I Say a Little Prayer by Tor Kjetil Edland
http://download.alexandria.dk/files/scenario/3819/I%20Say%20a%20Little%20Prayer.pdf
Actual Play
I Say a Little Prayer is a freeform game by Tor Kjetil Edland that explores the AIDS epidemic of the 1980’s through the eyes of five gay men who co-habitate in a large city that seems to alternately both welcome and despise them. Halfway through the story one of them will die, and another dies at the end of the game, both of them taken away at the dawn of the “gay cancer” that was whispered about quietly in America.
To play Say a Little Prayer takes four hours, but we had less than two, a function of timing at the conference. The facilitator the was a little hesitant to play a shortened version, though ultimately we all agreed to just play through Act 1. I was initially surprised at her reluctance, but having now played the game a little and read what would have followed, I completely understand it now… more on that later.
Still, I am glad for the experience, truncated as it may have been. I Say a Little Prayer is one of the most elegantly designed games I have ever played, one which incorporates complex societal ideas, visceral experience, and the nature of memory and grief. While I have heard it described as a smaller version of Just a Little Lovin’ by Tor Kjetil Edland and Hanne Grasmo, a larp which involves elaborate costumes and multiple characters who play each day of the game as a year in game time, and which Evan Torner has eloquently described as a life-changing experience. For my part though, I was very fond of the tight intimacy between the characters squished into their tiny apartment, and not being much of a person for huge dance parties, I suspect it was a bit more to my taste.
We began with a frank discussion of the history I Say a Little Prayer represents, and our own connections with AIDS. In our group some of us had lost close friends or lovers, some of us were gay and had lived in fear by association, others grew up in families steeped in medicine, and one of us had grown up far overseas, where it was linked to drug use instead of sexuality. I have never lost anyone to AIDS, though I have known people who have, but my mother was a nurse and I grew up surrounded by the knowledge of its existence. It has been a part of the world around me to the point where I almost could take it for granted, a constant but unsubstantiated fear. I think it is fair to say playing this game threw it into a much more personal realm for me, and alerted me to blinders I was not even aware that I had been wearing.
I Say a Little Prayer includes two workshops, the first of which gave me pause on my first read-through. Players form into groups (we had groups of three), and one player closes their eyes while the others touch and massage body parts away from the bikini areas. As I had assumed a semi-leadership role in organizing the game, I saw it as my role to go first in my group. It was strange, offering that kind of trust to people I barely knew, and even stranger not to know exactly who was touching me where at any given point. When it was my turn, I marveled at the feel of the fabric and the sinew beneath, at the marvelous diversity of our bodies, and at the trust being extended to me. The end result was that we developed a friendly intimacy and comfort with one another’s bodies in a much shorter time span than I would have thought possible. After the end of this exercise players establish their limits for the game, the places they simply do not want to be touched.
After the workshop, players choose their characters. After they were described, I was the first to choose, and I chose to play Daniel. Daniel was a drag queen who performs under the name Lady Verona, and who eternally arranged to help others open their hearts while remaining an elusive and mysterious figure himself. Concerned that I, as a white, heterosexual, cis-gendered male might trip into caricature I quietly asked one of the other players (who had shared his identity as a homosexual) to please let me know if I crossed any lines. He laughed and told me I would be fine, and I was again struck by the deep trust that had developed so quickly.
I wrote Daniel’s name on one side of the name tag in my lanyard, and on the other I wrote Lady Verona. When out of drag I declared Daniel preferred to be addressed as “he”, but Lady Verona was very insistent on the opposite. Another player loaned me her scarf, which became the sole prop I would use as head-dress, scarf, clothing, or blanket. As Daniel, I was no longer a heavyset bear of a man, but a creature of beauty and poise. Vain and selfish, self-admittedly so, but never the less a little bit of light in a dark world. As Daniel, or more particularly as Lady Verona, I swore I would lead my loved ones and teach them all that I knew.
