Grief-swallower

By Petia Ivanova '97

I went to the premiere of Grief-swallower with a sunken heart last Saturday. I had read and greatly enjoyed the collection I Am a Dream made of poems, drawings, essays, diary entries, and e-mails by Daffy (Dafina Georgieva – Ronja) who was to graduate ACS with the Class of 2008. Her life was lost instead, in November 2003, way too early. How would I take 100 minutes of heartbreak, in the company of Daffy’s own parents and family, the little brother she hadn’t met, and who knows how many of her friends, the addressees of her e-mails, whom  she would so often scold for not writing soon enough?

The rest of the spectators at Theater 199 seemed to carry sunken hearts, too, because as the play began, we all seemed to laugh a bit confused, probably a bit louder than appropriate. We even laughed at the sad kingdom called Never (with the king Not There, and the queen No Matter, and their boy Nothing). Or was someone swallowing our grief? Main (and only) actress Maya Novoselska? What a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious choice of an actress to let us in on Daffy’s world, the most delightfully funny actress, the most grief-swallowing one – with such an exquisite flair for words, music, and characters.

The air was sweet with summer and freedom. Gentle jazz would sound every now and again. Maya was typing Daffy’s texts on a made-up keyboard and they would come to life on the big screen behind her, letter by letter, as in a chatroom. Sometimes her voice would be that of a girl, then she would change it and talk to the girl behind the text, ask Daffy for help to find the right page or passage in the diary. She would sing sweetly, naturally.

Daffy's drawings came to life, too - transformed into beatiful animations. Did I make this up or was it really Daffy's friends who created the animations - nevermind; what mattered was that the drawings were revived by kids of Daffy's own generation, who had understood her wonderfully, who were grown-up now, at 27.

As I was leaving, I felt light in spite of the dark outside and I was lost in thought, too. Grief-swallower brought memories of what occupied my thoughts once, too, at 8, 11, and then 14. “A straw hat to keep me from the scorching sun, a pair of eyes to see and a heart to feel” - I wished so hard that they could do it for me again. It would be so much easier to set out on journeys of any kind. My step quickened in the uncommonly warm October night, on the way home to my own extraordinary kids.

Grief-swallower, by Daffy’s mother, the incredible Katia Petrova, is showing at Theater 199 „Valentin Stoychev“ on November 4 and 18 at 7:30 PM.