One more, with feeling! Feeling! I ORDER YOU TO FEEL!
My wife is a Buffy fan. Maybe more a Buffy obsessive. There was a phase a few years ago where all I got her for birthdays and Christmases were Buffy DVDs. So when the Buffy Sing-A-Long came along, it was only a matter of time and a subtle excuse or two before I was left trying to convince a three year old that Mommy would be back in the morning now please go to bed.
But sadly, she didn’t enjoy it all that much, as she elaborates:
The organizers quite simply tried too hard. When we entered the theater, each of us was handed a goody bag including assorted props we were supposed to use at various points in the episode–bubbles to give Dawn’s ballet a Lawrence Welk feel, those mini-firework popper things (I don’t remember their real name) to use at the climax of Tara’s song-gasm, etc. That was a little regimented for me, but not a big deal. What really annoyed me was having to wait a full hour after the showtime listed on our tickets for the opening chords of “Once More With Feeling.” Before that we had to sit through an MTV report on the Buffy singalong phenomenon, act out scenes from earlier in the series with audience volunteers as Buffy, Angel, and Giles, and be given detailed instructions on what we were supposed to do with our bubbles and finger puppet “Grr Argh” monsters, and so on. The crowd was palpably annoyed–audible grumbling, repeated calls to “Play the episode!” and a loud unison chant of “Start! Start! Start!”
….
These things are supposed to be in the Rocky Horror tradition, or so I gather. I only went to Rocky Horror two or three times in my life, but I seem to remember it being a lot more relaxed. There were some regulars who told the newbies what to expect, but it never felt like there was a dictatorial emcee who was determined that we were all going to have a good time, dammit, and on his terms.
Now there’s your trouble right there — forcing cultish fangeeks to follow a script. Seems like “spontaneity” has been substituted for “this script we wrote that everyone must follow.” It’s just not going to work, especially not in a town like Seattle where everyone is a free-thinking protestant whether they’re religious or not.
In the end, she had fun, despite the forced rigor, droning MC, and overlong intro that nearly had the place rioting. What happened to spontaneity, though? Could there be another midnight movie type event in this culture? In a time of Astroturfing and other pre-scripted moments of marketing, maybe not.
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That’s incredibly weird! I went on Saturday night and we had the exact same regimen to wade through, but the audience loved it! At first, I was groaning inside when, after waiting in line for ages and ages, they started enumerating all the crap we were going to do before the actual sing-a-long, but once it got started, it was a lot of fun.
The audience was laughing and ‘aw’-ing through the ‘Clockwork Boy’ videos and cheering/boo’ing the volunteer actors. Once the sing-a-long started, people REALLY got into the props and ’shut up, dawn’-ing.
I was worried that the 50-minute sing-a-long experience wouldn’t live up to the ticket price, despite my utter devotion to Buffy, but the build-up really made it all worthwhile.
Yeah, you know, that was all totally correct. Friday night was kinda bad, partly because we were jet-lagged and off our game, partly because the a.c. in the theatre wasn’t working and it made everyone grumpy, and partly because the Seattle crowd didn’t need all the direction. Most crowds love all the pre-show and the hype and stuff - and this was the first negative response we’ve ever had. But, you know, it’s all a big learning curve, and by Saturday we were able to swing the show the way it was really supposed to be done! So, from the bad comes the good… I hope.
Oh, and just to clarify - the show IS supposed to be spontaneous. All the stuff we pass out are guidelines, because it’s way more fun to participate than to just sit back and watch the show. This is the same thing they do with Sound of Music and other “singalongs”, which are different from Rocky Horror for that very reason. Nobody is forced to play along, but it is much more fun when everyone does. But still, everyone is allowed, nay, encouraged to add their own touches and do whatever they want!
Especially dancing! I’d really like to see more people dancing!