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yutaya · 7 years

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Things About the Be More Chill Revival (Nov 12, 2017 performance)

This actually got really long so I’m putting it under a cut. Warning for Be More Chill spoilers below, I guess.

Before the show and during intermission they were running tweets from the audience on the backsplash

In the program there’s a spread that’s like yearbook photos with in-character photos and quotes

This is just an Exit 82 theater thing but on the wall were the heckling muppets

When Jeremy’s Theme started the silent “oh my god oh my god oh my god is this really happeninggggg” emanating from EVERYONE IN THE THEATER was physically palpable

Every time a new scene or song would start or when a character would enter the stage the crowd would cheer

Jeremy does not bump into Rich trying to escape the girls prompting the “don’t touch me, tall-ass!” line and the “boyf” writing. Instead, Rich actively seeks out Jeremy and shouts the line about not touching him, even though Rich is the one who just ran up and grabbed him from behind completely unprompted.

Rich also runs straight over to Jeremy’s chair when he enters play rehearsal even though Jeremy’s not even looking at him to start shaking him and humping his chair.

An interesting thing: Jake and Rich do not seem to be the same kind of friends here. In the 2015 version, we saw them greet each other coming in opposite directions down the hallway with a high-five-low-five sort of custom-bro-fist-bump, semi paralleling Jeremy and Michael’s secret handshake later in the same song, and start talking about the weekend or previous day or w/e and Madeline. However, in the 2017 version, much like Rich just ran up to and instigated the "Don’t touch me!” interaction with Jeremy while Jeremy wasn’t paying him any attention, Jake just walks right past them and Rich is the one who runs at him from behind, calling out the “Yo Jakey-D!” greeting and weaving his way into Jake’s space to get Jake to look at him. It definitely brings to mind the whole “Rich is a sad suicidal loser who wants to be a part of the It crowd so he got a Squip but honestly he’s still stuck on the outside looking in and even when everybody is talking about him and what happened to him and what he would want if he were here nobody even bothers to fucking visit him in the hospital - the first visitor he sees is Michael but Michael is only there for Jeremy and is an anti-social headphones kid so Rich has to wait for Jeremy to wake up to have someone to ask about what people are saying about him at school” thing

I know everyone ships Rich/Jake because best bros or something but honestly the person Rich seemed to devote the majority of his attention to in this version was Jeremy haha

For the first “Christiiiiiiiiiiiiine” part of More Than Survive, rather than loads of super Extra twirling and stuff by Christine, she was doing things like wiping her mouth with the back of her hand - things that normally might not be considered super attractive and highlighting how she’s super special in Jeremy’s eyes when other people would just see a random person.

She does get SUPER excited later when she sees the play sign up sheet though. Slams her hands on the wall to stare hungrily at it, dives to the ground to rifle through her backpack for a pen, and Jake lifting her up while they do contemporary dance poses lasts for the entire time Jeremy and Michael are singing her name.

When Jeremy has the verse about “why can’t someone just help me out” he legit sounds like he’s about to cry

On his way out after inviting Christine to the mall later, Jake pauses while passing Jeremy and lets him know that “Someone wrote Boy-Eff on your backpack” in the same sort of sweet considerate way that Christine did during More Than Survive. This is interesting because it 1. Shows Jake being kind (directly after putting him in a situation that might normally paint him as the love-rival-therefore-enemy - but, oh, fuck, no, he’s nice) and 2. implies that Jake does not know about Rich bullying Jeremy. See: Rich and Jake might not actually be close friends^

In the bathroom, when Jeremy says “aren’t you gonna wash your hands?” Rich walks up to him and pointedly RUBS HIS DIRTY PENIS HANDS ALL OVER JEREMY’S FACE AND CHEST

In Two-Player Game, Jeremy is standing up for the “favorite person” line, so Michael also stands up and walks over to tuck his head against Jeremy’s shoulder while mocking him. Jeremy shoves him away and Michael just stays with his body locked in the same position and lets himself dead fall onto the beanbags

Michael dabs during one of the first “cool in college” lines and it’s like “wow you ARE a loser”

They did this dorky pseudo dancing that was like amateur fighting moves like jump kicks and karate chops, and at one pint they were leap frogging over each other? dorrrrrrks

In the transition from Two-Player Game to the mall to go buy the Squip, Mario runs across the stage and does the little Mario jump like to hit a block and get a new item

By the way, Jeremy really does look SUPER awkward on Day 1. His striped shirt I thought was weirdly over a long-sleeve shirt even though the pattern didn’t lend itself well to that, but then it turns out they are one shirt?? It’s like that on purpose??? The Eminem shirt + vest combo really does look a lot cooler on him after that.

