani Girl’s young perfomers are already stalwarts in theater and the arts , namely Rebecca Coates, Mitzi Lao, Reb Atadero, Lorenz Martinez, Luigi Quesada, Shiela Valderrama, Pamela Imperial.
As the play’s blurb promises, it’s good for the soul.