Once More, With Feeling
It’s a question we’ve all asked ourselves at one point or another: if I were trapped on a desert island that magically had electricity and a television, but could only bring one TV series to watch, what would it be? I decided to take it a step further: what if I could only bring a single episode of a TV show?
In addition to being awesome, it would need to possess certain qualities:
- Satisfying to watch repeatedly
- Enough of a relationship to the rest of the show that hours of entertainment could be had by discussing (with yourself or your volleyball) the larger significance of the episode
- Not a cliffhanger. How evil would that be?
For me, the answer is, hands down, the Buffy musical episode, “Once More, With Feeling.”
For those of you who have seen it, I know that you know what I’m talking about. This is clearly the right choice.
For everyone else: First off, I can tell that you’re thinking, “A musical episode of a show about high school students who fight demons? How could that be good?”* Well, I’m not the only one who thinks so. It was nominated for an Emmy, and received rave reviews, like “‘Once More, with Feeling’ is rhapsodic, original, deeply affecting, and ultimately, transcendental. Quite simply, television at its best.” (The Toronto Star) Also, if you’re a fan of Glee, just think: wouldn’t Glee be even better with a few vampires and Joss Whedon’s writing?**
The basic premise is that a demon (a dancing demon…no, something isn’t right there) shows up in Sunnydale, and suddenly everyone is singing and dancing about anything and everything: dry cleaning, parking tickets, the difficulty of feeling connected to life when you’ve been brought back from the dead by your well-intentioned friends, secret plans for leaving town, bunny conspiracy theories. You know, the usual. It doesn’t sound too demonic until you realize that A) some people are dancing until they burst into flames and B) nobody has any control over what they’re singing, so they end up spilling their innermost secrets.
In terms of desert island appeal:
- Think of the weeks of entertainment that could be gained by learning all of the songs (if, um, one didn’t already know them) and the corresponding dance moves.
- The execution is brilliant; hours could be spent marveling over how well the songs move the action forward. The songs are a realistic (within the Buffyverse) way of having secrets come into the open all at once–how cool a premise is that?
- Because of that, there are many major plot points happening within this episode, so there’s tons of stuff to analyze. (To be fair, this would only be helpful if you had seen, at a minimum, the first part of the season.)
There are a number of jokes that are easy to miss the first time or five around, so it only gets better the more you watch.- Spike. (Swoon.)
- Perhaps most importantly, if you are stuck on an island watching a single episode of anything over and over again, you need an episode that will motivate you to get your butt in gear, build a raft and/or signal fire, and figure out how to get off the island already.*** Buffy’s struggle to reconnect with her own life should resonate with you and motivate you in your time of need.
So–if you had to pick only one hour of TV to bring to your island, what would it be?
*Technically, because this episode is in the 6th season, only Dawn is still a high school student. The others graduated in epic Sunnydale style at the end of Season 3. Speaking of which–Alyssa Rosenberg has an excellent post about graduation & after here.
**Yes.
***It seems like Lost or Survivor might also have episodes that would be good for this particular purpose. But do they have singing and dancing? No. No, they do not.
The Kid
Read it
Dan Savage writes the sex column, “Savage Love,” that appears in newspapers across the country. It’s a wonderful forum on politics and relationships (a recurring joke throughout the show) but Savage is at his best in his two books that document the relationship between he and his partner lover boyfriend husband and their decision to adopt a child, their son D.J.
In the off-Broadway show Savage’s story (adapted for the stage by Michael Zam) is strong but the music (by Andy Monroe) falls so very flat. I don’t remember a single song from the show, and there were many. In fact, I left The Kid singing songs from another show. The cast, however is really delightful and more importantly brings Jill Eikenberry to the stage. Remember her? From LA Law?
Jill!!!
She plays Savage’s mother and has the one song in the show that could be memorable. But it’s not. She’s still amazing. Give her an award.
Bottom line: read his books. Both The Kid and his follow-up The Commitment. And, what the hell. See the show too. And watch the New York Times video of it. And spay and neuter your pets.
Green Day sets a new stage on fire
I know I’m not the only Green Day fan who wishes he lived in San Francisco.
Photo c/o Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Ever since American Idiot first exploded in 2004 comparisons to The Who’s Tommy were endless. Rolling Stone‘s review called the album an “old school rock opera” and there’s been continuous talk of bringing the album to the stage. And that time has finally come – almost 5 years to the day since the album came out - with the recent world premiere of American Idiot: The Rock Opera at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
National reviewers have not been invited to see the play, though the New York Times has a decent feature about the opening. The San Francisco Chronicle seems to have the most extensive review coverage of the play itself (as well as photos):
Heidi Schumann for The New York Times
“Wildly entertaining…The music of Green Day practically blasts the lid off Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre. The cast and creative crew match the pulsating wall of sound for sheer energy and pump it up with Broadway-quality pipes, stage-rattling, thrashing choreography, flying bodies and walls crammed with pulsating video and projected images. Never has the Roda appeared more expansive yet bursting with images and action…The rock opera that opened Wednesday, in a world premiere with Broadway aspirations written all over it, packs plenty of excitement and entertainment into a remarkably theatrical rock concert…The lyrics are crystal clear as well. Every poetic twist and angry pun of Armstrong’s words comes through.”
One comment I’ve been reading about – which is something that I can see being an issue – is the flow of the narrative of the play seems to stall at times. The play follows the songs of the album, bringing in the songs’s charaters (St. Jimmy, Johnny, Whatshername, Jesus of Suburbia) to life. The problems lies in the fact that the entire play is only the lyrics from the album. No additional text has been added, no bridges to connect different scenes, no overarching narrative to connect the storylines.
That said, it still must be one helluva show. American Idiot has some of the most powerful music Green Day has ever written, mixed with director Michael Mayer and starring John Gallagher Jr. (both of whom just won Tony awards for Spring Awakening) an eventual Broadway debut seems likely.
At least that’s what I keep telling myself to keep me from booking my flight to San Francisco (the limited engagement has been extended to November 1st).
John Gallagher, Jr. and Tony Vincent star as Johnny and St. Jimmy. Photo courtesy of mellopix.com
John Gallagher, Jr. as Johnny, Rebecca Naomi Jones playing Whatsername, and Tony Vincent playing St. Jimmy. Photo: Liz Hafalia / The San Francisco Chronicle
the moment you’ve all been waiting for
and by “you all,” I of course, mean me.
The note cards have arrived.
it's finally here!
My lovely cards from Gibson Lane Studios are here! I will be taking the rest of the afternoon off to write notes to people and Jack. I’ve already had to hide them for fear of theft.
In news of other things that bring me pleasure, I found this on a site that I’m not likely to visit again. It combines my unabashed love of musicals and my love/hate relationship with social networking. genius. A twitter musical is not far away.
Speaking of musicals (sort of), have you entered this contest yet? becuase you should.
