PDI Review: 'A Game of Trolls' by PETA

In today's paper, my last theater review--at least, until the madness of pre-residency season subsides. #MarcosNotaHero.

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'A Game of Trolls': On the other hand, bravo for advocacy

As advocacies go, "A Game of Trolls," Philippine Educational Theater Association's (Peta) latest musical directed by Maribel Legarda and written by Liza Magtoto, is the one show you have to see this month.

For the unaware, the title is a pun on the George R. R. Martin fantasy novel that has been transformed into the phenomenal TV series. But in this musical, the realist background dwarfs the make-believe elements it anchors.

In the present, the protagonist, Hector, is part of a company of trolls who defend Ferdinand Marcos' dictatorship from posts and comments that dare speak the truth about that despicable era in history. For Hector and his ilk, it's not selling your soul to the devil if it brings food to the table. "Trabaho lang," to use the expression.

Top marks for timeliness, then: Peta's newest martial law musical arrives at a crucial time, in which the revisionist movement to perfume the name of the Marcoses, an act spurred on by the Duterte administration, is in full swing. (Last week, the dead dictator's birthday was declared a holiday in his home province--Malacañang's doing, of course.)

Compelling

As a reminder of our horrific past, the musical is compelling, presenting the atrocities of that time through means as simple as a mother narrating the abuses she suffered, and as novel, if not Dickensian, as the ghosts of martial law victims Dr. Bobby dela Paz and Ed Jopson literally transcending technological barriers.

But this production's branding--"a martial law musical for millennials"--is its undoing.

The attempts to "freshen up" the milieu are obvious: characters who belong to the target generation, artistic details meant to reflect the party-going and gadget-dependent lifestyle, a love story endowed with dollops of kilig, etc.

Superficial comprehension

But it all conveys a rather superficial comprehension of millennial culture, for there is so much more than just strobe lights, laptops and sappy romcoms to this generation. It's an understandable simplification that deprives the fictional world of further depth and dimension.

Even the story's emotional bulwark--a mother-and-son relationship embroiled in resentment--unravels like halfhearted melodrama.

To say that old-fashioned sensibilities run this show would be accurate; this musical, though supposedly pegged for the youth, sounds and feels like something that came from their parents' closets.

The songs (by Vincent de Jesus) don't resemble anything you'd hear in the airwaves these days; they seem to belong to an earlier era of musical theater (though as that, they are stirring).

Less certain

In fact, the only time the show thoroughly engaged the high school students who filled the theater (alongside this millennial author) was during the penultimate number: a rap battle. The rest of the time, it was like they were in history class, passively watching the lesson unfold.

The efforts to tie up the past and the present are laudable. Halfway through, a long-haired showgirl in army fatigues who may or may not remind you of Mocha Uson facilitates a dream sequence involving torture methods. And a song centered on the extrajudicial killings condoned by today's government opens Act II.

Unfortunately, this dive into current events doesn't feel fully explored. Though clearly fueled by the noblest intentions, the musical ends up way more confident when it journeys back in time than when it is making sense of the present.

The facts are irrefutable: The reign of the Marcoses was the rule of murderous despots and plunderers who don't belong in an imagined gray area of the national consciousness, but in prison. The musical trying to tell that to a new generation, however, is a less certain creature.

PDI Review: 'Aurelio Sedisyoso' by Tanghalang Pilipino

In today's Inquirer, my second-to-the-last review for the theater section--here. That is, until I'm done with the madness that is pre-residency.

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'Aurelio Sedisyoso' is a spectacle--a loud and arduous one

The brains behind Tanghalang Pilipino's award-winning "Mabining Mandirigma" are back with a  new musical, "Aurelio Sedisyoso," a so-called "rock sarswela" dramatizing the life of playwright Aurelio Tolentino during the early years of the American Occupation.

So you have to wonder why the only touch of genius in this show comes in the form of spectacle.

The venue, the Cultural Center of the Philippines' Little Theater, which happens to be formally named after the musical's protagonist, has been upended. Viewers now occupy the stage, most of them on the least ergonomic bleachers, while the set has been erected atop the theater seats.

It's a daring, against-the-norm layout. But now the challenge for sound designer TJ Ramos is projecting the sound into the stage, and for lighting designer Katsch Catoy, aiming the lights away from it. The result is a production that sounds rugged--in many instances, tone-deaf and deafening--and literally looks dark, obscuring, if not distorting, GA Fallarme's projections.

These sensory impairments are complemented by Toym Imao's set: a sprawling, cross-shaped ramp surrounded on all sides by statues on plinths. Is this a Christian grotto? Most likely not, judging by how the whole display is used--or left underused--throughout the show (begging the more basic question: What exactly is all this supposed to be?)

Urgent problems

The more urgent problems of this musical, however, go beyond incoherent design elements.

Short of calling it a narrative mess, "Aurelio" is an arduous thing to follow. In its laborious, nearly three-hour running time, metaphors are littered; incidents are crammed between jarring transitions; and various tropes--a scene playing out like a silent film on fast-forward, a rap battle, etc.--are utilized to tell a story that races through its plot points like a horse on steroids.

As it is, the production directed by Chris Millado and written by Nicanor Tiongson feels like a raw first draft in serious need of major whittling.

In fact, the only character that jumps off the page and strikes you as fully flesh and blood is Aurelio himself, played magnificently by David Ezra as an embodiment of the largeness and loudness of this musical's soul.

Everybody else feels like half-baked portraits--though, yes, Phi Palmos and Kakki Teodoro, as two women who figure prominently in the story, are more corporeal than the rest.

Rock component

With Joed Balsamo's music, one needs to return to the branding: "rock sarswela." And "Aurelio" is definitely more successful, if not more comfortable, with sarswela.

One may even argue that the rock component is lacking, never mind that the musical highlight turns out to be a rap number, ironically; and that the antagonist Tikbalang, a shape-shifting incarnation of Uncle Sam, is visibly ill-fitting in his rock numbers--or at least, as played by the usually excellent Jonathan Tadioan (alternating with screen actor Baron Geisler).

That Balsamo seems to take after Stephen Sondheim in his score's generous use of dissonance is impressive. But that dissonance as a musical aesthetic is something the cast hasn't quite grasped yet. And that scattering of bum notes and harmonies is also accompanied by a rather wan interpretation of Denisa Reyes' choreography.

Brevity and clarity

Many times, one is reminded of "Mabining Mandirigma," as shades of its success find their way into "Aurelio's" songs and dances, its orchestrations, and even the basic structure.

But unlike "Mabini," whose ambitious pageantry was well-matched by an introspective streak, "Aurelio" appears to be all flash and bang, with an inchoate interior.

James Reyes' costumes, mostly blacks and whites, do wonders in advancing the metaphors, but the instances that work in this production are far outnumbered by the ones that glaringly don't.

An act of sedition may be the only recourse: a second life for "Aurelio," perhaps, one that places brevity and clarity above all else?