His body language is SO AWKWARD it was all very Evan Hansen

At the Payless, the drug dealers are these two goths so instead of the “sooooo Wolverine, right?” line it’s “soooo My Chemical Romance, right?”

The goth twins are speaking in unison in creepy computer voices and circling Jeremy and like - touching him while he squirms uncomfortably much like later during Do You Wanna Ride

They give him the entire shoebox for the one pill? Which I guess makes it less “???” for Rich to have the shoebox in his locker later”

When Jeremy is jerking around and yelping at the mall, Christine is asking what’s wrong, Jake is recoiling and someone (Jenna maybe? Our seats were really far away we couldn’t see anyone’s faces just their bodies) is recording, but when he escalates to screaming in pain they all just... get freaked out and run away? Leaving him alone on the floor even though he’s CLEARLY in major distress.

The squip stands with a very wide stance, like the standing version of taking up three bus seats. It’s a very obvious contrast especially in his first scenes to Jeremy in his hunched and close-legged position. When not standing, the squip is either crouching in a very predatory Gabe Goodman “I’m Alive” sort of way or lounging in a somehow very cool careless bad boy sort of manner.

When Jeremy is reciting the Squip’s story about Madeline and the shirt to Brooke and Chloe at the mall, he is making all the same arm gestures etc that the Squip is making - though more awkward in execution.

The “Hey Hamlet” actions were HILARIOUS. He literally collapsed over the table, then threw himself onto the floor like Draco Malfoy.

In Do You Wanna Ride Brooke and Chloe are basically dirty dancing on Jeremy and he looks SO UNCOMFORTABLE like he’s about to die and not in a “wow this is too hot my brain will explode” way more like an “extremely fucking terrified” sort of way

Brooke really drew out the “Pi~i~i~i~i~i~i~ink~i~ink~i~ink ~i~ink ~i~ink ah-Berryyyyyyyyyyyyy” riff for forever it was hilarious

Syncing with Rich’s Squip in the More Than Survive Reprise is... really really creepy? It gives of an extremely ominous mind-control sort of vibe like Rich is just Jeremy’s Squip’s puppet

In More Than Survive, everyone was dancing around Jeremy and he looked super awkward and uncomfortable - in the Reprise they do the same dance but this time Jeremy is dancing in sync with them all too.

The electric shocks seemed like they were happening extremely frequently in Act 1? Practically every 5 seconds in some scenes like literally every time Jeremy went to make some move or say anything or pause for too long or think anything at the Squip himself at all.

During Guy I’d Kinda Be Into the Squip talks for Jeremy a LOT. Basically everything he says and does is the Squip there.

When Jeremy does his whole Squip-assisted flawless recitation of his Midsummer part when Mr. Reyes tries to call him out, Brooke is so overwhelmed by his hotness that she drops her script. It just clatters to the floor while she stares at him.

The WARNING WARNING WARNING after Guy I’d Kinda Be Into Squip-controlled walk out is super robotic. A very distinctively robotic walk.

In “Upgrade” the Brooke and Jeremy scene is super sexual??? The Squip puts Jeremy’s hand on her boob while she’s talking. Jeremy draws it back and the Squip just puts it there again. Then the Squip makes Jeremy pull Brooke up against him in a very sexual sort of position. Jeremy jerks back and the Squip just makes him do it again. They end up doing this whole thing with lying on top of your partner holding them down, and then the person on the bottom flips the positions so they’re on top now, and it continues a couple more times so they’re rolling around on the ground with the Squip in control of Jeremy’s body the whole time, and it ends with Brooke straddling Jeremy and thrusting her hips with her head thrown back before he sits up and starts making out with her with her hips still going in his lap. It’s kind of a prolonged making out, too, complete with like... roaming hands by both parties.

Christine’s line “still I’m not sure what I should do” when Jake is asking her out is very clear and is presented like a soliloquy-type narration to the audience about her own feelings rather than as dialogue to Jake, before she agrees and he kisses her.

