Sa Wakas...Sunday Beauty Queen

Sa Wakas

The year has just started and this musical threatens with a promise of goodbye. Still, Sa Wakas, an acclaimed original Pinoy rock musical featuring the songs of the band Sugarfree, is a must-see theater production in 2017 because it celebrates love and dignifies the fading of feelings. Beyond that, it celebrates the praise-worthy Filipino ingenuity.

Sa Wakas, running from Jan. 12 to Feb. 5 at the Power Mac Spotlight Theater at Circuit Makati, revolves around the lives of Topper, a photographer; Lexi, a doctor; and Gabbi, a magazine writer. Together, the characters raise the timeless question of “why relationships fall apart.”

Spoiler alert to those who were not able to catch the musical when it was first staged in 2013, Sa Wakas is unique in a sense that it is told in an inverted narrative, beginning with the ending, and ending with the beginning. So, the agonizing breakup scene stirringly opens the musical with the song Kwarto, my favorite of all the Sugarfree songs. Fret not for the musical ends with the lovers’ starry-eyed beginning.

To answer the question “why relationships fall apart,” the young and talented cast — Topper will be alternately played by Vic Robinson and Pepe Herrera; Lexi by Caisa Borromeo and Cara Barredo; and Gabbi by Justine Peña and Maronne Cruz — recently made the press privy to some of the scenes in the musical.

Wag Ka Nang Umiyak, a composition of Ebe Dancel of Sugarfree and a new addition to the libretto of this year’s staging of Sa Wakas, made me teary-eyed. And it was just the preview. I blame Vic Robinson and Caisa Borromeo for my tears because their rendition of the song was penetrating, moving, heartrending. “Kung wala ka nang maintindihan/Kung wala ka nang makapitan/Kapit ka sa akin, kapit ka sa akin/Di kita bibitawan.”

In the musical, Wag Ka Nang Umiyak is a restitution song, a recompense for a relationship worth saving when things get on the rocks. As the song goes: “Wag ka nang umiyak, mahaba man ang araw, uuwi ka sa yakap ko.” And yet…

Special shout out goes to Maronne Cruz who plays the third-wheeling Gabbi. Her Mariposa rendition is a metamorphosis of a golden voice with a lilting texture and a facial expression that shows a gamut of pain temporarily betrayed by a smirk masquerading as a smile. Back stage, Maronne seems to be a livewire, an Energizer Bunny (she even had time to run outside Pineapple Lab in Makati, where the preview was held, to catch a Pokemon with Santa Claus hat after the press con). But when she sings Mariposa, her voice soulfully glides like a blemished, bruised butterfly: “Dahil dito sa Mariposa ay mahirap ang nag-iisa/Dahil dito sa Mariposa ako lang ata ang nag-iisa/Nagsisising matatapos ang gabing alam naman nating meron nang taning/Nagsisising gigising sa katotohanan ‘di ka naman talaga akin.” Ahh, the malady of being the third party.

“Sa Wakas is like a love box where you deposit all your memories both happy and sad. It’s fragile, you have to handle it with flair,” says Jose Paolo dela Cruz, the no-nonsense managing editor of PeopleAsia magazine. Paolo, in his desire to unleash more his creative side, joins the production as he dips his fingers in the promotions department of the musical. “I have an unending belief in Sa Wakas,” he says.

The homegrown Sa Wakas, also the title of Sugarfree’s first album, is a collaboration of genius minds whose proclivity is to make the Filipino audience proud of original Pinoy musicals. Sa Wakas is co-written by Andrei Pamintuan and Mariane Abuan, with the music beautifully arranged by Ejay Yatco. The show is created and produced by Charissa Pamit and is presented with the Manila Fringe Festival. Lighting design and set design lounge in the creative hands of Miguel Panganiban and Vincent Cayabyab, respectively.

(For tickets, visit www.sawakasmusical.com.)

Sunday Beauty Queen

If the Filipino’s resilience would take form and be made into a movie, it would be titled Sunday Beauty Queen.

Truth is, Sunday Beauty Queen (SBQ) is one of the eight entries to the 10-day Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) 2016 that started on Christmas Day. In fact, the film won Best Picture at the recent Gabi ng Parangal of the MMFF. It also won the Gat Puno J. Villegas Cultural Award, the Children’s Choice Award and Best Editing.

SBQ makes history because it is the first documentary to make it to the MMFF. It tells the story of four or five domestic helpers (all college graduates) in Hong Kong. Each scene in the film is a verse, an ode, a psalm, a tenet that exposes and explores the overseas Filipino workers’ vulnerabilities, strengths, pains, hopes, joys.

I think, after watching all the eight entries, SBQ is the cape, the scepter, the throne and the crown of this year’s MMFF. It gives dignity to the lives of the OFWs, the country’s unsung heroes. If only for this, the movie is worth watching. Sadly, only a few theaters are showing the film, if it is not yet pulled out from the cineplexes. It’s my sincere hope that the awards it recently received will prompt theater owners to keep SBQ in the movie houses.

Sunday Beauty Queen, which reaped a unanimous grade of A (which means the film can get 100-percent tax rebate) from the Cinema Evaluation Board, initially tickles then it delivers the punch that pierces through the heart. A documentary film has never been this beautiful. Watch out for the graduation scene and be ready to melt in your seat.

Baby Ruth Villarama, the director of SBQ, dedicates the film to her mother, who had once worked as a domestic helper abroad. So she knows the narratives of the movie like the back of her hand, or perhaps like the hardened hands of her own mother. Her firm grip on the film resulted in a masterpiece that neither manipulates nor meanders. The bare essentials are presented — women sacrificing for the sake of their families. In their loneliness they find a Band-Aid in staging an amateur beauty contest every Sunday, their day-off from work, for fun and charity.

SBQ stands its own ground in this year’s festival of films that pushes to the frontline seasoned and famous actors. The movie, to begin with, features no real stars from the Tinseltown. But SBQ proves that the common women — scarred and scared yet happy and hopeful — can also shine brightly in their own firmament.

At times, the scoring of the film is overwhelming. But the film is heartfelt and sincere in its exploration. It’s unscripted and acting is unrehearsed. And Sunday Beauty Queen explodes in the heart.

(For your new beginnings, e-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com. I’m also on Twitter @bum_tenorio and Instagram @bumtenorio. Have a blessed New Year!)