On Being Seen in Unseen Places: A Dramaturgical View of the Night

Abstract

This article analyses the micro-social processes of interaction that can be found in the domain of ‘everynight life’. Drawing on Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective and the symbolic interactionist tradition, it explores the negotiated meanings of social behaviour in nocturnal spaces. These definitions emerge in relation to situational rules and expectations about appropriate conduct. Using Goffman’s concept of ‘action’ and building on Becker’s model of deviance, I suggest a four-fold typology of dramaturgical zones, categorised along dimensions of visibility and legitimacy. In each zone, I identify three dramaturgical techniques used by actors and their audiences to perform and manage impressions of ambiguous nocturnal presence. Sometimes, people want to be seen at night, while at other times, they wish to be hidden. Whether and how they accomplish this depends upon a dynamic conversation of imputed motives, normative judgements and social accountability.

Introduction

When we speak of ‘the night’, we invoke a concept that is both easy and hard to define. In common sense terms, it refers to the temporal period between dusk and dawn that bookends the natural day. Theoretically, however, the night is a social construct, whose meaning is locally defined in different cultural contexts (Galinier et al., 2010). Abstract and nebulous, it only becomes tangible through social praxis: patterns of repeated use, conventional knowledge and discursive reification (Berger and Luckmann, 1966). Rather than a fixed entity, the night is perhaps best understood as ‘a collection of relations, possibilities and materialities’ (Shaw, 2018: 3) that emerges and changes through the social process.

As a symbolic domain, the night is negatively defined. We think about it in terms of what it is not, in relation to absent or missing features. Temporally, night means the ending of daytime activities, while visually, it brings the fading of light. Within such schemes of perception, night is framed in opposition to more dominant or salient fields of practice (Bourdieu, 1977). This shapes its symbolic meanings as a space for deviant, transgressive or unusual social action. If day represents the generic, ‘unmarked’ default, night is ‘marked’ as a special deviation (Brekhus, 2015; Zerubavel, 2018). Yet at the same time, it is the ‘nothingness’ of night that creates its curious appeal (Scott, 2018, 2019). We want to know what happens in the zones we cannot see: places of recession in the social shadowlands.

This invites a sociological analysis of ‘everynight life’ (Dunn, 2022) to complement its everyday counterpart (Moran, 2005). As a spatiotemporal zone of relevance (Schutz, 1972), the night has some distinctive features that invite forms of social action. Just as we notice dormant bodies in wakeful places (Williams, 2005), the presence of wide-awake people in dark, quiet and empty spaces often draws social attention. Although this has been recognised by other disciplines, including anthropology, geography, media and cultural studies, and sociologists have explored related topics, such as the night-time economy (Hobbs et al., 2000; Monaghan, 2002; Threadgold et al., 2021), there is as yet no micro-social theory of behaviour at night. This article argues that Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective can provide that missing link, contributing new ideas and ways of thinking about nocturnal life.

Painting the Social Night Sky

The burgeoning field of Night Studies (Kyba, 2020) is an interdisciplinary endeavour, exploring different aspects of nocturnal ‘space’. This conceptual metaphor lends itself to macro-level analyses of cultural geographies, social patterns and aesthetic dimensions. Such approaches help us to understand the big picture of how night is structured and organised societally, and its cultural representation in symbols, imagery and discourses. This maps the terrain of the social night sky, as a wide contextual background against which nocturnal action takes place. Five main themes appear in this literature.

First, anthropologists have noted the diverse symbolic meanings associated with nocturnal darkness, which are often rooted in cultural myths and traditions. These include ideas of death and destruction; fear, threat and danger; and supernatural forces that lurk in the shadows (Shaw, 2018). Historically, this was tied to spiritual ideas of diabolism and monstrosity (Galinier et al., 2010). Such imagery is reflected in the gothic genre of art and literature and its musical subculture (Hodkinson, 2002). Similarly, psychoanalysis imagines the unconscious mind as a realm of dark, deeply buried material. This may emerge at night through dreams (Freud, 1900) or aspects of experience that are ‘hidden, forbidden or forgotten’ (Bronfen, 2013: 21).

Second, nocturnal space has epistemological significance as a medium of transmission. As Richardson (1990) observes, heliocentric metaphors are conventionally used in academic discourse to describe scientific discovery as a movement out of darkness, with terms like ‘clarifying’, ‘elucidating’ and ‘shedding light’ on new knowledge. Daylight is thus implicitly privileged as a symbol of modern rational thought (Meng, 2022). The poststructuralist field of Hauntology considers the spectral traces of past epistemes (Derrida, 1994); darkness is a vehicle of truths that are disturbing but necessary for progress. In some cultural myths and rituals, night allows personal journeys, growth and transformation (Diamanti and Boudreault-Fournier, 2022). These include transitional rites of status passage (Glaser and Strauss, 1971), such as adolescence (Jung, 1938). Night is therefore an ambiguous, in-between liminal zone (Turner, 1967), with the potential for human becoming.

