GO, I urge you, and watch ''Sawi'' at the CCP Little Theater. Listen to what it says about the love twisting and turning through lives. You will laugh, and perhaps learn something new, or remember something old about how life is and can be lived. A few performances remain (July 17, 18, 24 and 25 at 2:30 p.m. and July 23 at 8 p.m.), and you won't regret the love or the laughter.

Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero wrote the play "Frustrations" in the war years, and it was first staged on June 30, 1944, with Bert Avellana directing, Patricia Panajon and Angelo Castro, Sr. playing Araceli and Fernando, and Oscar Obligacion ''cavorting'' (as Daisy Avellana's recalls) as ''The Houseboy.'' For this production, the play was translated into Pilipino by Ony de Leon, and directed by Nonon Padilla, whose mother belonged to the Ermita Guerreros, the family Freddie Guerrero loved and wrote about.

Nonon admits, in his Director's Notes in the program, that his interpretation of the play evolved via a reading, hearing the playwright through the actors' voices, and discerning a comedy alive within the melodrama. And that is how he staged it. For his production of ''The Forsaken House,'' he had been able to consult Guerrero, who gave him complete trust. For his one, he was not, since the playwright had died in 1995, but he feels Freddie's trust.

The story remains: Araceli loses her husband Tirso, and shocks his sister Fermina, the gossips Elena and Geronima, and impliedly the whole society, because she wears blue instead of black (''black isn't the only color with which to express mourning''). Her daughter Imelda cancels her marriage to the ardent Rafael-she does not know why, she says, but a feeling for someone else lurks within, making her sure she cannot be happy with Rafael. Her son Victor is inflamed with love for the unworthy and shallow Rosalinda. Dr. Fernando Solis, bachelor, was Araceli's first and only love, and is given enough hope to propose marriage.

As it turns out, Araceli and Tirso never loved each other through more than 20 years of marriage. She married to pay her father's gambling debts. He found love in Pura Roco, with whom he had a child. Material for melodrama, it all certainly is. But Nonon had the genius to realize how laughable, how amazing, how comic life's melodramas can be. And so he made his actors play multiple roles; he made them pose, languish, and almost spoof their own frustrations. He resurrected Tirso as witness, participant and commentator from his hospital bed. He replayed scenes, transposed lines.

And his actors serve him well. Chat Silayan is a lovely, poised Araceli, but also a low-comedy Rosalinda. When Imelda (Olga Natividad) swoons before Tony, languishes on the stairway like Jean Harlow, or runs screaming from Rafael, she is right on, you get it. The sisters (played by Madeleine Nicolas and Joan Orendain) are the familiar gossip-twins of Chismisdom. Madeleine must have one of the clearest voices on the Philippine stage; she is totally lucid in her roles as Elena and as Pura Roco. Ricky Davao, who plays three roles, gives proof of the acting prowess that just earned him an award, and of largely untapped comic potential. Badong Bernal's set and costumes have a pre-war feel, but a today elegance.

We in the audience who knew him, could not help thinking of Freddie Guerrero. Isagani Cruz announced that the DLSU Press is planning a complete edition of Guerrero plays for libraries, since his books ("13 Plays," "8 Other Plays," "7 More Plays," "12 New Plays," "My Favorite 11 Plays," etc.) are largely out of print. Cris Vertido revealed that he had copies of Freddie's first and last plays, both unpublished. I remember that in our 1982 interview with Freddie, he spoke with affection of his aunt Araceli (to whom the play is dedicated), who took care of her eight orphaned nieces and nephews, and whom he has put in two plays, "Forever" and "Frustrations.''

At the end of the play, after unexpected but absolutely-right musical comments and riffs, and loads of laughter, Nonon has Ricky as Tirso speaking in Freddie's voice about love, broken hearts, perseverance; also about the faith, patience and hope that lead to creative redemption.