I say a little prayer is about the lives of 5 gay men living in the 1980s (we chose London as our location.) It was written by Tor Kjetil Edland and facilitated by Graham Warmsley. All the characters in the game were distinct and we were very lucky to have a great group of players who managed to bring out the key aspect of each character.
The characters were:
Daniel - Outgoing, with a tendency to speak his mind. Charge nurse by day and drag queen by night.
Robert: (My character) An empathetic ballet dancer, idealistic and emotional, Robert had met his true love, Jim a year ago.
Jim: A literature student and aspiring novelist. Impulsive and the way he was played (which worked well), dramatic and prone to exaggeration although easily giving into emotion. Jim is Robert’s love but unlike Robert believes in a non traditional family and non-monogamy.
Tommy: Probably the most self destructive of the group - damaged but hopeful, oscillating from despair to euphoria.
Benny - The new guy. Probably the most drama free of the group, he spoke his mind and was empathetic with a flair for performance.
Act 1
The LARP was set in two acts. The first acts began with spotlight scenes which were heavily scripted. I wasn’t sure at first it was necessary (I think I wanted to get onto the relationship drama), but actually each scene showed us a little bit about each character; Daniel’s on stage persona, Robert’s empathy, Jim struggling with being open about his sexuality, Tommy’s tendency to self destruction and Benny’s impulsive nature. That meant that the players could start the relationship scenes with an idea of the character already in their mind.
Then the relationship scenes began - in the first half there were a few poignant moments. I had a scene with Jim who wanted us to have an open relationship and confessed to sleeping with other men (later scenes showed this may or may not have been true).
I also had a meaningful scene with Tommy’s character, trying to persuade him to come him with me after he was drunk and behaving inappropriately at a nightclub. Following the directions both characters switched moods and attitudes but the scene ended in Tommy and Robert crying on each other’s shoulders. It was later implied that Robert slept with Tommy, partly out of anger at Jim, which became significant later.
Other scenes included an incredibly awkward one where Jim and Benny were checking out men at a club while the rest of us danced background characters, and a particularly meaningful interaction between Daniel and Benny.
At the end of Act 1, one of the character’s fell ill and died of AIDs. Graham as the facilitator asked everyone to write their names on cards and put them facedown in a suitcase. You could choose between one and 5 cards depending on how high risk you felt your sexual activities had been. After taking a moment Graham announced that in 1983 Tommy fell ill with Aids and died. Tommy’s character then gave a monologue about what happened, when they were hospitalised and how they died. Each character took hold of Tommy. When the last character let go Tommy had died.
Act 2
Act 2 began with the four remaining characters present and clearing out Tommy’s belongings. The scenes in act 2, after Tommy’s death were far more hard hitting as they dealt with grief and the feeling of a death sentence hanging over the group.
Tommy was present as a ghost, touching and moving among the other characters but mainly not being noticed. One of the things I really liked in this LARP was that there wasn’t a strict adherence to the rules. Although Tommy wasn’t supposed to be visible he appeared in a scene when Jim, who had started to become afraid of the life he was living, was applying for a job as a teacher, a job he adamantly hadn’t wanted previously. During the meeting with a prospective employee he saw someone who looked like Tommy who was reacting as if they were deathly ill, something which the employer didn’t see. It worked well as an improvisation, both in that it gave an insight into Jim’s grief and also that it illustrated the fear that was causing him to try to change his life.
Daniel also became more bitter, believing that in having slept with Tommy he had killed him. He appeared unafraid of his own suspected death sentence, although admitted that he was in a scene we had together where Robert was also afraid as he was the only other one who had slept with Tommy.
There were some real gut punch scenes for me. Daniel getting angry at a fan who wanted to have sex with him after he believed he had killed Tommy, Daniel getting angry at Robert for believing he had infected Tommy and Benny and Jim talking at the disco about Jim feeling like a coward and Jim telling Robert he was marrying Mary, a woman his parents had put pressure on him to propose to.
Then, another death lottery. This time I put 5 cards in figuring that Robert had a) slept with Tommy and b) had a lot of sex after Jim announced he was getting married.
Daniel died this time, which made sense in game. He gave a moving monologue which did make me feel quite emotional and then as before each person touched him and the last person to let go meant his death.
Then there was an epilogue where the survivors, Benny, Jim and Robert were lighting candles to float down the river in the memory of those we had lost. Again a poignant scene which ended in an unscripted group hug
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The game was heavily directed by the facilitator which was generally a positive. At first I was a bit sceptical about that approach as it cut off scenes and forced characters to answer questions. However, particularly in the second act it brought out the emotion more heavily in some scenes, for example, by asking characters to switch their focus from a loved one leaving them to a loved one dying. It also kept scenes short and significant. It reduced time players had to fully explore their characters but ensured that the majority of scenes ended on a hard hitting note, some which felt like an emotional punch.
To play this Larp successfully you need a very engaged facilitator and an ability to be able to let go of yourself and step into the life of your character. Perhaps due to the directing this was surprisingly easy. The first act, with it’s tones of self exploration in both constructive and destructive ways allowed all the players to build up characters who learn how to function together as a family. The dynamics between some particular characters and even the group as a whole built everyone up and brought them together.
And then, when act 2 hit it was a shock, although it shouldn’t have been, although we knew we were playing gay characters at the start of the 1980s, although we knew AIDs was part of the plot. When we were waiting for the death lottery I wasn’t only nervous because I didn’t want my character to be the one picked, I didn’t want any characters to be picked. I had grown so close to 4 fictional people over the course of about 2 hours that I didn’t want anyone to ‘die’ in the game (and be fine two hours later). And this was, for gay men in the 1980s, a reality of life. That you would watch friends and partners slowly dying in front of you and know that you could be next.
And when act 2 began everything had changed. All that had been built up was torn down again. There was guilt, grief and fear and little room for anything else. Even through this the characters processed their feelings in their own ways, staying consistent to their personalities. But there was also a thread running through act 2 about how death had changed everyone, and everyone was diminished by it.
In the epilogue, the 5 characters standing in a group hug, an unscripted moment of hope felt like it could be a redemption. People break and then go on the best way they know how. And if they live then they change but they don’t stay broken forever.
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