Filipinos love heartbreak. We love it to a point that it's been commercialized as the go-to money-grab formula of popular entertainment.

While heartbreak is the theme of "Sa Wakas," the independently-produced musical mining the songs of the band Sugarfree, it has managed to touch on the nuances of love’s endgame, painting a balanced, less caricatured picture of the people and events that lead up to relationship falling apart.

Reviewers have noted how the play has evolved since its first run in 2013, with the creative team removing early embellishments along the way so the story hits where it hurts. This move, along with its
reinterpretation of Sugarfree's songs, has contributed to the show's enduring run.

While remaining accessible to today's milieu, the music, too, has matured along with the band members and the band's original fans who are now approaching mid-life.

ANC sits down backstage with the play's producer, Charissa Pammit, and director Andrei Pamintuan to talk about their journey throughout the six-year run of "Sa Wakas."

ANC: Why is this the farewell act?

Andrei Pamintuan: I wish it was just marketing. We started a limited run in 2013 which was fairly successful as there was a petition to re-stage it. But due to schedule conflicts, people were not ready to commit again. It took us about four years 'til we staged it again.

It was a chance to revisit the material and fully flesh it out. I think the joy and beauty of creating for many artists is that you can always revise after taking feedback. You read a review and you say, "Maybe that makes sense. Maybe we should do this."

Even the actors we've worked with brought a certain depth compared to the first run, owing to their own life experiences. So this being our farewell run is a way to close this chapter. This is the show that we've always wanted it to be.

And also, it's time to write new narratives, new stories. It's just so tempting to keep doing "Sa Wakas," but I think there are more stories, more issues that we want to tackle.

ANC: The beauty of the medium of theater is that it's not closed, always unfinished. What can viewers expect in this run compared to the other runs?

Pamintuan: This particular run is more concise than previous runs. We really get to the point of a scene, of the characters' journeys. We flesh the storyline out and the complexities of character relationships are even more himay, lumalabas 'yung lasa.

At the core of it, this is a love story. We wanted to represent the voices of urban Metro Manila. It's about career paths, relationship choices, and standing up for those choices. It’s the reality of how falling in love affects your life in a good way and perhaps not. The yin and the yang.

A half and a half does not make a whole, and in the yin-yang analogy, you need a whole and a whole to make this right. Obviously, there will be people who will not like it. We proceed despite that because this is what we want to convey.

The theme of falling in love, falling out of love, and fighting for what you want in life is something relatable to anyone. For the LGBT, if you're a millennial or a baby boomer, it's something that can transcend different sectors of our society.

ANC: Sugarfree's first fans are in their late 30s and likely past the idealized stage of love, so this is the time for them to look back.

Pamintuan: And in the show, it starts with the characters returning each other's boxes of things. So there's that sense of nostalgia, of unraveling, of looking back and cherishing those memories. As people, we are all the books we've read, all the people we've met, and we are unpacking. Always unpacking.

ANC: So you simplified the storytelling so you could really get the spirit of the message.

Pamintuan: So the storytelling is something unconventional yet not the first time it was done; inspired by "Merrily We Roll Along" by Stephen Sondheim which Cha and I and others in "Sa Wakas" did in college.

It affected us. The story starts out in the present and you find yourself looking to the past, at magnified vignettes in these people's lives leading up to where the story starts.

We also utilized a traditional literary device called the Greek chorus so we have passerby characters that show up and react to the scenes, characters that become the voices-in-the-head of the main cast.

ANC: A chicken-and-egg question: what came first? Wanting to write a Sugarfree tribute, or wanting to write a play?

Pamintuan: It was in 2012 when the idea was proposed to me by Cha to write a Sugarfree musical. We were both in New York and at that time I was working as an assistant director at readings for the Women’s Theatre Workshop, and I always wanted to write a show.

Here comes Cha. We were just starting out, dreamers. I was waiting tables to make ends meet and she was like, "Hey, are you interested in writing a musical based on Sugarfree?" And of course I said yes, yet was scared.

I love some of their songs but in terms of being the anthem of my life, not necessarily. Definitely there were songs that hit me and that's what made me agree to this project. Plus it's Cha, we’ve had history together.

So Sugarfree came first, and the story after. Back then, we were just working with friends from college. This year, we were able to work with Ed Lacson who directed "Himala" recently and built this amazing multifunctional set, a beautiful palette for the story to take place.

We also have costumes by Jodi (Aguillon) who created a story through clothes. Sometimes in theater, we don't realize that how the characters dress, how they change, is something that will help audiences as well and I think that was an amazing part of the production. These really helped because the original vision, the iteration we always wanted, came out.

ANC: Were there specific inputs from the audience that stuck with the show?

Pamintuan: When my mom saw the show back in 2013, she said, "You need to be able to justify Gabbi. No one wants to be a mistress, you have to flesh out her character." That was the feedback of the creative team as well, that we need to find a reason for Topper to fall in love with her, so that really pushed me to build her even more.

Is it possible to love two people at the same time? We wanted to tackle infidelity 'cause it’s a big thing in our society, but why does it happen?

Charissa Pammit: We tend to pre-judge people that because they've cheated, they're automatically a prick. You're unraveling where it's coming from. Where did it begin to end? You realize that these are real people and not just clichés.

Pamintuan: Yes, but I have to say that clichés are important. That's why they're clichés.

Pammit: I think this year in particular, Ejay (musical director) played with the music in terms of tempo, that way some of the songs that were supposed to be gentle and sweet really stand out. And according to him, there’s a journey through the musicality and how the music is heard.

ANC: You re-arranged Ebe Dancel's (Sugarfree's main composer) songs to convey more emotional nuances.

Pamintuan: So the original song that he wrote for the show is called "Bawat Daan," and the radio version is different from what we have in the performance. It's a little bit more complex in the show and it's a song sung by three characters.

Pammit: Last night, we were talking about how when Ebe first wrote a song for us, one of the lines was "Kung puso ko ay imamapa, ikaw ang dulo at 'yung simula." The very first iteration for that was "Kung puso ko ay isang nobela, ikaw ang dulo, gitna, at simula." And I actually like the first one but Ebe changed it
because he wanted to have a whole vision of a map with four directions.

ANC: You guys marketed the show as "Sugarfree Songs, Broadway-fied." Why so?

Pamintuan: "Broadway-fied," to attract the audience in the current musical theater landscape, yet we also wanted to connect to OPM-loving fans. It was a great way to come together in one space. A friend from Ticketworld said that "Sa Wakas" could be a case study of theater attracting a very diverse audience.

Pammit: That's one of the best things I feel about the show. Whenever we get someone online saying that "this is my first Broadway experience" or "I'm a Sugarfree fan and this is the first time I've ever watched theater and it's amazing," it's a gateway for them into theater and Sugarfree.

Pamintuan: To hear that from the audience means that we did our job. We did research as much as we could to have relatable and real characters. Characters who are doctors, writers, photographers, etc.

Pammit: There are scenes that are very accurate in terms of how it is across industries and fields nowadays, so I think that's one of the reasons why people love the show so much, because we've rooted it in reality. It reflected their lives back at them.

This interview was edited for clarity. Sa Wakas is showing until May 27. Book tickets at http://sawakasmusical.com