Tomorrow is only a day away;In these dark days, Annie is a portent of sunny skies ahead

Theater Review
Annie
Presented by Resorts World Manila and Full House Theater Company
Ongoing until Dec. 4; 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays
Newport Performing Arts Theater, Resorts World Manila, Pasay City

By Sujata S. Mukhi

Nothing is as it seems.

Not aware of the back story of Annie the musical, I was prepared to be lukewarm towards this current production. I was rolling my eyes at yet another staged piece of Americana in the Philippines, on the tail of Atlantis’ Jersey Boys (which my eyes adored, by the way). Another American musical? Why? All that treasure, time, talent on such a dated show close to 40 years old? My sister and I even agreed we’d sneak off to dinner elsewhere at intermission if we weren’t, well, moved. And one cutesiepatootsie overbearingly overacting play-to-the-audience child, and I was done and gone.

But, we had tickets. And, it was a Friday night. Not to mention the possibility of a couple of glasses of chardonnay at the gala cocktails. And I found parking. I’m shallow that way, if it meant going all the way to [whisper it now] Resorts World Manila.

And then. The curtains opened to a cold gray Dickensian orphanage, with little girls about to sleep but unable to. This big little girl, the wide-smiled, optimistic, feisty never-say-die 11-year-old Annie, played by the wonderful, natural, engaging and engaged 10-year-old Isabeli Elizalde, was comforting a littler girl who woke up from a nightmare. This just took over my heart.

And what we thought was just a harmless, feel-good musical about a red-headed orphan girl named Annie turned out to be a call for a future that was not just pie-in-the sky optimistic (on a day that was gray and lonely), but a tomorrow that promised equal economic opportunity for all. Annie the musical was not just a story with the right manipulative ingredients: precocious little girls, an affectionate dog, a big Christmas tree with presents. It was not only socially relevant, but had socialist tendencies.

Annie takes us on her adventures. She stands up to Miss Hannigan, her angry, frustrated, and sadistic warden played with caricatured gusto by Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo. In yet another attempt to run away and look for her parents, Annie befriends an affectionate stray dog she names Sandy. She comforts him with the iconic song “Tomorrow.” She mingles with the homeless in Hooverville, so named as its denizens pay sarcastic homage to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s predecessor Herbert Hoover, during whose term the Great Depression was triggered.

Back again in the orphanage after a policeman catches her, Annie is furiously berated by Miss Hannigan. At the same time, Grace Farrell (a dependable Jill Peña), personal assistant to billionaire Oliver Warbucks, visits the orphanage to choose an orphan who would spend Christmas at the Warbucks mansion. Warbucks is in need of a public relations overhaul (from his name, guess how he made his millions?), and fostering a child over the holidays is the perfect solution. As Annie happens to be with Miss Hannigan and disarms Grace with her charm, she is happily chosen on the spot by Grace, much to the enragement of Miss Hannigan who declares how much she hates little girls.

Annie wins over the initially reluctant Daddy Warbucks (Michael de Mesa), a self-made man whose back story of never having known his parents makes a nice allegory for an America that has pulled herself up through self-determined effort, even if it is through the art and profit of war. But there is Miss Hannigan, influenced by her opportunistic brother Rooster (Red Concepcion) and his social climbing girlfriend Lily St. Regis (Justine Peña), who wants to get out of her rut through Easy Street scams, which includes a devious but rewarding scheme to get Annie back from Warbucks. Through De Mesa’s treatment, Warbucks is made that much more human and his palpable grief at the coming separation from the girl he has grown to deeply love is quite touching.

Indeed Warbucks is so taken by Annie that he even brings her to a cabinet meeting with FDR (a congenial James Paolelli). It’s Annie’s reprise of “Tomorrow” that inspires the president to lay the groundwork for his New Deal program. This scene reveals the true political colors of the musical. FDR’s cast of cabinet members brainstorm ways and means to strengthen government involvement in developing social and pro-poor measures to provide relief to depleted coffers and morale during the Great Depression.

Ironically, this was completely opposite to the intent of the creator of the titular comic strip character on which Annie the musical was based. Originally conceptualized in the early 1920s by cartoonist Harold Gray, that Little Orphan Annie openly criticized FDR’s New Deal as borderline communist, if not outright socialist. Almost 50 years later, the comic strip was stripped of its original intent, and Annie the musical, with book by Thomas Meehan (The Producers, Hairspray) cheekily subverted Gray’s political position and in fact made Annie the inspiration for FDR’s New Deal.

But this was our new deal. My sister and I stayed till the very end, teared up when Annie had to separate from Daddy Warbucks since her alleged birth parents came out of the woodwork to claim her, laughed out loud when the adorable orphan girls hammed it up to each other and sang about their life of hard knocks. We gave our whooping applause and cheered on the littlest orphan Molly played by Cheska Rojas who we had the pleasure of personally congratulating after the show. As Molly, she made me almost roll on the Newport theater floor, laughing as she imitated Miss Hannigan’s glug glug glugging through life with unli moonshine.

Kudos to director Michael Williams for respecting his cast of children enough to keep them real, and not have them play for tears and laughs. And for an amazing ensemble that stayed in character through song, dance, and silence. Special mention to the actor who played Drake the butler: the stiffness of his upper lip reached into the distant back of the theater where we were seated.

From the superb Manila Philharmonic Orchestra, to the eye-popping, terrific set design of the Warbucks Mansion, we left the theater with more than just happy thoughts, but with thanks to the producers for making this production team vocally local, loudly and clearly all Pinoy.

And yet it was an American-penned musical about a version of the American dream. I cannot wait (here’s the non-sequitur ending) for Dulaang UP to revive Ang Nawalang Kapatid so that the erstwhile stateside sister gets to revel in the fact that we truly are more deeply rooted in Asiana rather than Americana.

But wait. Go watch Annie anyway. Not only because it’s an all Pinoy production, not only because I “heart” Isabeli and all the other children, not only because it’s a solid cast (I’m sure the alternate cast led by Metro Manila Film Fest awardee Krystal Brimner will be just as endearing), not only because it’s about girl empowerment. And I didn’t even get my chardonnay!

Watch it because as it was in the days of the little orphan girl, nowadays nothing is as it seems or should be. Villains turn heroes, allies become foes, accusers are accused, accused become accusers. Historical fact is now just a point of view. Expletives are meant to be poetry, and state policy requires interpretation with imagination. A harmless musical is actually disguised revisionism. And it’s raining in October.

Watch it because given the state of the nation, we need to really believe that a new deal, a better, saner, decent tomorrow is not always a day away, but only a day away.