Some guy in the audience started moaning in distress preemptively shortly before Jeremy’s “optic nerve blocking: on” line

People around me were gasping at that line so maybe there were some people who didn’t actually know it was coming. Or they might have been superfans overwhelmed with emotion. Judging by the rest of what I was hearing from the other audience members the entire time, it’s probably the latter.

For the “optic nerve blocking” scene, Michael is standing alone on the upper level, where the Squip usually is. After Jeremy chooses to turn it on, the Squip walks up from behind him and touches Jeremy directly, wrapping his arms around Jeremy's shoulders - it’s the first time that the Squip is on the ground level alongside Jeremy and the rest of the people instead of alone on the second level just watching over all of them.

The moment Act 1 ended the audience EXPLODED into noise. It seemed like everyone simultaneously turned to their seat mates to start screaming about things. My brother was like “It’s been a long time since I’ve been in this sort of young teenage fangirl filled sort of environment.” Haha

At the Halloween party Rich is FULL OUT GLITCHING. His head and limbs keep jerking like a machine with a wrench in the cogs and he’s repeating “it’s Halloween” like a skipping record

The way he’s glitching here near the start of the party is very similar to the way Jeremy’s Squip starts glitching after the alcohol. It’s like the alcohol making Rich’s Squip glitch causes Rich to glitch in exactly the same way - like after 2 years his body and voice is just a manifestation of his Squip’s movements and words - like he IS the Squip and there is no Rich at all.

In Act 2, Jeremy really is just... walking and standing so much more confidently than Act 1? He looks extremely much more to be a normal, attractive guy. It’s very obvious in scenes when he’s talking to Michael, because we saw them having conversations in Act 1 where Jeremy was relatively comfortable since he was with his friend, but it’s still such a marked different in his body language and even the cadence of speech after having the Squip for a couple weeks. Again, it was very Evan Hansen vibes.

“What kind of slut do you think I am?” Chloe asks, while draping herself over the bed and pointedly spreading her knees and thighs open at Jeremy

Once the Squip makes Jeremy drink Chloe’s alcohol, the way it starts jerking around instead of being smooth for the first time is still pretty cool and collected / in control looking somehow - it looks like when a video chat is lagging and instead of smooth movement you get a series of jumpy still frames, but the person isn’t in distress or anything.

When Jeremy tells Michael to “Get out of my way. You Loser,” he literally shoves Michael aside with force and walks out, not slowing or looking back once as Michael crashes into the bathtub. Michael just...stays where he fell for the entire first part of Michael in the Bathroom

At the end when he’s in prime screaming mode he sings “it sucks you left me here alone” instead of “it’s sucks he left me here alone” - directing it at Jeremy directly

Christine talking about breaking up with Jake - she mentions the cheating but also outwardly calmly (remember she has mad gigantic feelings about most everything in reality) lists other reasons such as “we just don’t have ANYTHING in common”

When Rich is freaking out about needing Mountain Dew Red, he is glitching like crazy and he is only asking for the Red when he’s facing one direction, as if he has no brain activity when jerked into the other direction, but is repeating the request on a constant loop, it’s just that we can only hear it when he’s on the one frequency. Jeremy and Christine see him in obvious distress with his head like banging clearly without his control against the wall, which must hurt, and they just???? laugh at him?????? What the fuck, kids, why do you all keep abandoning each other in distress in this musical.

Jeremy and Christine actually have really great chemistry though I was like “wow ok I can ship this.” They make you feel it.

When Rich’s WARNING WARNING WARNING goes off he marches out of there in the same robotic way that the Squip marched Jeremy out after his own WARNING alarm after Guy I’d Kinda Be Into. This is further highlighted by the way the Squip marches Jeremy out in the exact same way a few seconds later after reviewing the footage from the evening.

During the Smartphone Hour there were three backup dancers in shiny clothing during the beginning verses with Jenna, Chloe and Brooke, like the old singers used to have.

When Jenna and Chloe sing the chorus that “Rich set a fire” the stage lights go red, orange, yellow and rippling like fire

After the fire, the Squip is full supervillian attire - Black Cloak, LED lights, the works. I couldn’t see it myself because I was too far to see anyone’s faces, but apparently also he gained digital face makeup here?

They really played up the computer effects in The Pitiful Children and The Play - in voices especially. Final Boss Jenna Rolan speaking at Michael at The Play sounded like full computer and not human.

