Reviewed by Sanguine

Buffy, "Once More, With Feeling"

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

When words simply are not enough, there's music. And that's what Joss Whedon gave us Tuesday night. Music.

"Once More, With Feeling" functioned on three levels. First, and most importantly for the purposes of the season, it significantly advanced the story. Second, it was obviously a valentine to the heyday of the musical. Third, it was an homage to Shakespeare. Betcha didn't get that last one, huh?

In Shakespeare's play, As You Like It, the melancholic Jaques delivers a lengthy and somewhat tiresome monologue about the ages of man. It begins, "All the world's a stage, / and all the men and women merely players." Whedon adopts one of the Bard's favourite metaphors, assigning it to his melancholic female protagonist. Buffy sings, "Life's a show, and we all play our part / And when the music starts / We open up our hearts / It's alright if some things turn out wrong / we'll sing a happy song." She then coyly turns to the camera, to the audience, and continues, "and you can sing along." In "Once More, With Feeling," life is a show, a song, and the deepest emotional truths are expressed through music. Whedon had to overcome our culture's collective cynicism about the viability of the musical and he looked to Shakespeare for inspiration, a playwright who was also concerned with the problem of verisimilitude, the relationship between representation and reality. Whedon solves his "musical problem" by making his characters aware of the absurdity of their situation. They know they shouldn't be bursting into song. The fourth wall crumbles (Anya explicitly states this at one point) and the characters know that they are in a show and that we are watching. But we've always watched. Ultimately, by acknowledging the artifice of the musical, Whedon also acknowledges the artificiality of drama itself. It isn't real emotion we are witnessing. It never was. We are merely watching its simulation.

The opening song, "Going Through the Motions" reveals the root of Buffy's problem. In a number that sounds like Disney-on-crack (hum the opening number of Beauty and the Beast and you'll hear what I mean), Buffy wistfully sings of her post-mortem emotional frigidity. She just wants to feel alive. Indeed, the facile, candy-coated opening is the perfect musical representation of Buffy's lack of genuine feeling. Sarah Michelle Gellar's performance, here and elsewhere, is adequate. Her voice is thin, but she has a fairly good sense of pitch and in spite of her vocal limitations is able to convey the appropriate emotions (or lack thereof).

Another stand-out is Tara's Joni Mitchell-inspired ode to Willow, "I'm Under Your Spell." Amber Benson's clear soprano is perfectly suited to its lyricism and the song's expansive melody is a wonderful expression of Tara's newfound confidence. And what's not to love about levitation . . .

Nicholas Brendon and Emma Caulfield shone in "I'll Never Tell." In a duet reminiscent of many old-time musical numbers (e.g., the Gershwin classic, "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off") Xander and Anya express their genuine affection, although they are fully aware of each other's flaws (diseased penises, skeezy cheeses, beady eyes, hairy toes, etc.) And while they ain't Fred and Ginger, the couple's pajama-clad dance number was sexy and effective. I get the feeling that these two might actually have a happy ending. Or maybe not. It is Mutant Enemy, after all.

Perhaps the most musically ambitious number was Spike's rock-opera inspired, "Let Me Rest in Peace." Sadly, James Marsters was not up to the task. In general, Whedon did a wonderful job writing music that suited his actors' limited vocal talents. "Let Me Rest in Peace" is the one instance in the musical where Joss's musical idea of a character did not mesh with the actor's abilities.

In spite of Marsters' problems with pitch and tone consistency, he is a wonderfully expressive actor, so Spike's tortured emotions came through loud and clear. Spike's reluctant musical outburst is provoked by the one-way street that is his relationship with Buffy. Buffy wants to hang out with him, she wants to use him for information, she wants to "whisper in a dead man's ear", she wants to escape with death personified for a little while, but she doesn't give anything in return. No respect. No caring. No love. But for Spike, love, sex, and death are entwined. He sings, "I can lay my body down, but I can't find my sweet release." Of course, "sweet release" can mean two things here. A literal sweet release that his final death would afford, but also the sweet release of, ahem, sex.

