2321: Treading the Boards

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Watching popular British topical panel show Mock the Week, which has an inexplicably large number of episodes available on Netflix — peculiar to me due to the topical, timely nature of it, not because of any particular lack of quality — reminds me somewhat of one of my favourite activities at university: participating in the university Theatre Group.

We did all manner of things as part of the Theatre Group. We put on plays, of which I was in several, including Macbeth (which we rather edgily revamped to make it look like The Matrix, like no-one had ever done that before), Ivan Turgenev’s A Month in the Country (which we took to Edinburgh, only to discover that the Edinburgh Fringe audience wasn’t as receptive to tragic Russian love stories as we would have liked) and Alan Ayckbourn’s Round and Round the Garden from the Norman Conquests cycle (which we also took to Edinburgh and discovered that the Edinburgh Fringe audience was a lot more receptive to Alan Ayckbourn).

I also directed an entertainingly chaotic production of Twelfth Night after my co-director sent me an email one morning informing me that she would be late back to university at the start of the spring term because she’d decided to go skiing, and would I mind awfully directing the show by myself because she didn’t want to? (That production gave me more nosebleeds than I’ve ever had in my life, but it was one of the most memorable experiences of my university career, in a good way.

We also threw great parties, usually (but not always) after a production, and had a regular night out at local grotty (but cheap) club Kaos. But the thing that I miss the most, I think — and the thing I’m reminded of when watching shows like Mock the Week and Whose Line is it Anyway? — is the regular improvisation sessions we had just prior to the regular nights out at local grotty (but cheap) club Kaos.

The improvisation sessions grew out of the warm-up activities that had become a Theatre Group tradition when starting rehearsals. These tended to be simple but fun activities that could double as drinking games in a pinch, but were often also designed to get our minds warmed up as well as our bodies and voices, and so quite often incorporated improvisation of various types.

Theatrical improvisation games are a lot of fun if you let yourself get drawn into the experience. This is something I always enjoyed about acting ever since secondary school Drama lessons: getting swept up in a role and feeling like you really were, just for a moment, someone else. And in improvisation you’re not confined by a script: you can take things to some very strange places indeed.

In fact, these improvisations eventually grew into a semi-regular improvisation-based show that the Theatre Group put on called Count Rompula’s Showcase. When you showed up to a Count Rompula’s, you never quite knew what you were going to get. On one particularly memorable occasion, the audience was subjected to The Web of Dan, a rather avant-garde piece that the eponymous Dan and some of his friends had joked about in rehearsals for other shows. I wasn’t directly involved with this eventual production, though I was at least present for the genesis of the idea in the rehearsals.

I miss those days a great deal. I’m occasionally reminded of them when we play Final Fantasy XIV, usually on patch day, and devolve into a series of cringeworthy puns based on the environment and enemies we’re fighting in a new dungeon. (The introduction of the icy dungeon Snowcloak was particularly good for this, as you can imagine.) But nothing will quite match the magic of those days when we sat in a circle, miming the action the previous person had said while saying a completely different action we wanted the next person to perform. Or performing scenes based on silly props. Or, indeed, playing Deutsche Erotika, which sadly is not quite as entertaining as its name might suggest.

1792: Company of Players

One interesting thing I’ve noticed in several games I’ve played recently — primarily those of Japanese origin that err towards the moe/fanservicey end of the spectrum, unsurprisingly — is what appears to be, or what I’m choosing to interpret as, inspiration from the theatrical world.

Take Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1, for example, which I finally achieved the Platinum trophy for last night and consequently am (probably) done with for the moment. The Neptunia series as a whole is pretty self-referential, with protagonist Neptune in particular frequently breaking the fourth wall to address the player directly, and various other characters making it abundantly clear that they’re aware of the numerous tropes that they embody and that the narrative as a whole is based around.

In spite of all this, though, it plays things fairly straight (well, as straight as it can when Neptune is involved) right up until the final encounter between the goddesses of Gamindustri and the villainous Arfoire. Spoiler: the heroines prevail, justice is served and peace returns to Gamindustri, with a happy ending for all — even more so if you pursue the “true” ending — prior to the credits. And in typical Neptunia tradition, the credits roll is a loving pixel-art homage to classic games of yesteryear, simultaneously recapping several major points in the main game’s story while demonstrating the developers’ encyclopaedic knowledge of classic game titles.

It doesn’t end there, though; after the credits comes a wonderfully heartwarming little sequence in which all the major characters in the game address the player directly and thank them for playing. It feels very much like the video game equivalent of a “curtain call” in the theatre, with each character stepping forward in turn to, effectively, take a bow and allow the player a sense of closure — at least until the next game they feature in. Once that sequence finishes and you save your clear data, that’s it; the curtains go down, the lights come up and it’s time to leave the theatre.

But like the best theatrical productions and the actors who bring them to life, Neptunia’s cast is bigger than the individual games they star in. Rather, despite the games not really having a coherent, canonical chronology of what happens when — the series is very fond of rebooting itself on a regular basis — these recognisable characters simply come together to do different things every so often, whether it’s another big RPG adventure, attempting to make it as idols or fighting bad guys in a distinctly Senran Kagura-esque fashion.