Jeremy’s choreography during The Pitiful Children is super still. He gets shoved to the ground and he just stays frozen there looking up at all the dark squip figures dancing around him. They put him on the staircase and he just stands motionless, staring into the distance while they spin him around and the Squip cradles his head. At the end he lifts the shoebox above his head, but he’s mirroring the Squip’s actions again, like at the mall back before Do You Wanna Ride.

During the Pitiful Children also the Squip keeps putting his hand on top of Jeremy’s head with his fingers splayed like a puppet master. It’s not above Jeremy’s head, it’s resting directly on his skull.

When Jeremy is arguing with his dad before the Pants Song, Mr. Heere has JUST said he’s grounded and scolded him about taking the car (to Jake’s party) and Jeremy just. Very pointedly. Picks up the keys, jangles them in his dad’s face, and says “I’m going out,” like wow fucking slay.

Michael is shredding his Jeremy mementos instead of burning them, presumably because it’s easier for him to carry around a coffee can calling it a shredder than to pull a full Eliza Hamilton and set a fire on the stage (and burn down the house). Mr. Heere still tells him to stop sitting around burning incense though - because of the joint Michael was smoking while shredding all his stuff.

In the play when the Squip activates Jeremy’s kung fu mode to fight Michael, they stage it like a fighting video game with Jeremy enacting ridiculous combo jumpy moves while Michael basically does roll dodges and a cute fighting video game remix of one of the BMC songs plays in the background. I don’t remember which song it was now though.

The Two Player Game reprise involves Michael leap-frogging over Brooke and Chloe and jumping onto Jake’s back and just sitting there for a bit while Jake spins in circles

Michael does not get attacked by Final Boss Jenna? She’s standing on the 2nd level. After tossing the bottle to Jeremy Michael kind of just stands in the same place for the rest of The Play unmolested.

It doesn’t really seem like the Squip actually physically stops Jeremy from drinking the Red? The sound that we’ve been hearing so often this song when the Squip is controlling people isn’t present there. He just yells “you don’t want to do that Jeremy!” and Jeremy just. freezes. and asks why. Like he’s been so conditioned to listen and obey the Squip at this point that even when he’s actively trying to work against it he still knee jerk follows instructions.

The squipped people (except Jeremy) all had LED lights on their shoes during Pitiful Children and The Play. Christine has them too, but when she comes out into the middle of the zombie horde acting normal near the end of The Play, the main stage lights are on so it’s not really noticeable until the reveal that she’s Squipped too and suddenly her shoes are flashing.

The choreography for Guy I’d Kinda Be Into involved Jeremy and Christine slow dancing while everyone walked around them in a circle. They have the same choreography during the reprise, with the obvious implication that because everyone is Squipped now Jeremy can have the exact scenario he was fantasizing about earlier and this time Christine does like him instead of Cho Chang Jake

Everyone shrieks wordlessly and then collapses except for Michael whose yell is more like “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH FUCKKKK!!!!”

After everyone collapses and Michael is standing there terrified the Squip is the only body still moving. He is dragging himself over the fallen bodies of the students as the lights go black.

In the hospital, Rich has NO movement. The full body cast doesn’t even allow him to turn his head to look at Jeremy when’s he’s speaking to him.

Michael does not pull the curtain to hide Rich from view as if that would do anything to stop him from hearing everything they’re saying. It’s not like Rich can so much as turn his head to look at them anyway.

In Voices In My Head, Christine is the one who surges forwards to kiss Jeremy, who is shocked for a second before getting with the program. They stand there and make out for an extended period of time while everyone else cheers and continues singing the song

When the Squip tries to call out to Jeremy he isn’t on the ground level where Jeremy and Christine walk past him. Instead, he stumbles his way along the upper level, where everyone except Jeremy and Christine are lined up, and they all sort of jeer at him and shove at him as he passes like one of those really uncomfortable ending scenes in teen movies where the bully walks down the hallway having everyone in the entire school shove at them and having milk or something poured on them and such in a reflection of one of the main character’s opening scenes.

There was not much dancing in this production at all, which makes sense considering this was only for 1 weekend.

I went to the talk-back too so I will write some about that after getting some sleep

I will try to add to this list if I remember anything else.

#Be More Chill #Be More Chill Revival #Be More Chill Exit82 #BMC #my stuff

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