Third, night can alter the affective atmosphere of visual landscapes, particularly in urban environments. As Simmel (1902) observed, the daytime metropolis buzzes with activity, bombarding us with stimulation. Walking around the city after dark is a different phenomenological experience of multi-sensory embodiment (Meng, 2022; cf. Merleau-Ponty, 1945), creating aesthetic imaginaries and distinctive nightscapes (Diamanti and Boudreault-Fournier, 2022). In his autoethnography of ‘nightwalking’ in Manchester, Dunn (2022) describes an amplification of noises, movements, sights and smells. There is also something eerie about passing darkened, empty premises after working hours, with their conspicuous absence of human activity, and finding illuminated areas can bring feelings of relief. Edward Hopper’s painting, Nighthawks, depicts the comforting sanctuary of an all-night cafe, in contrast to the darkness outside. The provision of street lighting and urban architectural design addresses this safety concern, forming part of the city’s dark infrastructure (Dunn, 2022).

Fourth, we find designated places in which nocturnal presence is permitted: where people are allowed, even encouraged, to congregate. This supports Durkheim’s (1898) functionalist argument that the social system must accommodate small pockets of deviance. Some of these are non-places (Augé, 1995), which lack identity in themselves but hold people in transit to elsewhere. For example, airports, railway stations and hospital waiting rooms may be open overnight, and within these institutional contexts, wakefulness is accepted (Davies, 2022). Other spaces have more resistant meanings of transgression, pleasure, freedom and escape (Dunn, 2022). These include the licensed premises of the leisure and entertainment industries, such as pubs, theatres, nightclubs and restaurants. Here, patrons and staff play discrete roles and their occupation of the space has different meanings. While ‘unruly bodies’ threaten to disrupt the civilised order through drunkenness and revelry, their deviance is held in check by regulatory agents, such as door staff (Monaghan, 2002).

Fifth, some nocturnal spaces represent ‘frontier’ territories on the margins of mainstream society (Melbin, 1978). This reflects the expansion of wakeful activity into night-time hours, due to globalisation, new digital technologies and the accelerated, 24-hour culture of speed (Rosa, 2015; Tomlinson, 2007). Some of these places are institutional establishments of the night-time economy, such as those noted above. Performing arts and entertainment venues also provide opportunities for periodic remission (Schwartz, 1970) and episodic loosening (Hobbs et al., 2000): legitimate freedom and time out from one’s daytime responsibilities. This reflects the ‘hidden rhythms’ of social life, with its balance between routine and spontaneity (Zerubavel, 1981). Frontier territories attract marginalised groups, who may not be accepted elsewhere. For example, Goffman (1952) refers to sad and shabby ‘ending places’, such as neighbourhood ghettos and homeless shelters, where stigmatised social outsiders gather at night (Becker, 1963). Melbin (1978: 10) describes frontiers as ‘the haunt of weirdos and strange characters. . . The milieu harbors a deviant subculture that it tolerated and even expected’. Thus, the same nocturnal space can hold multiple meanings, which pluralistically co-exist.

Where the Action Is(n’t)

Having sketched out a map of the social night sky, let us now fill in its granular detail. The theories outlined above help us to see what exists in the nocturnal realm, but not how it got there, who occupies it and why they act in certain ways. To answer these questions of process and meaning, we need a micro-sociological theory, and Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective provides a suitable interpretive lens.

Dramaturgy uses a theatrical metaphor to understand social life, examining the techniques that actors use to present, perform and manage situated role-identities (Goffman, 1959, 1963a, 1967, 1971). These displays are staged before audiences, upon whom actors try to impress different versions of character (Goffman, 1959). Dramaturgy is surprisingly compatible with structural-functionalist theory (Chriss, 2015). For example, the interaction order (Goffman, 1983) describes a normative realm of rules, routines and rituals that provide guides for conduct. This allows actors to negotiate meaning (Blumer, 1969), define situations (Thomas and Thomas, 1928) and harmoniously coordinate their roles.

If we consider the night to be such a realm, with localised codes of behaviour, we can use Goffman’s theory to understand how this micro-social order is accomplished. Nocturnal regions can be either front- or back-stage (Goffman, 1959), depending on whether they are displayed to audiences or hidden out of sight. For example, a nightclub dancefloor is visually striking, while a dark alleyway is dangerously concealing. The frontstage comprises a physical ‘setting’, which is fixed in place and includes furnishings, lighting and architectural features, together with the ‘personal front’ of props and expressive equipment that actors carry around with them (Goffman, 1959). The personal front can be further divided into ‘appearance’ (features that identify the actor’s role or status) and ‘manner’ (the style or attitude with which a role is played). However, these aspects are limited by the resources available. Nocturnal scenes are staged by dramatic directors who design and present their settings. These could include urban planners, pub landlords and hostel staff.

