memory lane

Paul seems to feel the infection even before he starts dancing. You can see it in the first verse, when Nora sings “Just let it out / There’s a voice inside of you / On the edge of coming through / What’s it about?” At the start of the line, Paul’s body relaxes (you can visibly see his shoulders slump). Then, when Nora grabs him by the shoulders and moves him to the music, he just…accepts it. The way his head sways back and forth is almost lifeless. And the moment after, he recoils, like he's only just processed what happened.

In the next line, while Professor Hidgens is singing, he’s also backing Paul up against the meteor. Besides creating a very cool lighting effect, this is also where Paul would be breathing in the most spores.

A note on spotlights. The reprise makes frequent use of spotlights, usually to highlight focal characters during their numbers. Sam and Charlotte get a spotlight in You Tied Up My Heart, Alice and Bill get a spotlight in Not Your Seed, etc.

I’d love to be all dramatic and tell you that this is the first time Paul gets a spotlight, but that’s not true. He gets a spotlight in What Do You Want, Paul. But that does make sense. WDYWP is a song about Paul, even if he’s not the one singing.

But in Let It Out, the spotlight doesn’t shine on Paul until after he starts singing. In the proshot and digital ticket, you can actually see the spotlight fall onto him.

(before and after comparison)

(Speaking of, the lighting team really deserves their flowers. That spotlight is always DEAD-ON accurate. It's really impressive.)

This is probably reading too much into it, but the spotlight could be a symbol for the hive’s influence. The spotlight is a way to draw attention, and now the hive’s attention is solely on him, their leading man, their “star of the show”. It follows him everywhere, unrelenting, even when he falls to the ground. And it only fades at the end of the song, just before he throws the grenade – like it’s his last moment of resistance.

You know that really cool bit of choreography where Paul lines up with the rest of the ensemble? Well, on closer look, you can see it’s not JUST a line. Each person is holding a pose from a different step in the dance. For example, Greenpeace Girl is standing to the side with her hands up in the air, while Nora is facing forward with her hands behind her head. You can see Paul copy each of them as he passes by.

I’m pretty sure that Jon and Mariah are the only ones singing that new vocal part, which means even in the reprise, Greenpeace Girl gets a duet with Paul.

One of the spectacular things about this number is how convincing Jon’s acting is when it comes to losing control over his body. He does that really well in the original, but I think the physicality of it is more pronounced in the reprise. I noticed it most often with his arms – how he jerks them around back and forth, like there’s an invisible puppeteer dragging him around.

One example of this is right at the start of the second verse, when Paul sings “Am I finally coming around to a rhymin’ scheme?” As he sings, he puts both hands out, mirroring the ensemble next to him. The moment he notices himself doing this, he draws one hand back, staring at it in horror, and then quickly grabs his other outstretched hand.

My favorite example is in that sick new vocal part. His right arm shoots out and he literally claws at it with his left trying to pull it back down. Only this time, he fails to regain control and his left arm goes out too. When he finally does snap out of it, he's so shaken he immediately falls to his knees.

One more example: After Paul sings "Is my integrity worth anything at all?" he casts his head down. Then, his hand reaches out on its own to drag his head back up.

The reason this is so cool (and creepy) is that Paul has to physically fight for control. Grabbing and pulling at his limbs, like he's prying them free from someone else's hands. It's so freaky! How does Jon do it so well??

As I said in my last post, Paul sings the entire first part of his soliloquy in his normal voice. This is different from the original, where he switches between his normal and “infected” voices. This is the sole moment where Paul sings, as himself, without interruption from the hive. And it’s the line where he considers if this is all there is – if submitting to the mindless singing and dancing will give him the happiness he craves. The infection taking his autonomy is terrifying enough! But him accepting it is just as scary. It doesn’t take, but he still thinks about it!

And I mean, isn’t that the hive’s plan? There are many instances where they could have killed Paul, if they really wanted to. They could have done it right here, while Paul is right in the blast zone and struggling to stave off the infection. But they don’t. They want him to be the one to break. He's their leading man, after all! He has to ACCEPT the call, like any good hero.

