Night Vale live
After having been thwarted by the weather the first time round, we managed to see the last show on the Night Vale Live tour in London last Sunday. (And bonus! just before the show started we got moved from the very back of the top balcony to the front of the lower balcony and so had a much better view.)
The genius of Night Vale is in its tone - through some combination of amazing writing and amazing acting the tone shifts seamlessly from silly to thoughtful to threatening without the transitions feeling jarring. Ludicrous conspiracies are described in a genuinely serious tone, and perfectly ordinary things with a slight sense of unbelief. Often serious monologues include silly throwaway lines which somehow don't detract from the mood of the segment at all. The very best bits of the podcast are the parts where it segues into thoughtful mode, and is suddenly deeply reflective and touching (without being at all saccharine or forced).
I've listened to the other Night Vale live recordings and I was expecting something less subtle than the podcasts. Cecil speaks more slowly and clearly in them, and the tone changes seem more abrupt, and the choice of sections more crowd-pleasing. What doesn't come across in the recordings, though, is the effect of being in the same room, not just as the cast, but also as several hundred people all reacting to the performance.
The Librarian has a very typical Night Vale plot - a crisis occurs, gradually develops, and is magically resolved after the weather. In this case, the crisis is an escaped librarian on the rampage. At the climax of the crisis, Cecil says, "Listeners! I have terrible news. A librarian has broken into a theatre. (Of course none of you would ever do something as frivolous as going to a theatre.)" And then he describes the theoretical experience of the theoretical theatre-goers as a monster theoretically creeps round this very theatre, and because we're all in the same place, in the place he's describing, suspending disbelief together, it all seems just that little bit more plausible than if we were alone. He gets us to check under our seats, which both punctures the bubble of tension a little but also makes the threat seem more credible, because if it wasn't, why were we checking? And then he describes at length how the theoretical monster might be, theoretically, creeping in from the back of the theatre and, theoretically, preparing to swoop down on leathery wings or lower itself from a giant web or however it moves we just don't know but DON'T LOOK whatever you do. And then he describes the audience screaming and we scream for him, out of delight and tension. And then at the height of the tension, as always, we go to the weather.
After the weather, the crisis is resolved. As often, Cecil describes the way people react now the threat is gone. He describes, and we act out for him, turning to a stranger and saying "Congratulations, you're still alive!" and a few other similar things, and then holding eye contact for "just longer than is comfortable... 1... 2... 3... OK you're done".[*] The result of all this apparently frivolous audience participation is that we all feel a little awkward, and a little silly. It's just as if an actual crisis had come and gone and now it's over we're moving out of "we're all in this together" solidarity mode and into more normal aloof interactions - and that's always an awkward transition, we never know quite when to switch mode. I thought it was a bit silly at the time but in retrospect it was an amazingly well-judged piece of writing.
Despite being read from scripts by people stood at microphones, rather than acted out, it was one of the most immersive theatre productions I have ever been to.
[*] I should note for posterity that the person I talked to turned out to have many extra eyes drawn on her face and arms, which made this bit extra surreal.
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The genius of Night Vale is in its tone - through some combination of amazing writing and amazing acting the tone shifts seamlessly from silly to thoughtful to threatening without the transitions feeling jarring. Ludicrous conspiracies are described in a genuinely serious tone, and perfectly ordinary things with a slight sense of unbelief. Often serious monologues include silly throwaway lines which somehow don't detract from the mood of the segment at all. The very best bits of the podcast are the parts where it segues into thoughtful mode, and is suddenly deeply reflective and touching (without being at all saccharine or forced).
I've listened to the other Night Vale live recordings and I was expecting something less subtle than the podcasts. Cecil speaks more slowly and clearly in them, and the tone changes seem more abrupt, and the choice of sections more crowd-pleasing. What doesn't come across in the recordings, though, is the effect of being in the same room, not just as the cast, but also as several hundred people all reacting to the performance.
The Librarian has a very typical Night Vale plot - a crisis occurs, gradually develops, and is magically resolved after the weather. In this case, the crisis is an escaped librarian on the rampage. At the climax of the crisis, Cecil says, "Listeners! I have terrible news. A librarian has broken into a theatre. (Of course none of you would ever do something as frivolous as going to a theatre.)" And then he describes the theoretical experience of the theoretical theatre-goers as a monster theoretically creeps round this very theatre, and because we're all in the same place, in the place he's describing, suspending disbelief together, it all seems just that little bit more plausible than if we were alone. He gets us to check under our seats, which both punctures the bubble of tension a little but also makes the threat seem more credible, because if it wasn't, why were we checking? And then he describes at length how the theoretical monster might be, theoretically, creeping in from the back of the theatre and, theoretically, preparing to swoop down on leathery wings or lower itself from a giant web or however it moves we just don't know but DON'T LOOK whatever you do. And then he describes the audience screaming and we scream for him, out of delight and tension. And then at the height of the tension, as always, we go to the weather.
After the weather, the crisis is resolved. As often, Cecil describes the way people react now the threat is gone. He describes, and we act out for him, turning to a stranger and saying "Congratulations, you're still alive!" and a few other similar things, and then holding eye contact for "just longer than is comfortable... 1... 2... 3... OK you're done".[*] The result of all this apparently frivolous audience participation is that we all feel a little awkward, and a little silly. It's just as if an actual crisis had come and gone and now it's over we're moving out of "we're all in this together" solidarity mode and into more normal aloof interactions - and that's always an awkward transition, we never know quite when to switch mode. I thought it was a bit silly at the time but in retrospect it was an amazingly well-judged piece of writing.
Despite being read from scripts by people stood at microphones, rather than acted out, it was one of the most immersive theatre productions I have ever been to.
[*] I should note for posterity that the person I talked to turned out to have many extra eyes drawn on her face and arms, which made this bit extra surreal.
comments at Dreamwidth