Within these regions, individual actors perform strategic lines and moves (Goffman, 1967, 1969). These ‘anchored doings’ (Goffman, 1974: 294) are rooted in normative rules and conventions, and shaped by the contextual etiquette of ‘situational proprieties’ (Goffman, 1963a). For example, while drunken singing and dancing may be acceptable conduct for a nightclub, on a quiet residential street it would invite disapproval. Goffman (1967) used the term ‘action’ in a distinct sense, emphasising its game-like features of risky play. Dramaturgical action is both ‘problematic’ (having an unpredictable outcome) and ‘consequential’ (for personal identity, moral status or social fate).

Goffman’s (1967) essay, ‘Where the action is’ examines the risk-taking ventures that occur in everyday spaces. In everynight life, the rules may be subtly different. Being where the action usually isn’t can also be given symbolic social meanings. The title of this article alludes to Rosenhan’s (1973) famous study of schizophrenic pseudo-patients, who found that their fake symptoms were interpreted as typical within a diagnostic frame. Despite confessing to being impostors, they could not get released from the psychiatric hospital, because staff made the ‘informant’s folly’ (Goffman, 1971) of taking the scene at face value and believing that things were as they seemed. Just as being sane in an insane place is a matter of audience definition, being seen in an unseen realm – the night – can be sanctioned or normalised. These meanings are interpreted and negotiated in social encounters, making them interactionally contingent (Blumer, 1969).

Nocturnal scenes afford certain forms of dramaturgical action, which I suggest are mappable along two dimensions. First, visibility: whether the actor’s presence is frontstage or backstage, noticed or ignored, conspicuous or hidden. Second, legitimacy: whether the conduct is permitted or forbidden, confirmed or denied, accepted or questioned. To analyse this, I offer a four-fold typology of Goffmanian concepts, as shown in Table 1. This is adapted from Becker’s (1963: 20) categories of rule infraction (conformist, pure deviant, secret deviant, falsely accused), which similarly informed my taxonomy of shyness (non-shy, true blue, shy extrovert, introverted) (Scott, 2007). The remainder of this article explores these four nocturnal zones, discussing the dramaturgical techniques of role performance that can be found in each.

Table 1.

Dramaturgical techniques in four nocturnal zones.

	Permitted	Forbidden
Visible	Dramatic realisation	Remedial interchanges
	Make work	Defensive facework
	Tact	Cooling out
Hidden	Mystification	Passing
	Discrepant roles	Misrepresentation
	Cynicism	Secondary adjustments

Visible and Permitted Action

The first zone of nocturnal space features actors who are entitled to be there by virtue of their role and so are clearly visible. These actors occupy the frontstage region (Goffman, 1959) and perform under the spotlight of audience scrutiny, with a self-conscious reflexive awareness. However, this is unapologetic and involves no shame or embarrassment. Knowing that their action is legitimate and meets social expectations, they can proceed with confidence and need to hide nothing. Their conduct fits the situational proprieties (Goffman, 1963a) of the scene, as it is normatively appropriate. Actors can present personal fronts that are openly expressive and aligned with the audience’s values (Stokes and Hewitt, 1976), giving an impression of obedient compliance. This category corresponds to the ‘conformist’ quadrant of Becker’s (1963) model.

Occupants of these spaces may be staff members, whose employment positions provide the legitimacy to their roles. In the night-time economy of leisure and entertainment industries, we find performing artists, security staff and premises managers. Others work in sectors that have daytime counterparts, taking the less popular but necessary night shifts: for example, health care staff in hospitals and residential homes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, such employees were heralded as heroic ‘key workers’ whose labour saved the nation. Roles of this kind are socially valued and morally framed (Goffman, 1974) as deserving of collective pride.

These symbolic meanings (Blumer, 1969) are embedded in the actors’ dramaturgical techniques, which accentuate normative play and assert a member’s right to belong. First, dramatic realisation is the skill of exaggerating and emphasising features of a role performance, to ‘highlight and portray confirmatory facts’ (Goffman, 1959: 40). Actors play their roles in a standardised, even stereotypical fashion, to ensure that the audience receive them easily and make the correct assumptions (Scott, 2015). This impression is expressed through items of identity equipment (Goffman, 1959) in the personal front, such as uniformed costumes and material props. Medical students enjoy proudly wearing their white coat (Vinson, 2019) while cabaret drag queens dress spectacularly in full regalia (McCormack and Wignall, 2022). These occupational objects (Riggins, 2010) are status symbols that communicate the actor’s credentials. Dramatic realisation may be afforded by the architectural design of the setting. This is illustrated by Davies’ (2022) ethnography of an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), which, unlike other hospital departments, was open to visitors overnight. Focusing on the corridor, Davies (2022: 277) observed how it was materially framed as an appropriate place in which to be seen:

At night the family and friends of the patient may be asked to step outside while a procedure is undertaken on the ICU patient. . . They move from a place of light, noise, activity. . . to a place that is [empty and quiet]. However, there may be strongly lit vending machines selling drinks and snacks. The toilets may be open. . . It is a place of twilight and of occupation.