The idol game Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection in particular is an interesting take on the series in that it’s the first in which rather than the characters glancing sidelong at the player and making witty asides to them, the player is actually a participant in the ongoing story. In many ways it’s an opportunity to “meet” your favourite characters in a far more intimate manner than previous installments have offered; in fact, it’s rather more of a dating sim than an idol management game, since it largely revolves around building up your relationships with the four goddesses as opposed to actually trying to make their careers a particular success. To continue the theatrical comparison, it’s like having the opportunity to appear in a production alongside a high-profile star — though the game does take great pains to note at its outset that its events are not “canonical”, insofar as anything in the Hyperdimension Neptunia series is “canonical”.

I mentioned Senran Kagura above, and this, too, presents an interesting example of how a stable of characters can be reused in a variety of different situations. First game Senran Kagura Burst — actually a compilation of the first two Senran Kagura games originally released in Japan — tells a self-contained story whose visual novel sequences give us some uniquely personal insight into the way the various characters think and feel about what is going on. This format is continued somewhat in Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus, officially a “spin-off” but actually following on from Burst’s story.

And then you have Senran Kagura Bon Appetit, also known as Dekamori Senran Kagura. This game is, like Producing Perfection, a spin-off that is not intended to be taken seriously. An overblown, dramatic introductory sequence mirrors that seen in Shinovi Versus, before quipping at the end that you probably shouldn’t take everything quite so seriously, so here is a game about large-breasted girls attempting to cook each other’s clothes off in time to music.

Yes, you read that correctly; although Senran Kagura is most notorious for its large boobs and clothes-ripping mechanics, for the most part the storylines in Burst and Shinovi Versus are fairly serious in nature, exploring everything from young people coming of age, with everything that entails, to finding the true meaning of one’s chosen path in life. Bon Appetit, meanwhile, does have a story — one that I haven’t delved into yet, having only tried the “Arcade” mode so far — but largely revolves around the aforementioned cooking so hard your opponent’s clothes fall off. And then admiring them covered in chocolate sauce and whipped cream afterwards.

It should be jarring; it should be weird, but somehow — assuming you’re already on board with the series — it’s not. It works. These characters are being treated more like “actors” performing different roles, albeit as the same people. It brings a sense of comfortable familiarity to the game — like seeing a favourite actor on stage or on TV — even as the games go into all sorts of weird territory, both in terms of subject matter and game styles.

I think right here is one of the reasons I find myself gravitating so strongly towards this style of game more than anything else: I’m a sucker for good characterisation, and if I find a particularly loveable group of characters that I enjoy spending virtual time with, I’ll happily take that time together in any form it might happen to take — be it fighting monsters, training to be an idol, being a ninja or having a cook-off. Fortunately, I don’t see the Senran Kagura or Hyperdimension Neptunia series going away any time soon, so I look forward to spending many more hours in the company of these virtual young ladies as time goes on.

Sad? Perhaps. But here’s the thing: I’ve come to regard all these characters with genuine affection, even with the awareness that they’re all exaggerated anime-style tropes on legs. And that, really, is the essence of moe: the feelings of love or affection towards fictional characters who are specifically designed to elicit such a response. I’d say their creators have done a pretty good job on that front, really.

#oneaday, Day 57: Look into the Eyes

Jane and I went to see Derren Brown’s “Enigma” show at the Mayflower in Southampton tonight. We’d had tickets for ages – since shortly after Jane went to see the same show in London in the summer of last year, in fact – and the time had finally come around to see it. It was also my first visit to the Mayflower, so I was curious to see how our local theatre actually was inside. (Quite nice, as it happens.)

I won’t spoil any of the show here, but suffice to say it is his usual blend of different types of “WTF?!” moments. By the end of the show you’re left so dazed and bewildered by the whole experience that you can’t help asking yourself (and anyone you happen to be with, and anyone who will listen) a whole ton of questions for which there are no easy answers. He certainly has the art of the magician – of making the impossible seem possible – even if what he does isn’t exactly “magic” in the traditional sense – it is a blend of, as he puts it, “psychology, hypnosis, suggestion and showmanship”.

Jane and I have been fascinated with Derren Brown for many years now. He has a compelling, likeable style to his shows with just the right balance between cheekiness and seriousness to draw you in and keep you there. He doesn’t take himself or his hapless victims too seriously, but nor is he too flippant. He’s also more than willing, in some cases at least, to share the “trick” with you – though as last year’s The Events TV show (where he correctly predicted the lottery numbers) clearly demonstrated, sometimes explanations raise more questions than they answer.

It’s certainly a pretty unique, impressive and intellectually stimulating form of entertainment that he puts on show, and I’d encourage anyone who’s not familiar with his work to explore it for yourself. His “Trick of the Mind” TV series is available on DVD now, as are a number of his one-off “specials”. Plus, if you’re in the UK, you can check out Derren’s shows on YouTube thanks to their agreement with 4OD right here.

I won’t say anything else as it will be far too tempting to get into spoiler territory. Suffice to say, though, that the Enigma show is well worth checking out if you get the chance.