REVIEW: This ‘Spring Awakening’ is a cautionary tale
This Spring Awakening begins at the end–or at least it looks like it. From the off as you enter, there’s an uprooted tree, suspended, a young girl’s dress hanging from its roots. Wendla Bergmann (Sheena Belarmino) will enter as the musical begins, rising onto a chair as if six feet under to retrieve her dress.
Wendla’s fate has been decided even before we get to know her. The world she and her friends are inhabiting are sealed off, morally decided, and emotionally desolate. There is no soft entry into youthful curiosity here; instead, she and her peers are situated inside a landscape that already feels spiritually winter-bound. Director Andrei Nikolai Pamintuan, is not about to serve us a coming-of-age with a lot of theater-kid verve, but a tragedy foretold.
Pamintuan seems to be protesting with this production, indicting adults and institutions who fail the youths. Rather than centering the volatile interior lives of adolescents discovering desire, he foregrounds systemic repression and its consequences. The world onstage feels predetermined, its moral argument clearly drawn from the outset.
For most of the show, the atmosphere remains austere and unyielding with the young characters not agents of change trying to make sense of a world growing bigger by the day, but as cautionary tales. It’s a story that unfolds inside its own graveyard: a warning to its audiences rather than a journey toward spring’s bloom.
Protest players
Inside this stark, already-doomed world, the cast works within a frame that feels more declarative than intimate. Emotions are often projected outward, less confessional and more confrontational.
Sheena Belarmino plays Wendla as sincerely, unmistakably young, lightly curious, sheltered, and non-combative. There’s a clear sweetness to her voice, a bright, almost songbird quality that underscores how protected she has been. Even when Wendla pushes back, it doesn’t come from defiance but from hurt. Belarmino leans into a stylized innocence that won’t work for everyone, but it’s a choice that fits the production’s larger view of Wendla: less the center of a love story and more a portrait of a girl failed by the people meant to guide her.
Nacho Tambunting as Melchior is polished and self-assured. He is intelligent, charming, clearly raised to succeed. His understanding of the world feels bookish, processed through ideas before it becomes experience. Alex Diaz in the same role brings a rougher, more rugged energy. There’s a streak of some aggressiveness in his Melchior, a sense that he has already been rubbing against authority long before the play begins. His anger feels instinctive which gives his confrontations a lived-in charge.
L-R: Alex Diaz, Nacho Tambunting alternate as Melchior; Photo Credit: Loreta Arroyo | The Sandbox Collective
Nic Chien gives a Moritz that is almost immediately tortured and neurotic. The fragility feels present from the outset, making the trajectory of his character feel inevitable. Omar Uddin (alternating with Chien) builds the character’s decline progressively, mapping emotional deterioration across the performance. He brings interior layering that deepens the character’s chronic pain. His physicality, especially in choreography, externalizes Moritz’s emotional state with interpretive clarity.
Ana Abad Santos as Adult Woman offers welcome flashes of humor without undercutting the gravity of the piece. She keeps her portrayals grounded, never drawing focus away from the young characters. Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo fully shapes each adult she plays into a distinct individual, layering in detail and personality even in brief appearances.
As the Adult Man, Audie Gemora avoids turning authority into a cartoon villain. He plays the men as products of the same rigid system, capable of comic relief in one moment and severity in the next.
Jam Binay’s Ilse stands out for her grounded presence and vocal strength, bringing clarity and emotional weight whenever she steps forward. Angia Laurel delivers her featured moments with vocal assurance and quiet intensity.
The ensemble — Angelo Martinez, Elian Dominguez, Vino Mabalot, Davy Narciso, Mijon Cortez, Felicity Kyle Napuli, with swings Pappel, Nikki Bengzon, Gabo Tiongson, and Lance Soliman — moves as a cohesive unit, sustaining the show’s restless energy and helping maintain the sense that these young people are caught together inside something larger than themselves.
Mausoleum of youth
Wika Nadera constructs a desolate, moorish landscape in dominant shades of gray. Repression is not creeping in; it is already total. A brutalist, almost cave-like structure houses the band in full view, foregrounding music (Ejay Yatco is musical director) as a constant interior pulse within an otherwise stone-cold environment.
L-R: Omar Uddin, Nic Chien alternating as Moritz Stiefel; Photo Credit: Loreta Arroyo | The Sandbox Collective
Most strikingly, a looming cross-shaped structure dominates the space before descending into the action. When Wendla and Melchior are staged atop it, the critique of religious repression becomes literal and unmistakable. Sexual awakening played out on a religious symbol underscores the production’s confrontational thrust.
D Cortezano’s lighting blends seamlessly into this gray world. It supports mood shifts without introducing warmth or seasonal counterpoint. There is no visual pivot toward spring; the wintry atmosphere holds.
Raven Ong’s costumes puts the boys in dark emerald boarding-school uniforms that emphasize regimentation, while the girls’ prairie-style floral dresses evoke cultivated innocence inside a restrictive environment.
Faithful and frenetic
Under Yatco’s musical direction, the rock architecture of Duncan Sheik’s score remains recognizable and faithful. The band supports the vocals cleanly, and Aron Roca’s sound design delivers balanced mixing with strong lyric intelligibility. The venue, with Spring Awakening as its inaugural production, gives audiences a great sampling of its sound quality.
Nunoy Van Den Burgh’s choreography favors frenetic, twitch-heavy, stomp-driven movement. The physical vocabulary of this show suggests agitation. Performers frequently sing directly out to the audience, transforming the score’s internal, even confessional songs into proclamations. The movement language reinforces protest energy even over youthful verve.
Yet to bloom
Pamintuan’s vision is clear and consistently executed. From performance to design to staging, everything aligns toward a single, unflinching point of view. This is a production that knows exactly what it wants to say and delivers it with discipline and dare I say it, force. Its indictment of repression is sharp; its warning unmistakable.
And yet, as the company gathers for its final song about moving forward, about something like hope, one can’t help but feel the tension between message and atmosphere. After spending most of the evening inside a world so firmly sealed off, so unyielding in its indictment, you don’t feel the promise of renewal even as it is beautifully sung. The show has been staging towards a death with much conviction and then, when it finally gestures toward spring, it asks us to imagine a blooming we have not seen.
This reviewer watched the 8PM Feb 12 and 8PM Feb 14 shows.
Tickets: Php 2,900 – Php 3,900
Show Dates: February 13 – March 22, 2026
Venue: The Blackbox of the Proscenium Theater, Rockwell
Running Time: approx. 2 hours and 30 mins (w/ 15 min intermission)
Producer: The Sandbox Collective
Creatives: Steven Sater (book & lyrics), Duncan Sheik (music), Andrei Nikolai Pamintuan (director), Ejay Yatco (musical director), Nunoy Van Den Burgh (choreographer), Wika Nadera (set designer), Raven Ong (costume designer), Jaydee Jasa (hair and makeup designer), D Cortezano (lighting designer), Aron Roca (sound designer), Missy Maramara (intimacy director), Gabbi Campomanes (assistant director), Sheik Completado (technical director), Salve Villarosa (dramaturg)
Cast: Alex Diaz, Nacho Tambunting, Sheena Belarmino, Omar Uddin, Nic Chien, Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo, Ana Abad Santos, Audie Gemora, Angelo Martinez, Vino Mabalot, Jam Binay, Angia Laurel, Mijon Cortez, Felicity Kyle Napuli, Elian Dominguez, Davy Narciso, Pappel, Nikki Bengzon, Lance Soliman, Gabo Tiongson
Comments