Second, make work (Goffman, 1959) is the strategy of appearing fully immersed and engaged with a role, through intense focus and concentration. This may involve busying oneself with the official tasks and duties that are expected, to communicate an attitude of diligence and conscientiousness. This often occurs in formal institutions and organisations where people are under managerial surveillance. For example, airport security staff follow a standardised script and adopt a humourless, ‘stoneface’ (Flower, 2018, p. 238) expression when shepherding sleepy passengers to red-eye flights (Kirschenbaum et al., 2012). Make work can therefore be understood as a covering move (Goffman, 1969), which is intended to protect and defend oneself against unwanted attributions. It is a display of earnestness rather than earnestness itself, and as such may not be deeply acted (Hochschild, 1983). This resonates with existentialist themes, such as Sartre’s (1943) critique of the ‘spirit of seriousness’, through which people contrive to show normative attitudes.

Third, audiences show tact (Goffman, 1959) towards performers to demonstrate support for their identity claims. This is a form of protective facework (Goffman, 1967) that keeps another actor safely in character. Tact involves gestures of acceptance and a willingness to play along with the presented reality (Scheff, 1968), even if both parties know that it is false: a pretence awareness context (Glaser and Strauss, 1964). Whereas in everyday life, tact is often just a matter of civility – politely ignoring mistakes to spare others from embarrassment – at night, it can take on a heightened significance by protecting vulnerable people. For example, the Ask for Angela campaign in the UK encouraged pub and club patrons who were feeling harassed to approach the bartenders and use the codeword phrase, ‘Can I speak to Angela?’ The staff would then know to tactfully play along with the request, take the victim to safety and call the police. The scene could be hidden in plain sight in front of the offender without them ever realising.

Reciprocally, actors can show audiences ‘tact regarding tact’ by performing in ways that ‘make the rendering of this assistance possible’ (Goffman, 1959: 227). They indicate that their presented character is appropriate and deserves to be trusted. This is helpful when the identity claim is dubious, ambiguous or could be misconstrued. For example, if a man who is aware of the gender politics surrounding the fear of crime (Walklate, 2017) finds himself walking behind a lone woman at night, he may decide to cross over to the other side of the street, in order to avoid walking behind her and making her worry about being followed. By conspicuously increasing his social visibility, he signals reassurance of his innocent intentions and safe legitimacy. In turn, the woman may feel relieved that she does not need to give a self-defensive performance of overplayed nonchalance (Goffman, 1959), such as having a pretend conversation on her mobile phone. This tacit collusion upholds the civilised illusion that ‘nothing unusual is happening’ (Emerson, 1970).

Visible and Forbidden Action

The second nocturnal zone contains actors who engage in rule-breaking behaviour while frontstage (Goffman, 1959) in public places. They are high in visibility but low in legitimacy, as they are either present in a place from which they should be absent, or doing something that they should not in a place they ought to be. This corresponds to Becker’s (1963) category of the pure deviant, whose rule infractions are clear and undisputed. Both actor and audience understand that the conduct breaches the norms, expectations and situational proprieties (Goffman, 1963a) of the scene, and they share a tacit understanding of its symbolic meaning. However, actors can stand in different positions of footing (Goffman, 1974) in relation to this interpretation, holding different attitudes, intentions and motives.

Actors who break formal or informal rules risk being publicly sanctioned. Challenging deviant action with a view to restoring social order demonstrates the corrective process of facework (Goffman, 1967), which operates through remedial interchanges (Goffman, 1971). These verbal rituals occur in response to disruptive ‘incidents’ that threaten to disrupt the smooth flow of interaction, preventing ‘inopportune intrusions’ from ‘causing a scene’ (Goffman, 1959, p. 207). Remedial interchanges begin with an encounter between the ‘offender’ and ‘claimant’, such as a security guard, manager or observing bystander. The two parties engage in a back-and-forth process of four stages: challenge, acceptance, offering and thanks (Goffman, 1971). For example, an awakened sleeper may go to confront some noisy neighbours who are having a party and ask them to turn the music down. If the offenders realise and agree with this objection, they may offer an apology, which the sleeper gruffly receives with thanks.

