OFWs, too: Dolly de Leon, Lea Salonga narrate life as migrant workers
MANILA, Philippines — After being away from her family in the Philippines to shoot “Triangle of Sadness” in Europe and recently, the series “Nine Perfect Strangers” in Germany with Nicole Kidman, the Philippines’ first British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) and Golden Globe nominee Dolly de Leon can somehow feel like an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) herself – just like her mom.
Similarly, Dolly’s alternate in the upcoming play “Request sa Radyo,” Lea Salonga, has been doing Broadway and West End projects left and right ever since she became the Philippines’ first Olivier and Tony Awards Best Actress winner.
Since they are away often, Dolly and Lea could consider themselves as among the 1.9 million OFWs all over the world who had to sacrifice time for family and other matters, to be able to give honor and pride to their homeland.
“Sometimes I do (feel like an OFW),” affirmed Lea.
According to Tony Award winner Clint Ramos, who moderated the recent talk with Dolly and Lea for “Request sa Radyo,” among the misconceptions about their job in theater is how glamorous it seems.
Clint and Dolly, for instance, did not have time to bond abroad because they had to focus on their jobs.
“We were in London together, but we never saw each other because you were going from city to city to city, you were in Munich for about six months, right?” Clint told Dolly.
“In a lot of ways, what we actually do is migrant culture. We go to so many places but we never see any,” he fretted.
Living like OFWs often is why Dolly and Lea could relate to the lone, wordless character they are going to portray in “Request sa Radyo.”
According to Dolly, she would try her best to “tell the story as truthfully as possible and try to remember that this is not about me.”
“I am not doing this to perform or to, you know, act or it's to tell someone's story, you tell 1.9 million people's story all over the world, who are workers who are away from home, who are so lonely,” she said.
Related: ‘Tigang ka talaga!’: Dolly de Leon recalls her famous line that began road to stardom
What makes her less lonely working abroad, Lea noted, are also her “kababayans.”
“You can identify that look because in doing the concerts, you know, there's a lot of noise (from those who come) from their day off from their time in the hospital or their day off from wherever they're working and they come and they fill up whatever performance venue I happen to be at,” she shared.
“And you can feel that OK, this is a house full of Filipinos who took the night off to be here in the presence of another Filipino on stage and we're spending this time together and the reaction and the responses are usually very generous. And you can feel it, you can hear it, and it's really, really sweet.” — Video by Deni Rose M. Afinidad-Bernardo; video editing by Martin Ramos
