Theater review: Merrily we rock along with 'Sa Wakas'

If there is one thing for which we can credit the creators of “Sa Wakas”, which opens tonight at the PETA Theater Center in Quezon City for weekend runs until the end of this month, they know their source material all too well. 

 

I am not talking about the Sugarfree songs. That's a given.

 

The jukebox musical, a staple of musical theater ever since the success of “Mamma Mia”, poses a challenge to those who wish to use the repertoire of any musician or group. "Sa Wakas" is, to my knowledge, one of the first local stage productions using a recent band’s music. The other one, Chris Martinez’s "I Doobidoobidoo" featured the APO Hiking Society’s songs, was a film. 

Here, the challenge was to transform a particular generation’s favorite band’s songs into a coherent story. The show’s librettists, Andrei Pamintuan and Marian Abuan, met this challenge by telling a story that the cynic in me would blanch at with passion. But there was an interesting way they told it.

 

Structurally, the play is a homage to Stephen Sondheim’s 1981 piece “Merrily We Roll Along”. As with Sondheim’s work, events in this play are told backwards, with Sugarfree’s songs providing the frame for each segment. 

 

Unlike “Merrily. . .”, which had about seven flashbacks and flashforwards covering roughly two decades, there are about twenty scenes going backwards and forwards over the course of a year. 

 

However, the premise is all too familiar to anyone who has been following mainstream Philippine movies over the last two years. To solve the potential cynicism this will generate, the play resorts to one of the most obvious ploys: self-referential humor. More on this in a while.

 

The principal cast members I saw were Kyla Rivera as a young, upcoming magazine editor/art reviewer, Vic Robinson as a photographer with a tragic flaw, and Caissa Borromeo as a neurosurgery resident with a sense of ambition. 

 

Their acting was passionate and convincing enough, given the material, and the singing was definitely something I enjoyed. This is one place where “Sa Wakas” was very consistent. I am hoping to catch their alternate cast, and see how well they do it, too – their ensemble, which served at times as a Greek chorus and mainly as their back-up singers, were not too bad either. 

 

The other point of consistency is in what songs were chosen and musical director Ejay Yatco’s new arrangements. These managed to keep Ebe Dancel’s memorable melodies intact while giving a fresh sound.  With a production based on a band’s work still fresh in people’s memories, this matters. The songs’ use in “Sa Wakas” to tell a particular story is where this play shines.

 

Perhaps it is safe to admit that a jukebox musical’s biggest weakness is its book (think again about “Mamma Mia’s” story). This particular play had, as mentioned, a plot that had patterns and characters which have become all too familiar. 

That in itself would be a turn-off, but two things saved it. First was the storytelling technique, which is no longer unconventional for a generation that has encountered such things in film (like “Pulp Fiction”, for one). The way the story was told helped us see the ironies in character and story later on, smoothening the blow and ending on a less unhappy note than when it began. The second was how the play made ironic hints about its familiar storyline’s wider resonances to the audience in at least one place, generating some laughter, sometimes uneasy. Honestly, I shared that unease. But what was amusing in hindsight was the way they made jokes in one scene about the kind of people who, yes, use ironic, self-referential humor!

 

To balance it out, I think this is a decent first effort for a jukebox musical based on something quite contemporary and I do recommend this play. 

 

I enjoyed the singing and acting, and how the music worked. Most of all, I find this dual homage to contemporary Filipino music and Stephen Sondheim a hopeful sign for local theater. To see these brought together in a play by people who have hitherto been known for doing other people’s plays is a response to many musicians in this country who in turn are adding to the treasure trove of music that helps us tell our stories. – KDM, GMA News   

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Ren Aguila occasionally writes about music for GMA News Online.The views expressed in this article are solely his own.