3,999

Three thousand nine hundred ninety-nine.

The price of a DVD player? A blouse at Marks and Spencer? The number of tourists that flocks to Boracay on a weekend? The winning number in a tansan promo?

That number is all but insignificant, except to those who honor the memory of the extraordinary French nun Mother Marie Eugenie Milleret, r.a., foundress of the Religious of the Assumption, whose feast day is being marked today. Mother Marie Eugenie founded a congregation that has established schools in 71 countries in four continents. And to think she established the first school in France less than 200 years ago! (The first Assumption school in the Philippines was established in the late 19th century.)

Three thousand nine hundred ninety-nine represents the number of letters (actually, they number 4,000 all in all, but director Ana Valdes Lim used her creative license to chop the number down by one, for drama) exchanged by Mother Marie Eugenie and her best friend Father Emmanuel d’Alzon, founder of the Agustinian Assumptionists. As you can see, they were no ordinary people – they both had the faith, the vision and the charisma to establish religious communities and make them grow! Were they soul mates? Did their superiors frown upon their correspondence and their friendship? Or were they each other’s guiding light? Abangan!

Know more about Mother Marie Eugenie in a musicale about her life entitled 3,999, to be staged on March 11 and 12 (Friday and Saturday), 7:30 p.m. at the Assumption College Gym, San Lorenzo Village, Makati City. (For reservations, call 894-2681).

"This is a story about ordinary people and extraordinary friendships," says 3,999 director Ana Valdes Lim, and "Old Girl" (she belonged to the batch of former Sen. Loren Legarda) who went on to Julliard in the US for her drama studies. She now heads Philippine Playhouse and the Marie Eugenie Theater of the Assumption (META).

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META was born one day when Ana asked the sisters if she could rent space in the soon-to-be-inaugurated Mother Rose Hall (whose interiors and technical facilities underwent extensive renovation and upgrading). They saw her inquiry as a gift from God (and Mother Marie Eugenie). Here was this Julliard-educated director who couldn’t say no to her alma mater, and so Assumption now has its own theater group and school.

"The happy anticipation of having a state-of-the-art auditorium in the nearest future makes us doubly grateful for the gift of the newly organized Marie Eugenie Theater of the Assumption," says Assumption College president Sister Josefina Marie Magat, r.a.

META’s maiden offering is 3,999, "which represents the exchange of letters over a period of 40 years between two significant leaders in the Church, two faithful followers of Jesus and two very great friends."

The musicale is being presented by the students, faculty, staff, alumnae and friends of the Assumption.

"Through 3,999, we wish to honor the life and witness the woman, who, for love of God and love of her times, truly dared to be holy," says Sister Josefina. How does one "dare to be holy," I wonder? Maybe the musicale will show us how.

The creative design and production team includes composer Von de Guzman, choreographer Chito Miguel, composer Pinky Valdes, assistant director Gilbert Onida, musical director Dennis Reyes and assistant musical director Felix Rivera. The musicale was written by Ana Lim and Carlos Aguilar. The musicale features the Assumption VOICES, the Assumption Community Theater, DanzMove with Chito Miguel, Don Bosco Mandaluyong and Philippine Playhouse.

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Anyway, one of the featured songs in 3,999 is truly "red-plaid." It’s entitled Hallelujah Tart, in honor of the popular symbol of Assumption campus life, the "Assumption Tart." These are actually pie crusts spread generously with convent-made guava jam. (To this day, the "Assumption Tarts" are baked by the nuns, and though they are now packaged in fancy tin cans, supply is only as good as the nuns can meet the demand. There have been offers for the nuns to set up "Tarts" outlets in the malls, but the good nuns politely turned them down. So you have to go to Assumption San Lorenzo to have a "bite" of Assumption!)

The lyrics of the song will leave Assumption girls tickled pink, or should I say "tickled red-plaid or blue" (the uniform of the college, which is holding its alumnae homecoming starting 5:30 p.m. today.)!

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