Skip to main content

15 thoughts on Buffy Revamped

I saw Buffy Revamped this past Saturday at the Fine Arts Building's Studebaker Theater with a dear friend. Unfortunately, yesterday was its last day there, but you can visit the Buffy Revamped website to see future cities it's traveling to. Overall, I had a great time! Here are some of my thoughts (NB: since I saw it with a friend, some of the thoughts may be borrowed from/influenced by her)!

  1. I am genuinely so impressed that this was a one-man show
  2. I want to emphasize that the actor (Jacob Jackson) completing this feat is, as I said, a feat because he is on stage alone for 70 minutes pretty much straight and talking nearly the entire time (yes, he does have some dramatic pauses and there were some brief silly slide shows for us to watch while he took a few sips of water, but still!)
  3. While it was just the one actor, it was funny to see him pretending to be Spike pretending to be other characters (especially Angel!)
  4. I do think that given the show does mention Spike's attempted assault on Buffy, it did a good job of handling it
  5. That said, I think I would've just skirted the issue had I been crafting this show
  6. Jackson did an excellent job of handling moments of individual excessive exuberance (e.g. an audience member yelling something like "I LOVE YOU!") as well as moments of collective confused quiet (e.g. the audience as a whole not getting the joke)
  7. The song parodies were probably some of the highlights for me
  8. The show made me want to rewatch Buffy (which I think is one of its goals)
  9. I loved how the show pointed out some goofs that I hadn't thought about before (e.g. why did Oz being a werewolf never come in handy in a fight?)
  10. The actor's accent wasn't the most convincing, but since it was a comedic show, perhaps that was the point?
  11. The lighting and fog were both quite fun and effective
  12. Even though our seats were in the balcony, I actually thought we had an excellent view
  13. I think Jackson making mention of Nicholas Brendon (who played Xander Harris in Buffy) and his passing was done well. It's important to note that Brendon committed domestic violence, and I do not mean to absolve him of that by any stretch of the imagination. While Jackson did not mention Brendon's crimes (which, honestly could've required a trigger warning), Jackson made the point that Brendon was a part of a show that made so many people (including us in the audience) feel seen. It's a tricky line to walk to admire someone's work (or contribution to a work), while acknowledging they were a violent person. Personally, I probably wouldn't have mentioned him at all, but given that Jackson did mention Brendon's passing, I think it was done about as well as it could have been
  14. It had a surprisingly (because it had been so goofy) heartfelt closing (minus the Brendon stuff)
  15. I would definitely go see more work created by Brendan Murphy (e.g. his previous show FRIEND (The One with Gunther))

(Prompt by me)

Buffy Revamped created by Brendan Murphy, directed by Hamish MacDougall, and performed in Chicago by Jacob Jackson



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

15 facts I learned from a random Wikipedia article

Original prompt: click on "Random Wikipedia Article" and write about whatever comes up (you can try 3 times and pick your favorite). For the record, I got Alejandro Estivill , Fencing at the 2011 Pan American Games – Women's épée , and Benjamin F. Jonas . I chose Benjamin F. Jonas because it was the longest of the three entries and it had a photo. He was born in Kentucky, moved to Illinois as a kid, and went to college and spent the rest of his life in Louisiana Jonas's father was a merchant and lawyer His father knew Lincoln (like they were real buds) Despite this, Jonas sided with the confederacy Not only did he side with the confederacy, but he joined the Confederate army and rose to the rank of major He went to University of Louisiana (now Tulane) Jonas was Jewish (I didn't know there were Jewish senators who served the Confederacy) He was the second Jewish U.S. Senator from Louisiana and the third Jewish Senator overall Jonas was the first Ashkenazi Jewish US...
Post a Comment
Read more

Origin story or first issue of a superhero whose super power is geometry

Arya sat in history class and was bored. She longed to get to geometry, where things made more sense. She liked geometry so much that she had joined the math team to be able to do it more. Okay, there was also the extra time with her friends who loved math as much as she did, but some of the appeal was just the math itself. Finally the bell rang and Arya had four minutes to get to her geometry class. She passed right by the chemistry class next door where her least favorite teacher was conducting experiments. He needed to be more careful, thought Arya. The teacher had once exploded a glass beaker and not on purpose. Arya took her seat and excitedly pulled out her notebook. It was her favorite color: hot pink. She assigned her notebook and folder colors in ways that felt right to her. And since geometry was her favorite subject, she made her notebook and folder for it her favorite color. As the teacher started to go over the most common mistakes from the last quiz, Arya could've swo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Color palette

Original prompt: "Google "color palette," pick one, and write something inspired by it." I actually Googled "color palette public domain" to be sure I could use it and found the image on this post. I used the "floral" section for my inspiraiton. The soft sunlight somehow didn't dim the shine of the fireflies. Such it was in the fae realm. Fern loved this time of day in the faewild where it wasn't quite day, but it was far from night. Fern frolicked alone in the glade as she was want to do. It didn't matter to her that her laughter carried itself alone on the breeze; she was content. She wasn't sure how long she'd been alone as she watched the suns begin to set, but it was pleasant in its own way. But then, she heard a noise. It wasn't the noise of leaves on the wind or twigs snapping from some comforting creature. It was the noise of someone approaching with grim determination. Fern wasn't sure how to ready herself to ...
Post a Comment
Read more