Reviewing ‘Liwanag sa Dilim’: A past to recall, a future to install

We are heirs to a history both luminous and scarred — yet in an age consumed by velocity, disinformation, and curated forgetting, the past is too easily dismissed. 

Liwanag sa Dilim, an original Filipino musical with book and direction by Robbie Guevara, reanimates our collective memory through the evocative music of Rico Blanco, inviting us to remember: the future is not found, but forged — and it begins with remembrance.

Elesi, portrayed in alternating brilliance by Anthony Rosaldo and Khalil Ramos, becomes the anchor to this dramaturgical tempest: a lone orphan chasing ghosts through time’s fog. But the narrative does not indulge exposition; instead, it demands the audience trace memory alongside him. This shared ambiguity is deliberate — mirroring the way truth in history often resists clarity. 

Originally premiering on March 7, 2025, at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium in RCBC Plaza, Makati, 9 Works Theatrical’s Liwanag sa Dilim concluded its extended theatrical run with final performances on May 3 and 4, 2025.

What this theatrical requiem achieves visually is nothing short of pioneering in Philippine theater. Archival fragments, glitchy projections, and abstract motion graphics do not simply embellish the stage — they become it. The multimedia does not serve the story; it is the story, layered in bursts and silences.

This treatment recalls the visual experimentation of Ang Huling El Bimbo, but whereas that production often leaned into nostalgia, Liwanag sa Dilim weaponizes fragmentation. Here, memory is less an emotional refuge than a battlefield. The effect also parallels the immersive anxiety found in Dekada ‘70 (PETA), though Liwanag trades family dynamics for historical abstraction.

These fragments — some tactile, others spectral — offer a kaleidoscopic interpretation of memory: not as chronology, but as rupture. History here is not didactic; it is disjointed, as all lived trauma is. And though this dissonance may alienate audiences accustomed to linear arcs, it ultimately insists on a more honest form of engagement. In this theatrical ecology, discomfort is not a flaw but a feature.

Anthony Rosaldo’s Elesi is pensive and reserved, offering a portrait of longing that is neither overwrought nor undercooked. Khalil Ramos, on the other hand, delivers with a quiet fire — his stillness holds weight, and his voice arcs with restraint. The dual casting is a masterstroke: each actor carves a different silhouette of the same haunted soul.

Ligaya, played by Lara Maigue, emerges as the musical’s unexpected lifeblood. Maigue’s vocal performance is consistently crystalline, but more impressively, her emotional intelligence threads pathos into every syllable. Clara, portrayed by Alexa Ilacad, offers a balance of poise and power, going beyond the archetype of a typical love interest to become a presence of both depth and resonance. 

Taking turns as Cris, CJ Navato and Vien King, give a steady, grounded performance, bringing quiet conviction to the role’s internal struggles. Boo Gabunada, as Padre Salvi, brings a sharp and chilling presence to the stage, his calculated stillness adding tension to every scene he’s in.

If performances in Mula sa Buwan carried the ache of doomed romance, the cast of Liwanag sa Dilim carries the weight of unprocessed grief. Yet some characters feel briefly sketched — etched just enough to spark interest, but not fully explored. The ensemble at times lacks individualized development, but this critique is less an indictment than a suggestion: this theatrical mirror to memory builds a world vast enough to warrant further excavation.

Blanco’s music — already beloved in the Filipino zeitgeist — transcends nostalgia in this iteration. His songs, repurposed here as memory capsules, are less about pop familiarity and more about resonance. Tracks like “Elesi” and “Kisapmata” recontextualize adolescence, grief, and collective yearning.

While other jukebox musicals such as Rak of Aegis revel in humor and the buoyancy of communal spirit, this stage-born lament chooses to stretch emotion to its rawest edge. However, it occasionally hesitates to let silence speak, favoring grand transitions that verge on melodrama. At times, its symbolism risks veering into the overt. Yet these artistic flourishes are not rooted in vanity but in a sincere creative yearning — and that kind of boldness is difficult not to admire.

What makes Blanco’s body of work a fitting backbone for Liwanag sa Dilim lies not solely in its mainstream appeal, but in its ability to contain multitudes — of memory, unrest, and the ache of becoming. His songs, layered with emotional topography, neither accompany the narrative nor interrupt it; rather, they blend, amplifying its inward tremors and unspoken ruptures. In this context, tracks such as “Ulan” and “Himala” cease to be lone ballads and instead function as vessels of existentialism and communal awakening.

If the production falters, it does so in its overwhelming reach. The visual density, paired with a deliberately fragmented narrative, can make emotional coherence elusive. There are moments when the audience is asked to feel before fully understanding; an appeal that not everyone will meet willingly. But it’s a demand that is rooted in purpose, not in hyperbolic gloss.

Rather than criticize this abstraction as a weakness, it might be more apt to see it as the work’s aesthetic thesis: that memory — and by extension, history — is not cohesive. We piece it together from what survives, where this musical mosaic makes that act both painful and poetic.

Liwanag sa Dilim does not offer closure nor does it pretend to. What it offers instead is a sonic, visual, and emotional reckoning with our national psyche. Through Elesi’s wandering, we confront our own: our gaps in memory, our romanticization of the past, and the traumas we inherit and resist.

Its flaws — occasional narrative drift, overstimulation — are forgivable, even necessary. This is a musical unafraid to wade into uncertainty. And in doing so, it elevates itself from a historical piece to a theatrical haunting.

We leave not with resolution, but with resonance. The kind that lingers. The kind that unsettles. The kind that remembers.