#light!!!

But lighting. I need to yell about lighting for a minute.

When you have a static set like RENT's, you depend on lighting to create your set changes- long sharp shadows for increased depth, soft washes for distance, etc; that's not even talking about the built in lighting like the christmas lights or candle effects & projector effects, too. That's all the shiny bright stuff that's easily noticeable most of the time, and it's great! But the shit that makes me go absolutely feral is the invisible shit. Like here's an example with nonspecific spoilers for the show:

There's multiple moments throughout the show where the whole ensemble is out front in a line. The lighting is usually the same on the set, they just add more to the ensemble line. But the second act starts cold with the cast in a line, lit, with a dark rest of the set. Over the course of that song the set lighting fades in, similarly to how the first act starts. Not really anything that you'd notice at this point? It's normal, unremarkable. Then there's a chaotic song that's lit with varying degrees of accompanying chaos - this one was actually a bit less batshit than the last time i saw it, which involved a hard spot at stage left with a hard angled light from offstage, colored rotating washes across the rest of the stage, red spot on center stage, and projected effects across the 'scrim' the actors have rippling at center stage.

The end of this song is 'oh didn't you know this is a mortal kombat musical, you cool with kano ripping your heart out? Cool' both audio and visually. All the preceding chaos of physical motion, sung/recitation/score audio, and lighting just stops dead. A beat of silence, a dark stage, and then just a pool of white light centered on one character. It's rough.

And then!! It transitions to another ensemble cast in a line song, but this time the set stays dark. The light is initially just from the soloist's spot, widened a bit to provide more spill light. As the rest of the ensemble starts singing, the lighting changes. Set's still dark, but now the cast is softly lit. Again! Not necessarily something you'd notice consciously! Except that eventually as the light brightens and more light is added, the cast is lit brightly and distinctly enough that it is impossible to miss the gaping hole in the line. There's a cast member missing. Before the lights come up, it's possible depending on your angle to the stage that it looks like just the way they're standing, or maybe that someone just missed their mark by a couple inches. After the lights come up, it's a smear of darkness on an otherwise bright line of actors.

It's impossible to hear a single chorus voice being missing in a song like that, there's just too much going on. It's like trying to hear the difference between an orchestra with 7 violins and one with 6. If you pick up the cast recording, listen to the first version of the song and then the reprise, you'd be hard-pressed to pick out a missing voice. But with the lighting it sounds different. Something is missing, and even if you can't actually hear it you feel like you can. It's such a different experience from the audio-only. Like- i know the show! I know all the songs and the book and the common staging! I know what happens! Listen to the recording and this moment is a brief hit of sadness; watch it on stage with that dark hole in the bright lineup and it's grief.