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LARP
Weavers at the Loom of Fate
Date
@ 9:30 a.m.
Convention

SFS Live Action Weekend 2013

Location
WPI, Worcester, MA, USA
Description

An ordinary party. Extraordinary people. Destinies collide. Bonds are made and broken. Players write their characters' plots in-game? Game wrap part-way through? What fevered dream is this?

At a time when his contemporaries were making drama that entertained and made audiences feel, Bertolt Brecht took his theatre in a radical direction by making theatre that taught and made them think. Notably, he interfered with suspension of disbelief by “messing with the meta”, ensuring his audience would stay emotionally detached from the play. Additionally, rather than making sympathetic, complex characters, his characters were often simple abstract representations, emphasizing their social function over their individuality and helping the audience to judge them and reflect on their actions. His influence can be seen in a variety of modern media, from the award winning musical Pippin to postmodern film techniques to comic book characters talking directly to the reader.

This LARP plays with Brecht's ideas in a few ways. Characters are defined by their relationships to each other, not their backstory or individuality. Second, immersion in the LARP will be intentionally broken to allow for critical reflection of the game's progression and to be true to Brecht's vision of dramatic theory.