Claimants may be able to initiate a formal procedure by virtue of their occupational role. Police stop-and-search measures have been recognised as interactional encounters, involving subjective judgement and personal discretion (Piliavin and Briar, 1964). This may intersect with structural factors, such as race and gender (Briggs, 2013; Brooks et al., 2015) in shaping whether arrests are made. Homeless rough sleepers may be supportively approached by outreach workers, or discouraged by architectural design features, such as uncomfortable benches (Smith and Hall, 2018). Nightclub door staff decide who to select for security checks and who to refuse entry. In Monaghan’s (2002) ethnography, door supervisors or ‘bouncers’ gave an embodied performance of hypermasculinity when managing ‘everynight tensions and conflicts’ (2002: 403). Within this authoritative role, they could legitimately issue requests and demands, for such things as identification or entry fees, and eject ‘unruly bodies’ from the premises. As Hobbs et al. (2002) argue, this turns intimidation into an art form. Here, we see how definitions of deviant conduct are constructed through situated interaction, putting different interpretive frames around the night. For example, Monaghan describes how one bouncer used pragmatic typifications (Schutz, 1972) to sort through ‘normal rubbish’ (Jeffery, 1979) at the scene. By symbolically decoding an actor’s appearance and manner (Goffman, 1959), he maintained the micro-social order of the establishment:

I stood on the front door with John. This doorman refused access to a lot of people because of their clothing . . . [He said,] ‘Sorry, no sport or recreational footwear tonight. You can only wear them on Mondays.’ Later I said to John that I couldn’t see why people were not allowed in with trainers on a weeknight. I said: ‘seems a bit daft to me’. He replied: ‘Not really. Keeps the rubbish out.’ (participant quoted in Monaghan, 2002: 415)

The next technique in this category is defensive facework (Goffman, 1967). This describes moves that people make to protect their own social image, or ‘face’, and manage the impressions they create upon their audiences (Goffman, 1959). It is individualistic and self-serving, designed to keep oneself in face, prevent a loss of face, or save face from shame or embarrassment (Goffman, 1956). Defensive facework is often performed in response to a challenge, and as such can form the ‘offering’ stage of a remedial interchange. This often happens through informal talk when deviant conduct is discovered and actors are called to account for themselves (Scott and Lyman, 1968).

For example, in a conversation about sleeping patterns, one person reveals that they are a ‘night owl’, who goes to bed late and is slow to rise. As this departs from the dominant circadian rhythm of the ‘morning lark’, who fits the work schedule of capitalist economies, it may be questioned, disapproved of and met with surprise. The actor may provide an excuse or justification (Scott and Lyman, 1968) that aligns with the audience’s values, such as ‘I can’t help it – I’m an insomniac’ or ‘I try to go to bed early, but I just can’t fall asleep’. By expressing a moral intention that is shared with the potentially critical audience, the actor defends their legitimate right to be present (Birenbaum and Sagarin, 1973) at night.

Cooling out (Goffman, 1952) is a reparative strategy used by actors to appease those whom they have hurt, exploited or disappointed. Using the criminal confidence trick as a metaphor, Goffman (1952) explains how the ‘operator’ responsible interacts with their ‘mark’ in ways that soothe and pacify them. This is a damage limitation strategy (Scott, 2015), which helps the individual to save face, restores their dignity and averts a potential incident of angry retaliation. Operators show recognition of the mark’s humiliating loss of status, and attempt to placate them with comfort, consolation or compensation. Remembering Melbin’s (1978: 10) reading of the night as a frontier territory that is ‘the haunt of weirdos and strange characters’, we can imagine how this process may be needed.

Cooling out might happen when a lone individual is nightwalking (Dunn, 2022) in an otherwise empty, darkened space, without any demonstrable purpose or direction. Lacking the usual items of personal front that would provide a cover story (such as a uniform, map or suitcase), the actor appears curiously and conspicuously out of place. For example, as a night owl myself, I was once out for a stroll at 1.30 a.m. – something doubly deviant for a woman. A young man passing me gently asked ‘Are you ok?’, perhaps concerned for my safety or mental health. I immediately felt embarrassed and tried to give a weak justification, but there was not much I could say that would make my conduct appear normal. However, the man looked relieved and cooled me out with some kind words – ‘Oh good. I just wanted to check’ – before waving cheerily and walking on.

Hidden and Permitted Action

The third zone of nocturnal space comprises action that is legitimate, even appropriate, but not socially recognised. This may be because it happens covertly, in private places, and so is unseen by public audiences. When rule-following conduct is missed or misconstrued, it falls into Becker’s (1963) category of ‘falsely accused’ deviance. Such action is therefore problematic and consequential (Goffman, 1967) for self-identity. It also involves dramaturgical labour, which takes place in backstage regions (Goffman, 1959): here, actors can drop their masks, relax their poise and be spontaneously expressive. As Goffman argues, this is essential for the maintenance of interaction order, for it allows people to rest between scenes, rehearse their lines and prepare for the next show. Backstage regions imply honesty and authenticity: this is where actors can indulge the deeper recesses of their ‘true’ internal selves: ‘Behind many masks and many characters, each performer tends to wear a single look, a naked unsocialized look’ (Goffman, 1959: 228). However, actors may also feel vulnerable to the risk of exposure and prefer to remain unseen.

