On Stage with Buffy’s ‘Once More With Feeling’

Have you ever been scooting around the internet, following link after link, and you end up somewhere familiar only to do a double-take when you realize what you’ve stumbled across?

This week I happened onto these YouTube videos of a small stage production of Once More With Feeling. The show was put on by a great cast in front of what looked to be a fairly small audience.

For those of you that may not be Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans, Once More With Feeling (OMWF) is an iconic episode of the series. It was a pivotal episode during the show’s 6th season, and several plot twists and character secrets were revealed throughout this episode.

Every song was recorded by the television show’s cast members themselves - and many of them had no real training as singers, yet they managed to pull off a fantastic musical. To say that this episode is a fan favorite is a complete understatement, and the music from it is simply fantastic.

And here I was… watching a small stage production of the Buffy musical in 13 parts on YouTube. And I really enjoyed it.

I wish I had more information on the festival where this took place. I am not even sure if it was the main attraction at the festival or if it was but one small show that was part of a much larger event. If you are wondering why I am a little vague on the where and when, it’s because I cannot find much more information on this production or the event itself.

From Malcolm Rollick’s calendar I did manage to glean the following information on the festival:

Thursday, January 29th, 2009 8:30 PM

Arabella 2009
Holocene
1001 SE Morisson
Portland, OR 97211
http://www.holocene.org
Price: $10

Arabella 2009: An Exploration of the Modern Web

The power of weaving, both metaphorical and physical, has been attributed to women throughout mythology. What is it to weave in a technological age? Do the old myths and archetypes mean anything to us? In honor of Arabella, the first spider to weave a web in space, we conjure this multimedia, hypermodern, integrated evening of performance art.

I personally was not familiar with Malcolm Rollick, but it just so happens that she’s not just the OMWF organizer, she has a music career that seems to be doing quite well. I checked out her MySpace page and listened to a few of her tunes; she’s really got a fantastic voice. She also plays Anya in the musical, and having a fantastic voice was certainly put to good use.

As a matter of fact, the majority of the cast was pretty decent - they really did an admirable job with their interpretation of the musical. I loved the simple dynamic set, the laughs generated by doing some actions verbatim as were done in the television episode to hilarious effect, and they didn’t stray much at all, if any, from the original script.

I cannot say for certain they did or did not stray from the original show because it was really hard to hear the entire show. There were only a few microphones placed around the stage, the actors did not wear a wireless mic to be better heard. As a result exactly what would be expected happened… as characters walked around the stage the volume and quality of the sound degraded or got better - it was rather distracting. I’m not blaming the show for doing this the way they did, it probably served the live audience just fine - the actors were really belting out the tunes… but those of us that have to watch it on YouTube? Yeah, it hurts.

But it really is worth watching - some of the costuming choices were damned funny, some of the physical comedy acting was downright hilarious (I have to give props two the two guys that played reoccurring roles throughout the play, you guys kicked ass), and the singing was pretty sharp - it was not top notch with all actors, but really good for the most part.

The weakest were definitely Dawn, Spike and Giles. Dawn didn’t have much to sing, and she was never close enough to a mic to be properly heard. Spike’s actor didn’t have anywhere near the same presence as James Marsters had in the series, and the actor’s voice was too high-pitched in my opinion. Giles’ actor was a good fit, except that he was never really loud enough to hear what he was singing or saying, which is a shame because Giles has some great parts in this show.

But overall this was a pretty damned awesome find. When I first started watching I was admittedly cringing a little, but then I really got into it and before you knew it I was nearing the last of the 13 segments and was humming along. If you are a big fan of the show check Malcolm’s page on YouTube, she currently has the 13 segments posted there.

Here is the first of the 13 segments below - it is mostly an introduction to the show for those who’ve not seen it, and they also give away some prizes to the audience… it is skippable, but I’d watch it anyways, it was fairly entertaining.