Before They Were Night Vale: onion and absence

Welcome to "Before They Were Night Vale", our feature in which Night Vale creators Jeffrey and Joseph share writing from before their Welcome to Night Vale collaboration, along with commentary. Come explore their early writing, both good and bad.

JEFFREY: Most of my writing is me not knowing what I’m doing. I do like to plan ahead, I promise, but a lot of times, I’m not sure where to even begin planning. I can jot some ideas down, maybe expand them into an outline, give myself a word count, even draft a character description or two. But nothing is as helpful as sketching and performing a… not an idea… an intuition. Just a gut feeling that this might be fun.

I think about the food competition shows a lot, where the contestants have limited ingredients and they just have to figure it out in a very short amount of time. Sometimes they’re like, what if I covered this salmon in puffed rice cereal and olive juice? And sometimes the dish makes sense and sometimes they get chopped (or asked to pack their knives and go).

This play, “onion and absence,” was one such sketch of an intuition I had (jesus, over ten years ago? are you kidding me?) I knew I wanted someone to eat a raw onion onstage. I also wanted to see if I could juxtapose three physical elements to evoke one emotional element.

The idea was to evoke the emptiness one feels inside when a friend or loved one is gone (hence: “absence”). But instead of building characters and a story, I wanted to evoke that emotion using three physical elements:

1. Chopping onions can make a performer cry.
2. Watching a person chew on a raw onion is unnerving.
3. Neo-Futurist #1 has to say most of their lines on a single exhale, which can create an interesting affect to the voicing of those lines. And it can be done genuinely and without acting.

There was one other element here which is the sound effect of a person walking away, even though no one on stage actually moves. And I ended up with this play. Honestly, it was not a success, not for what I was going for anyway. What I got was a Lynchian comedy about a performer who is forced to eat a raw onion on stage.

To be fair, the audience always responded to this play. Not necessarily positively, usually groans, but they responded, and that’s something I always wanted with my plays. I’m not proud of “onion and absence,” but I do still like it quite a bit. As the cooking show judges might say: “It’s a good dish, full of flavor, but it doesn’t quite come together.”

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onion and absence

© Jeffrey Cranor, 2010

[Neo 1 stands at podium SL chopping onions for several seconds. Neo 2 is standing with back & palms flat against upstage right wall. Neo 1 stops chopping.]

1: It's not...

2: [quickly] I know. I know.

[Neo 1 picks up chopped onions and inhales deeply. Neo 1's remaining lines are on the same exhale.]

1: I.

2: Ssshh.

1: I.

2: No. Ssshh. Ssshh.

1: I should go.

2: You won't.

1: I should.

2: You won't.

1: I should.

2: You won't.

1: I.

2: [quickly] Okay.

[pre-recorded audio of footsteps walking away plays. Neo 1 slowly places the onion pieces in their mouth, one at a time without chewing. Neo 2 moves eyes only to look around. When sound finishes, a beat.]

2: [to no one in particular] I miss you.

[Neo 1 chews on the raw onion. After enough beats, CURTAIN.]