The first dramaturgical skill here is mystification (Goffman, 1959). This is the art of sustaining an air of uncertainty around the dramatic process to prevent it from being scrutinised. Actors try to hide not only what is behind their mask, but also how it gets constructed. They occlude the mundane mechanisms through which shows are produced and shield their performative process away from public view. One strategy to accomplish this is to maintain a barrier between the front and backstage regions, so that the audience cannot glimpse behind the scenes to see what is going on. As Simmel (1908) argued, restricting access to information makes it more exciting, tantalising us with secret truths. In night-time entertainment venues, the stage curtain builds suspense by hinting at but concealing the art that is being prepared. The audience is denied access to dressing rooms, green rooms and the stage door, unless they are invited. This indicative pointing towards something contrasts with the dramatic presentation of nothing, which occurs after a show has ended. Corrieri (2016) explores the significance of empty theatres, whose atmosphere creates wistful imaginaries of absence and emptiness.

In other settings, mystification is experienced by the actors themselves, who struggle to comprehend their own performance. Hodgson (2022) discusses how people who go on retreats gain as much from the social process as from the taught content. While they may have intended to learn about mystical practices, it is the deep, intense bonds that they form that feel magical. This impression is created through interaction rituals (Goffman, 1967) and collective accounts, which Hodgson calls ‘mystery work’. Drawing on Mason’s (2018) notion of ‘potent connections’, he argues that the phenomenological quality of these relationships is ineffable, intangible and inexplicable, filling them with wonder and awe. This atmosphere is felt more strongly at night, under the sensory cloak of darkness and silence. For example, two companions went for a silent moonlight swim in a lake. Their connection ‘emerge[d] out of nowhere, as if it had a sense of destiny about it’ (Hodgson, 2022: 207).

The next feature here is discrepant roles (Goffman, 1959). These are a set of positions that lie outside of the main drama. Although not directly involved where the action is, people in these roles can observe how it happens, including the ‘dirty work’ (Hughes, 1945: 3) backstage. Three discrepant roles are relevant to night situations. The ‘shill’ is someone who hides among the audience but is really on the side of the performer. For example, a stand-up comedian plants their friend in the crowd to start the laughter and applause. The ‘service specialist’ is someone who assists the ‘construction, repair and maintenance of the show their clients maintain before other people’ (Goffman, 1959: 152). In the creative and media industries, this includes chauffeurs and taxi drivers, costume and make-up artists, and film set caterers. In the domestic sphere, it includes new parents and informal carers, whose invisible nocturnal labour extends into the third and fourth shift (Arber et al., 2008; Hochschild, 1983). Finally, the ‘non-person’ is someone whom actors ignore, such as bus and train drivers and office cleaners. Their social invisibility may arise from the awkwardness felt by the patrons they serve, who pretend not to see a status hierarchy.

The third feature is a cynical attitude towards the dramatic part that one is playing (Goffman, 1959). In contrast to those who sincerely believe in the characters they present, cynical actors maintain a critical detachment from the illusion: ‘no one is in quite as good an observational position to see through the act as the person who puts it on’ (Goffman, 1959: 28). They take a role distant (Goffman, 1961a) view of their own action and have the capacity to self-reflexively comment upon its contrivance. While communication out of character (Goffman, 1959) is a routine feature of everyday life, the nocturnal realm makes it more intense.

Live performance artists, for example, have the legitimate right to affect a stage persona that is different from their ‘true’ self, and to hide the latter backstage. However, this requires constant ontological transitions that invite an eerie self-estrangement. Some who are shy in everyday life paradoxically transform into flamboyant singers, dancers and comedians, feeling more authentically alive during the night (Scott, 2017). This may involve skilfully navigating the boundaries between zones of connection and engagement with different audiences. For example, McCormack and Wignall (2022) showed how drag queens performed in both marginal and mainstream spaces within the night-time economy. These included cabaret, pantomime and corporate hospitality events. As one queen, Ophelia Balls, explained, ‘I do a lot of ladies’ nights, a lot of compering and hosting off the gay scene’ (McCormack and Wignall, 2022: 11). Other performing artists use nocturnal rituals to manage their movement into and out of character. A rock band circle-chant in their dressing room before going out on stage, while a theatre actor reads the newspaper on the midnight subway home (Scott, 2017). Cynical moments can also descend mid-performance, when artists forget their lines, make mistakes or lose their immersive flow (Hardie-Bick and Scott, 2019). For example, Stephen, a stand-up comedian, recalled how unforgiving audience reactions made him self-consciously aware of the split between person and persona. This illustrates Becker’s (1963) notion of being falsely accused, insofar as an actor who sincerely tries to perform in role-appropriate ways is nevertheless perceived as deviant:

we got heckled, and we got booed off late at night one night, by all the stand-up comedians. . . there was a kind of feeling of not really going down very well, plus knowing I hadn’t really got that far in the show. And I got that kind of dry mouth. . . you can just hear your voice rising. . . and feel that prickly heat. And embarrassment, and feeling it’s not working. (participant quoted in Scott, 2017: 726)

