I asked Rolin Mains, who wrote the underscore for The Bad Seed, to share a bit about how and why he came up with his particular music for the show.
I’ve done some live scoring and film scoring in the past, so the idea of adding music to a
stage show wasn’t entirely new to me. It does bring up some challenges though.
First, the music needs to take a complete back seat to the story. This is Film Scoring 101
stuff, but it is easy, in the process of coming up with ideas, to get caught up in the ideas and put them ahead of the story itself. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ever hear the music, or that the music can’t sometimes “step out” and become an important (read: loud) element on stage, but ultimately each and every place that music exists within the context of the story, it serves the greater purpose of underscoring something and so must always be a means to an end and not the end itself.
Second, underscoring is called “underscoring” because it underscores emotions/actions/
situations that are not immediately apparent. For instance, when you read a book there are paragraphs dedicated to giving inside information about what is happening in a character’s head, or what is happening without the character knowing, etc. Music, in the context of a film or play, functions as an unseen narrator commenting on emotions or actions of which the director feels the audience needs to be aware. So, in The Bad Seed, the score helps us focus on who Cathy [Street, the director] wants us to focus on. It is easy, in casually watching The Bad Seed, to be taken by Rhoda and her eerie cold-hearted attitude toward killing. But in this case, Cathy wants the story to ultimately be about Christine and her dealing with her past and with her daughter’s unique personality. So the music needs to be less about the obvious evil in Rhoda, and more about Christine’s confusion and subsequent coming to terms with it. It changes the approach to the music tremendously.
Third, the biggest challenge in a live setting is coming up with material that a) makes
sense, and b) connects story lines. So I couldn’t just sit there and make everything up as I
went…that would end up confusing the audience since there would be no landmarks to help them along the way. It would only be wall paper, occasionally hitting moments but failing to truly underscore the unspoken narrative present in the subtext. My first goal of playing along in rehearsals was to get a sense of the overarching emotional movements of each scene and ultimately of the whole show. I need to be able to anticipate ups and downs. But when to play? I sat with Cathy and we worked out musical entrances, the kind of music that would be found in those spots, and when that music would end (in film we call those “cues”). We talked about what the music in those moments would touch on, answering these questions: who is the music pertaining to? Which emotion are we touching on? What needs to be shown that isn’t otherwise obvious to the audience? Now I have a road map to follow.
After we established a road map, the next step is to come up with some themes. Something that can help the audience subconsciously make connections that they might not ordinarily make. The script calls for Rhoda to play a little piano student tune, “Eau Claire de Lune.” She actually plays it on a piano in the show. It is simple, haunting, and when twisted just right, it can become down right evil. So the times when I reference that melody, we recall Rhoda, and depending on how it’s treated, I can literally spell out for the audience how to think about Rhoda…and she might not even be on stage. There is a Christine theme, a Leroy theme, and a generic set of chord changes that “brand” the show…that is, that gives it a distinctive feel and mood.
One fun little note is that we decided in the very beginning to paint Leroy a little darker by adding some ominous music in his first entrance. This is misdirection to throw the audience a bit off the scent for a while. At the beginning they start to look out for Leroy as the one to watch and to see Rhoda as a nice little victim-to-be. As the play unfolds, we learn things aren’t always what they seem. But this fun little misdirection would be very hard to do without music.
And finally, fourth, the challenge is in knowing that a little goes a long way. I am using two keyboards, one for piano and another for low and high string moments. Also, I am having a helper play some percussion (brush on the back of a guitar, brush on a metal pole, and bells of sarna – which are Indian goat bells, little brass bells attached along a string…they add a nice color without being too familiar or identifiable) which adds more color to the palette. The tendency is to want to do it all at once and throw it all in, but a little percussion here, some high strings there, and simple piano stuff will be more effective if it is used judiciously. There are just a couple of places where the music is loud and those are in places where the script specifically calls for chaos. However, more often than not, the music (strings, piano, and percussion) needs only touch on a spot in order for it to make the difference.
I think underscoring also helps the actors. One advantage film has over stage productions
is that actors can be subtle because close-ups, camera angles, music, etc. can add all kinds
of back story without having the need for an actor to entirely carry the burden herself. In
this case, with music underscoring a theatrical play, an actor can act more subtly. Where a gasp might have been called for before, now they can keep their movement and reaction to a minimum while the music provides the gasp, or whereas before an actor might have needed to talk loudly to sound angry, now they can speak softer and let the music fill in the rest of the energy. Couple that with lighting effects and you have a theatrical show that can be as subtle as film in many ways. And for eerie psycho-thrillers like The Bad Seed, it adds to the overall eeriness of the show.
Hear it for yourself! The Bad Seed opens this Friday, June 10, at Street Theatre Company. Buy tickets by visiting our website.
He fixed me with a smoldering gaze and I realized that in the five seconds I had looked away, he had begun singing a song about the lady who made him “want to wait.” Oh dear God, he was walking towards me. I was the lady.