That's all of my notes for right now. I can't tell if this is too much or not enough... Feel free to add on if you notice anything! I love catching all the small details and reading up on theories...

alright. starting off with not your seed. im ok. im ok. im ok. im ok. im

haha just kidding this song destroyed me

bill reaching out to alice several times...bill cradling alice in his arms...the teens placing the gun in his hands.

plus...mariah's acting? the way she can effortlessly switch from cold, cruel hive to anguished, lonely daughter. the face changes gave me CHILLS!!! you really don't know if that's alice peeking through, or if it's the hive using her thoughts (or bill's insecurities) to torment him. possibly both!

and when bill dies paul catches him. thats SO cool!im going to die

you know what's even worse? when the teens turn on him, paul doesn't even LOOK. he spends a good while focused on bill, trying to get him to wake up.

starkid who hurt you

"Butthere'sonethingyoubetterhurryupand knooow about me, Paul"

know what i want? a nightmare time peip backstory episode. multiple even. give me their case files

showstopping number is incredible. obviously. you can tell will is having the time of his life

i still think jeff is my personal favorite hidgens but will definitely makes the character his own and it's a joy to watch

RING RING OH

The phone call is even gayer. Somehow

it amuses me to no end that the Boys just. blatantly act out the wrong sports. and professor hidgens is like. yes. those Are my Boys.

after ted abandons paul and emma there is this prolonged scene where he gets caught in some vines and repeats "it's in my mouth" over and over...i assume it's meant to be funny but with the discordant music it was kind of unsettling. like things are just. unraveling. and then ted gets shot

america is great again. timeless as always (unfortunately)...

all i have to say is. this shot:

my paulkins heart was screaming

time for let it out WOOOO YEAHHHH uhhh i mean ohhhhhhh nooooooo

to me this may be the song with the most improvements. let it out just hits different. ESPECIALLY on first watch

it's a little hard to tell with the camera angles but it looks like the hive is SO TOTALLY PSYCHED when paul finally sings. greenpeace girl is like " yesssssss >:DDDDDD"

they should btw, because jon's voice is AMAZING. the original was already great but you can really hear the improvements in reprised. its so impressive

shoutout to the people in the audience who screamed at the new vocal part because me too

and the choreo? seeing paul slip in and out of the hive's synchronized dancing, fighting (and sometimes failing!) for control of his body...the hive weaving around him, pushing him around and assimilating his movements into their own. its so good?????? its peak????????

one thing i noticed is that in the original, when paul sings the first few lines of his soliloquy (up until "is my integrity worth anything at all?"), he swaps between his deep normal voice and shrill 'infected' voice. but in reprised, paul sings up to the same point exclusively in his normal voice. it's really interesting because it suggests that, even without the hive's influence, he's thinking about giving up. it makes sense considering it's really the first time in the play he's vulnerable with himself and his unhappinessi'M GOING TO LOSE MY MIND

i could go on and on about this. i wont for the sake of brevity but. tell me if you want more. i can go on

hearing people cheer when paul reunites with emma. oh you poor souls

so fun fact: inevitable was my favorite song from the original. the reprised version hit me like a ton of bricks

inevitable is the torment emma power hour. people have said this before, but in the original, infected paul was at least a little gentler with emma. he wanted her to trust him. to see he is happy, this is "what he wants", doesn't she want to be happy too?

but in the reprised choreo he is so much more aggressive. he's grabbing her, shoving her, puppeteering her to the dance moves. all while she has an injured leg btw

and no matter what she does, she cannot escape him. there are at least two scenes where she's trying to get away from the rest of the ensemble and stumbles right back into paul's open arms. imagine being emma. imagine your loved one's embrace being twisted into something unrecognizable. im ok

the scariest part for me is probably during the not your seed reprise. emma is boxed in on all sides by the hive and is desperately looking for a way out. all while paul just. WALKS towards her. no flourishes, no dance moves. just sloooowly closing in on her. it's horrifying

also this shot:

also THIS shot:

and it all culminates during the showstopping number reprise with a PERFECTLY TIMED spotlight on emma. blinding her and also making her aware of the set, the crew, the AUDIENCE. causing her to scream in fear. it's so good. and by that i mean i'm going to have nightmares

it really feels like pokey's victory lap. he's already assured of his victory now that he's got paul - maybe even more so, if he's already ran the "performance" a thousand times - and is just playing with his food. making emma suffer for the fun of it. possibly making her (and everyone else but ESPECIALLY her) suffer forever and ever?

pain i am in PAIN I am IN PAIN

by the way during the last "it was inevitable", even when the rest of the ensemble closes in on emma, paul continues to stare RIGHT into the camera

...he can't see me right. hey guys. can he see us? ...can he also see the audience? are we in danger? am i in danger??????

Overall, to say I enjoyed it was an understatement, lol. There were some things I missed, and some things that took a few watches to grow on me. But to me, it is an improvement in just about every way.