Hidden and Forbidden Action

The final zone of nocturnal space houses those who are engaging in some form of rule-breaking activity but remain invisible to passers-by. Their presence is legitimate, but their purpose is not: they furtively act under the cloak of night so that their actions will go undetected. This corresponds to Becker’s (1963) category of the secret deviant, who avoids getting caught, sanctioned and publicly labelled. Without a negative social reaction, rule infractions do not progress from the level of primary to secondary deviance (Lemert, 1967) and actors do not embark on a deviant moral career (Becker, 1963; Goffman, 1963b).

One strategy deployed here is passing. Goffman (1963b) used this term to describe the management of discreditable stigma: unwanted attributes of character that, if exposed, would undermine the actor’s identity claims. In contrast to discrediting stigma, which are immediately visible, discreditable stigma can be hidden from audience scrutiny. This is achieved by disguising oneself as a ‘normal’ (someone who appears to conform with the majority) and blending surreptitiously into the crowd. However, passing requires constant dramaturgical effort to maintain a convincing front, through performative strategies of selective self-disclosure and information control (Goffman, 1963b). Like any type of secret-keeping, passing is a dialectic, interactional process (Simmel, 1908), whose meaning is co-constructed.

For example, Banksy is an anonymous street artist, who paints stencil designs on buildings during the night. As DeGloma (2023) argues, anonymity is a performative strategy through which impersonal agents use masked personae to carry out social acts. Much debate surrounds the curious puzzle of how Banksy manages to create such large artworks in public places without attracting attention (Ellsworth-Jones, 2021). One hypothesis is that he wears a disguise, such as a construction worker’s ‘high viz’ overalls, to pass inconspicuously amid the nightscape (King, 2024). Paradoxically, by making himself more visible under the cover of a legitimate role, Banksy becomes less visible as a social deviant. Technically, his actions could be defined as criminal vandalism, but the audience’s readings exonerate him. His followers not only enjoy the mystery work (Hodgson, 2022) of trying to guess who he is, but also gleefully admire how he evades detection (Leverton, 2023).

Another technique that can be used is misrepresentation (Goffman, 1959). This is a form of dramaturgical deception: presenting a false version of self with the intention to mislead (Meltzer, 2003). Goffman (1969) saw deception as a strategic expression game, which is rational, instrumental and calculated. Misrepresentation is accomplished through manipulative fabrications (lying), cheating, confidence tricks and covering moves (Goffman, 1952, 1959, 1969). Although Goffman (1974) warns his readers of the insider’s folly – the naive believe that other people are cooperatively on our side in interaction – he regards deception as morally neutral (Smith, 2006), focusing more on its pragmatic consequences. Dramaturgically, all that matters is the appearance of honesty, credibility and trustworthiness (Manning, 2000), to convince the audience to believe in one’s presented reality.

A tragic and disturbing example of this is the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens, an off-duty Metropolitan Police officer. On the night of 3 March 2021, Couzens stopped Everard as she was walking home from a friend’s house, using his police warrant card – an item of personal front (Goffman, 1959) – to justify arresting her for a breach of COVID-19 regulations. He questioned her right to be present on the London streets during the lockdown curfew hours. Believing his cover story and trusting in the legitimacy of his occupational role, Everard compliantly got into the car before discovering the dreadful betrayal. Their encounter was captured by bus CCTV, and this dark, fuzzy image of them standing at the roadside illustrates the serious danger of the insider’s folly (Goffman, 1974). Couzens used the night sky as a canopy to hide and move about, concealing his true identity beneath a misrepresentative mask.

The final technique is secondary adjustments (Goffman, 1961b). This occurs in total institutions, where residents are enclosed around the clock: sleeping, eating, working or receiving treatment under the auspices of an organisational structure. In his ethnographic study of a psychiatric asylum, Goffman (1961b) observed how the inmates developed a subculture of resistance, which he called the ‘underlife’. After an initial period of obedience to the formal rules (primary adjustments), they began more pragmatically to realise how they could play the system, bend the rules and get away with deviant moves. Through an informal negotiation context (Strauss, 1978) of peer socialisation, established inmates would ‘buddy’ new recruits to ‘show them the ropes’ (Goffman, 1961b).