During the bridge of the song, Spike's music modulates both in key and tone. His lament is now accompanied by an organ instead of electric guitar. The organ serves several purposes. First, it is an obvious musical reference to the funeral going on in the foreground (a funeral that reminds us, once again, of Spike's undead status). Second, the organ accompaniment gives an almost worshipful tone to Spike's description of his pain. The extreme repetition of his vocal line coupled with its chromaticism perfectly capture Spike's obsessive thoughts ("I follow you, like a man possessed"). A version of the chromatic half-step gesture heard in Spike's bridge will show up again later: when Buffy reveals that she was in heaven and Spike entreats her to start living.

Other songs and production numbers were less satisfactory. Giles's song, while adeptly performed by Tony Head, fell flat. While I agree with Giles's decision that he needs to let Buffy stand on her own, I don't think it's necessary for him to leave town; his hasty exit feels contrived. Dawn's dance with demons was a bit of a snore-fest, although it was a chuckle-worthy parody of the danced fight scenes from West Side Story. Sweet's big number was surprisingly ho-hum, considering Hinton Battle's serious Broadway credentials. He did the best he could with a fairly unmemorable tune.

Besides these musical flaws, there were some pretty substantial plot holes. For example, Xander knew that people were combusting. He also knew he had conjured the demon. Why didn't he speak out sooner? And, after messing with magic in "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered," you would think he would have learned his lesson! Also, why did everyone still sing after the demon disappeared? What did the demon want anyway? Just to have a nice soft shoe and inspire song? Gosh, he wasn't that bad!

Having made these critiques, two numbers from the end of the musical deserve mention: the anthem-like "Walk Through the Fire" and Buffy's final song, "Life's a Show." In "Walk Through the Fire" Buffy rearticulates her problem: "I touch the fire and it freezes me." She touches life, she wants to feel emotion, but instead she feels cold. Spike, on the other hand, carries a fire, a torch. But his fire might result in third degree burns. Whedon clearly highlights Spike's moral ambiguity. He does love Buffy, but he's deeply conflicted. His struggle against his demonic urges is both morbidly funny ("I hope she fries, / I'm free if that bitch dies / I'd better help her out") and somewhat poignant ("First, I'll save her, then I'll kill her"). But whatever you think about Spike, apparently he has that "fire" Buffy wants. The other Scoobies eventually join in as well, until the number becomes a rich texture of interwoven music and ideas (except for Willow, who just sings "filler"): an obvious homage to the climactic "Tonight" number in West Side Story. Only in music can people "talk" all at once and have it still make sense.

To return to where I began: "Life's a Show." Buffy begins spouting platitudes as to why life's worth living ("whistle while you work"). But the words are as empty as her static staccato delivery. After whipping herself into a suicidal frenzy, Spike saves a smoking Slayer from self-immolation. Buffy then reveals her big secret: she was in heaven. Doh! Spike, once again placed in the incongruous role of the voice of reason (remember "magic always has consequences"), delivers the existentialist moral of the story. "Life's not a song. Life isn't bliss. Life is just this. It's living." Spike rejects the artificiality of song ("bugger this!") Life simply is. It's hard. It's not art. It's a struggle. It's real. He leaves as the music begins to swell again. He feels no harmony, only dissonance.

Likewise, Buffy is not in the mood for musical musings about the future ("Where Do We Go From Here?"). She follows Spike, rejecting the group sing-along. Interestingly, at the end of As You Like It, the melancholic Jaques does not participate in the final dance (a representation of harmony restored). Instead, he resolves to follow the newly-reformed Duke Frederick. Things that make you go, hmmm. The significant difference, of course, between As You Like It and "Once More, With Feeling," is that the final musical celebration in the Shakespeare's play serves as a resolution. Nothing is resolved at the end of "Once More, With Feeling." The Scoobies are devastated by what they've learned. Relationships are strained. Out in the alleyway, Spike is profoundly confused. So is Buffy. But these two crazy kids do have something in common. Buffy wants to "feel." So does Spike. But for Spike it's "real;" for Buffy it isn't. I sense an angst-fest coming on, how about you?

"The curtains close on a kiss, God knows, we can tell the end is near." The musical began in a perfectly traditional manner with an overture, and now we get the traditional big finish: big smoochies. But "where do we go from here?" Only Joss knows for sure.