Dani Girl

This magical, heartbreaking new musical is a modern fairy tale

By Ava Baccari

Book and lyrics by Christopher Dimond
Music by Michael Kooman
Directed by Richard Ouzounian

Gabi Epstein in Dani Girl. Photo by Susan Benoit.

In that unambiguous, disarming manner through which children perceive the world, the nine-year old eponymous character in the new musical, Dani Girl, probes: “If prayer is so great why do we need chemo?” Suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the precocious Dani (Gabi Epstein) retreats to the safety net of her make-believe world—and guardian angel (Jeff Madden) who leads her there—to plainly resolve the indescribable reality of why her cancer has recently returned.

The beauty of Michael Kooman and Christopher Dimond’s musical, presented by Talk Is Free Theatre and Show One Productions and running at the Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace until March 11, is the way it both blends the conventional elements of fairy tale—princess, Fairy Godmother, dragon-slaying—and usurps them. Dani’s Fairy Godmother, Madden, appearing in a cramped, snow-white hospital room, signals death is around the corner for her. And the dragons she and her new cancer-addled roommate Marty (Jonathan Logan) must fight are a multitude of malignant tumours. Together the pair set off in their fantastical world to understand the root of their diseases that so far god and doctors have failed to fix.

Under Richard Ouzounian’s direction, no opportunity is wasted to mine this emotionally rich and magically heartfelt material. Practicing what he critiques—he is the Toronto Star’s theatre critic after all—Ouzounian has his cast of adults, playing make believe themselves as children, roaming throughout the stage and rearranging the set as they enter their sacred world.

Epstein is the perfect display of innocence and beyond-her-years wisdom that growing up with disease has left Dani with, like diagnosing stuffed rabbit melanoma. She’s absolutely heartbreaking when she openly longs for her fallen hair, simply to “brush it” again. Even her mother (Amanda LeBlanc) is often rendered silent when her daughter provokes with another of her trademark pointed questions. Logan’s number about why he loves action movies—for their clearly defined hero characters—is a poignantly metaphorical and gut-wrenching display of a childhood belief so fervent it transcends both reality and pain out of necessity. You want to believe for him.

Christine Barrett creates a spacious and whimsical world of make believe that defies the cramped Backstage. The music by Michael Kooman is airlight and charming even as it ruminates on dreams these kids will likely never see through and the rapidly spreading cancer ravishing their little bodies.

Not every fairy tale has a happily ever after, but that doesn’t make the laughs and hope experienced in this musical any less real.

Dani Girl runs until March 11 at the Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace. Visit showoneproductions.ca for more information and to buy tickets.

Read our Q&A with Michael Kooman and Christopher Dimond here.

• Tweet