In your hands, written by Simon Pettitt, Åsa Nilsson and Lea Pullerits and run by Simon Pettit was a more structured larp than before and after silence and explored themes of guilt, alienation and our place in the world.
Unlike before and after silence we were not encouraged to create a fully fleshed out character - although we had the option to. There were some warm up exercises where we were encouraged to embody the character and consider how they would walk if they were happy, angry or sad. However, I don’t think I was particularly was creating the actions of a character as opposed to just exaggerating my own actions. I suppose it is possible that a participant could have created their own character and consistently played that character during the larp but it’s my feeling that the structure of the larp discouraged it. The 3 parts of the larp attempted to encourage players to tap into feelings in their purest form without a barrier between themselves and the emotion. It is my opinion that creating a fully fleshed out character would have disrupted this process, although also might be an interesting game to play on a superficial level.
The larp was set in 3 parts, examining fear, guilt and alienation. We were also assigned a person to support, someone we would help within the larp and a person to challenge, someone we would make things more difficult for.
The surroundings were an area with blankets, pillows and plastic balls which had a crèche like feel. We were confined to that area, a practice which I understand is common with black box larps.
We began in a group pose while thoughts were read out on the theme of that section of the larp, for example guilt. We began by acting overwhelmed with that emotion and then slowly began to rise out of it. In the first stage we were mainly helping the person we were supposed to be supporting but by the third stage we were helping everyone except possibly the person who was actively challenging us and who we were supposed to actively challenge. After each of the three stages we returned to the group pose and answered questions on how we felt, what made us afraid (I said not being able to save everyone - this was directly after the guilt portion of the larp when some people were beginning to sink more deeply into the emotions and I felt a responsibility to try to bring them out of it). At this point the person I was challenging said their fear was being rejected and I made a conscious decision to stop challenging him and start supporting him as I was with the others. Interestingly, when we came to the question of what made us strong most people answered the question with some form of being around other people or feeling cared about.
So did it work?
For me it was a less intense experience than my first larp, although that could have been for a variety of reasons including having more of an idea of what to expect and the more structured nature of the larp. The group was smaller which felt more intimate and I did feel closer to the others within the group by the end of the larp - it felt like a safe space where we were free to act how we wanted without judgement.
In not taking the role as a challenger in the last third I was obviously deviating from the rules of the larp. It may have been to do with the fact that as it continued we were building up connections as a group although I think I felt uncomfortable from the start in that role and the person’s mention of a fear of being rejected gave me ‘permission’ to drop it. When I mentioned it in the debrief he said he had found my challenges to his actions quite interesting so possibly I should have gone against my gut feeling. As it was my main direct confrontation, and the only one I didn't respond with kindness to by the end of the larp (including the person who was challenging me) was with the person who was challenging the woman I was supporting. This suggests to me that there was success in building social cohesion within the group and having people come to care about each other.
The only thing that I found jarring was the 3 act structure. After the first act when we slowly began to reach out to each other as a group and join together it felt like an achievement. Then that was taken away by the start of the second act where everyone started alone and had to build the cohesion from the beginning. I felt it even stronger in the third act about whether our position was meaningful in the group - it felt like we had worked through some feelings and then we were back to wondering if we contributed anything. I acknowledge real life can be like that but it did feel unsettling that the larp brought us back to square one.
If you get the opportunity I would recommend you play, it’s a worthwhile way to explore how connections are built. I would also be interested in exploring a larp where each stage builds on the progress of the previous, each moving past a barrier to togetherness but only achieving true cohesion at the end.
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