As Hodgson (2024) argues, this kind of subversion of organisational power is often fuelled by communal solidarity. It manifests in mischievous practices of gleeful transgression, or misbehaviour (Ackroyd and Thompson, 2003), which carry the symbolic meanings of risk-taking edgework (Lyng, 1990) or delightful fun (Fincham, 2016). Such conduct may also arise in Reinventive Institutions (Scott, 2011), where membership is voluntary and people choose to stay together throughout day and night. For example, wellbeing retreat-goers indulge in forbidden forms of sexual and erotic intimacy through the hidden proximity of their shared accommodation (Hodgson, 2024).

Similarly, the architectural design of ‘institutional arrangements’ (Goffman, 1961b: 11) can afford opportunities for being naughty and breaking the rules. We see this in children’s fiction, such as Enid Blyton’s boarding school series, Malory Towers and St Clare’s. These pupils delight in the special occasion of a midnight feast, which provides escape from their everyday routines. They repurpose ordinary spaces, such as the classroom or swimming pool, turning them into banquet halls for contraband foods. Hiding somewhere that is usually unseen at night creates a magical sense of adventure (see also Simmel, 1911):

At last she heard the clock at the top of the Tower striking twelve. Good. Midnight at last! . . . They all put on dressing gowns and slippers. They got their bathing things out of the cupboard and sent Irene and Belinda for the jugs of lemonade. The dormy was full of gigglings and whispering and shushings. Everybody was now wide awake and very excited. (Blyton, 1949: 82)

Concluding Discussion

The unexplored domain of ‘everynight life’ is a distinctive realm of Goffmanian interaction order. Negatively defined by what it lacks and is not – daytime, light, mundanity and population – the social construction of night exists relationally, through contrasts, dualisms and binaries. While previous research has identified some macro-level themes in the organisation and representation of nocturnal space, there has been no detailed exploration of the micro-level processes through which these meanings emerge. This article has attempted to fill that gap, using Goffman’s dramaturgical theory to examine some different forms of nocturnal conduct. I have argued that, just as we notice dormant bodies in wakeful places, the presence of wide-awake people in spaces of sleep stands out as marked and unusual. In this broad, general sense, nocturnal actors are ‘seen’, because their bodies are conspicuous, occupying spaces that are normally unseen.

However, at the granular level of local situations, what people actually do at night can be opaque and elusive. Using symbolic interactionist ideas of processual definition and negotiated meaning, I have argued that it is in the dramaturgical encounter between actors and audiences that nocturnal conduct is interpreted and socially accomplished. Performative techniques of self-presentation and impression management (Goffman, 1959) are met with perception, reception, reaction and response. This is a dynamic game of strategic, risky action (Goffman, 1967), which is problematic in outcome and consequential in fate. Its dramaturgical contingency varies along two dimensions: the visibility of lines and moves and the legitimacy of roles.

This produces a four-fold typology of nocturnal action, loosely based upon Becker’s (1963) model of deviance. Each quadrant represents a zone of interaction, characterised by dramaturgical skills and techniques. The first zone houses visible and permitted action, such as that undertaken by staff in the night-time economy. Here actors use dramatic realisation, make work and tact to display their conduct proudly, for it aligns with the situational proprieties. This corresponds to Becker’s conformist role. The second zone features visible and forbidden action, namely rule-breaking that is caught frontstage. This is dealt with through interaction rituals such as remedial interchanges, defensive facework and cooling out. It corresponds to Becker’s pure deviant, who is sanctioned and brought back into play.

The third zone contains hidden and permitted action, which is legitimate but goes unrecognised. This includes unpaid domestic labour and informal caring, as well as people who retreat into secluded havens or work in enchanting roles. The techniques used here include mystification, discrepancy and cynicism, and this corresponds to Becker’s falsely accused. The fourth zone features hidden and forbidden action, performed under the cloak of night. Here, actors masquerade as having the legitimate right to be present, but hide their true identities and motives behind the scenes. Their dramaturgical skills include passing, misrepresentation and secondary adjustments, which correspond to Becker’s secret deviant. Despite its guilty furtiveness, this action can occur boldly frontstage, in public and institutional settings.

Put together, these zones of everynight life comprise a unique domain. The nocturnal interaction order is a realm of routine activity that is created and sustained by knowledgeable agents. While not entirely micro-social, being scaffolded by structures of power, culture and organisation, it is a little theatre of small-scale lines and moves. Dramaturgical theory helps us to understand how these settings operate and why those present there sustain them. Part of this concerns the question of normative expectancies and social accountability: it is easy to understand the intention to be seen when doing what we should and to hide when deviating. More puzzling is why people want the opposite: to be seen while breaking rules or unseen while conforming. In this respect, the night affords a distinct set of social actions, which is qualitatively different from its daytime counterpart. As an object of study, it sleeps in the epistemological shadows, but twinkles with potential to be brought into the light.