There's a (kind-of implied) theory that the reprise is a continued loop of the original show. I think it's a fascinating theory, and it's caused me to rewatch the show several times trying to catch hints. And in doing so, I can really feel the amount of effort and love put into this production. Every rewatch makes me a little bit happier because everyone looks like they're having so much fun. (Because of the acting. Not because of the. The horrific all-consuming alien hivemind.)

There is a simplicity in the original that will always be timeless, I think. And I can understand why it doesn’t mesh with some people - the original already got it SO right, you know? For me it’s like a two cakes situation, I love them both equally.

some general stuff first. as someone who rewatched the original tgwdlm to death...i do miss some of the original line deliveries, and some of the (probably improv'd?) jokes that were cut. (rip general macnamara's "would you like to do some light reading on the subject?") the original deliveries are etched into my soul with fluorescent blue marker so some reads feels a little more "off", by comparison. but there's so much i like in the remount that it isn't a huge deal

for example: the lighting!!! the lighting is SO incredibly good. the bright reds and blues are so striking, and the hive uses a glow-in-the-dark paint for their blue blood so it glows under the light, and when i tell you it is so sick

there is some funky audio in the proshot, specifically when the meteor hits, and in the helicopter. the sound gets all muffled. the audio is fine in the digital ticket so i'm not sure what happened, hopefully they have it fixed for the public release

fun thing about the end of the title number: when they wheel paul in, he's completely limp. his head is slumped to one side, his face is blank. and then when the song ends, he just snaps awake. the contrast is really freaky, especially when everyone else is moving and singing and smiling. i dont like. the implications.

charlotte disassociates throughout the whole first scene i feel u girl

melissa is hardcore crushing on paul. she's practically shoving the clipboard at him without actually handing it over. then, when he says no, she hugs it close to her chest

ted's entrance is so funny he just SWINGS into view

paul looks like he wants to die for the entire conversation

"There's a line" (No one else is there) "And people are working" (No one else is working)

the way that paul leaves the greenpeace girl mid-conversation and then rushes back just to keep complaining is. paul matthews the man that you are. you would be a menace at a parent-teacher conference

oh how joyful paul sounded when he heard about peanuts on the radio. he will never be this happy again

paul's reactions to the first few songs are even more pronounced. he looks SO uncomfortable, like he is seconds away from breaking down on the floor crying. throughout all of lah dee dah dah day he is in this constant state of "please don't touch me. please don't touch me. please dont touch me. ple

how do we feel about touch averse paul matthews headcanon. anyone

he also seems really noise sensitive. he's constantly flinching at the clapping in lah dee dah dah day. and later on in act 2 when the three teens are harmonizing at him he's covering his ears. maybe im projecting because im also noise sensitive. but i thought it was neat. anyway

paul is so zoned out while entering the office he walks right up to ted and scares the crap out of him

i didn't think they could make what do you want paul even more unhinged but they did. mr davidson is all over paul. he pulls him by the tie on the line "something to pine for". hello hr??? HELLO??? YOU HAVE A WIFE

and then he chokes paul with the telephone cord

the original "HELLO? HELLO? PLEASE GOD, I JUST WANT A BLACK COFFEE" is iconic and uncontested, but i gotta say, i do really enjoy paul tearfully begging for coffee while cradling the register like it's a long-lost friend he hasn't met in ten years

beanies continues to forget poor pete's hot chocolate and so he has to drink from rudolph's cup instead

ALLEY CAT PAUL???

"Well I mean hey, it's 2018. I'm sure the job market's gonna be REALLY good for a LONG time"

the choreo in show me your hands is top tier. they pretend to be huddled in a cop car, complete with slamming the breaks, lurching forward, and hitting their heads against the seats. so good

will's professor hidgens is so incredibly doc brown-coded

"They left me here to DIEEEE. On-ly-you-can-helpmeChar-lotte"

joey's acting for ted is insane. you can tell he is legitimately broken up by charlotte's death. when he calls her name, his voice wavers. he reaches out for her when she gets shot. he continues looking at her for like the whole scene. he sits right next to her.

during join us and die charlotte plays guitar with her intestines (while sam plays guitar with bill's...leg?)

charlotte and sam fist bump <3

paul still knows the most of the beginning of moana, and i think that's lovely

all of corey's acting as bill is amazing. but that phone call?? broke me. the way his voice shakes?? the "i love you, too"??? YOU'RE KILLING ME

every nightmare time leitmotif put me on alert and then they sucker punch combo'd me into the nerdy prudes must die leitmotif