"Game of Trolls": Music and Arrangement
On March 20, 2018, the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) staged a play entitled Game of Trolls. PETA is a well-known theater company founded by Cecile Guidote-Alvarez in 1967. Five years after it was founded, Cecile was forced to go into political exile. In response, the company used theater as a means for empowerment and development through the production of plays, creating and performing them in English and Filipino. By the 1990's, PETA had already staged 300 plays, among which are Bayaning Huwad, Larawan, and May-i, May-i. In 2005, the company was able to establish the PETA Theater Center, a permanent home serving as the base for all its projects, namely, professional performances, workshops, and outreach programs. PETA's repertoire has evolved over the years and has now included adaptations of children's stories like Mga Kwento ni Lola Basyang. The company has also experimented with the use of pop music in its productions to keep up with the interests of its audience. It has also partnered with schools and parishes to reach new audiences. Through the years, PETA has expanded and become more successful, remaining true to its vision of using theater for education, social change, and development.
Game of Trolls was written by Liza Magtoto and directed by Maribel Legarda. It is a comedy-musical centered around Heck, a child of martial law era activists deeply involved in the movement to overthrow Marcos. He almost never gets to see his parents and feels abandoned growing up. His indifference towards his family leads him to work as an online troll for Bimbam, the manager of a troll center running a campaign in support of martial law. The plot is similar to A Christmas Carol wherein Heck is visited by "ghosts" of martial law victims sent to the internet cloud to get erased and forgotten. In these visits the audience is shown the brutality and forms of torture during martial law. This leads Heck to rethink his beliefs and relationship with his mother. In the end, he quits his job and becomes an opposer of martial law.
Vincent de Jesus composed the music of the play. He is a graduate of the College of Music of the University of the Philippines Diliman and has composed theater and film music in the past. He has won several awards throughout his career, the most recent being the Philippine Golden Screen Awards for Best Musical Score, and Star Awards for Movies for Movie Musical Scorer of the Year in 2013 for I Do Bidoo Bidoo: Heto nAPO Sila!.
True to PETA’s claims, the music of the play is contemporary-sounding, deviating from traditional orchestral arrangements. The instrumentation in Game of Trolls heavily utilizes electronic and synthesized sounds. In the opening scene where a battle between the trolls and anti-martial-law activists are depicted, the accompaniment uses a variety of synths to create the drum beat, rhythm, bass, and sustained chord sounds. This created a wall of synthesized sound competing with the lead vocalists. The heavy, up-front, and "in-your-face" music of today reflects the "loudness war" we currently engage in: louder songs win since increased volume catches more attention. In another scene, distorted electric guitars played rung-out chords heavily, again creating a thick wall of guitar tones, resembling much of modern rock. These musical numbers closely resemble pop music rather than traditional theatrical pieces of old that are almost inseparable from the scenes taking place. This choice of musical style is befitting of the play since it is set in today's era and aimed towards the youth, hence the use of techniques and instrumentations most familiar to them.
Acoustic instruments were still used, such as in the case of the keyboard instrumental during the conversation of Heck and the leading lady. The track uses a solo piano as accompaniment to the vocals and utilizes simpler chord progressions, resembling today's pop songs. Another piece heavy on the use of acoustic instruments was played when Heck's mother was explaining her martial law experiences to Heck's friends. The instrumentation uses piano and strings, occasionally playing dissonant harmonies. The color of these chords provides tension, reflecting the chilling narrative of Heck's mother.
Another attention-grabbing piece was the rap battle towards the end of the play, particularly memorable for the intended audience due to the recent boom of rap music (specifically in the form of rap battles). These rap battles are meant to be witty and comedic and indeed they were.
The music from Game of Trolls was indeed appropriate considering the setting of contemporary times and the target audience of a younger generation. It featured songs with heavy electric and synthesized sounds as well as songs with organic sounds utilizing simple chord progressions. In both cases, they closely resemble today's pop—the sounds that are likely to be ones the audience is most familiar with.
Bibliography
A Game of Trolls: About the Production. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://petatheater.com/
agameoftrolls
About PETA: Our Company, Our Story. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://petatheater.com /about
Lago, A. T. (2017, August 26). A Game of Trolls: A martial law musical for millennials.
Rappler. Retrieved from https://www.rappler.com/life-and-style/arts-and-culture/
180138-game-of-trolls-martial-law-play-peta.
Photos by Izza Zamoranos of The GUIDON