The characters existed in context with one another, in many ways defining one another, so play is not really possible if one of them is missing. While I describe my experience from a Daniel-centric perspective, I also want to quickly summarize the friends and housemates that meant so much to him. Probably the most important to Daniel was Tommy, a struggling actor with a mercurial temperament, whose deep affection for Daniel meant that he put up with more manipulation and backhanded compliments than he probably should have. Benny was the new guy, only recently relocated from the rural world he had grown up in, and excited to try as many new things as possible. Robert was an idealistic dancer, full of life and love for his partner Jim, and very caring towards everyone in the group. Jim was a student of comparative literature, who described himself in play as being on a “hero’s journey”, and who was interested in turning his relationship with Robert into an open one.
We also developed the little apartment we shared, a tiny one-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a brownstone with no elevator. Benny slept on the futon, Jim and Robert shared the bed, and Tommy and Daniel slept in a walk-in closet they had converted into a bedroom. The space was mostly open, and since the bathroom lacked a shower, bathing happened in a tub they filled from the kitchen sink. Jim’s orderly stacks of books competed with Robert’s randomly strewn clothes, and Benny’s cigarette smoke created a fug that competed with Daniel’s perfume. Sometimes they would go to the roof, which was covered in sticky tar, for a chance to take in all of New York. Sometimes Daniel slept out there in an improvised hammock so he could see the stars.
The vignettes between the characters develop the characters first as a community telling stories to one another, then in small scenes particular to certain relationships, and then as a group on the morning-after of a big party, allowing players to grow to know the characters as individuals and as a part of a complex weaving of friendship and insecurity. Each scene we played exhibited traits we might have found appealing or disappointing in our characters. For my part, I valued Daniel’s easy-going nature and interest in guiding his friends to follow their hearts, but found his light-hearted manipulations of others, especially Tommy, to be downright cruel. Daniel was something of a tease who liked to keep people guessing, to seem to be approachable, but to always be just out of reach, merrily taunting his friends to follow him still further.
At the end of the first Act the characters in the game participate in a lottery, and the character chosen in that lottery dies at the end of Act I. Players choose between one and five entries, based on how much risk they think their character has taken, that will bear their name in the lottery. In our group we tended to skew a little on the high side in this Act, which I suspect is often the case since the characters are not yet fully aware of the danger they are in. Daniel put in three slips… but Lady Verona put in two, and his name was chosen, to the surprise of everyone but me. Daniel had promised to lead the way, a thing I myself had tried throughout the game to do the same for my fellow players. It was, in that way, fitting. Sad and heartbreaking, but fitting.
The facilitator asked what the first signs were that Daniel was sick. I answered that he fell too ill to perform, the first time anyone could recall that happening. How did his friends react? They were concerned, but were sure he would get better. He just never did. Did you tell your family? Never. How did Daniel feel about being the hospital? Angry, at least at first. He couldn’t see the stars anymore.
I Say a Little Prayer keys events to music from the 80’s, which sets the tone in terms of time and emotion and helps ease transitions, both those of the players into and out of the story and the characters through their lives. For the scene in which a character dies, Chopin’s Funeral March is played. Each player grips the person who is dying somewhere on their body, and then let go one by one, with the person who is closest releasing last. When the last person lets go, the player closes their eyes.
It was a strange thing, having people cry over me while I lay there. People I did not know well, but had grown to care for in the persona of characters I had also grown close to. Because of my angle I could only see Jim, who was a wreck, and was the first to relinquish his hold in deference to the others. As one by one I felt grips I could not identify loosen and disappear, I thought about my own relationships with death. I thought about my mother, who I had given morphine too when she was in hospice with us before cancer took her at last. I thought about the sensation of her fuzzy hair, and how the hole in my life still stands open. Tommy (I found out later) was the last to let go from his place at my left ankle. I closed my eyes.
And then Daniel died. The year was 1985.
Before we debriefed, the facilitator played Aretha Franklin’s “I say a Little Prayer”. It seemed to speak just to us.
The moment I wake up
Before I put on my makeup
I say a little prayer for you
While combing my hair, now
And wondering what dress to wear now
I say a little prayer for you
Forever, forever, you'll stay in my heart
And I will love you
Forever and ever, we never will part
Oh, how I'll love you
Together, together, that's how it must be
To live without you
Would only be a heartbreak for me
We all dealt with the game differently. One of us had lived through the events we were portraying, and felt inured to the raw feelings he saw around him. Another felt that the experience filled a missing link in his own life. Yet another felt nothing, and was afraid what that meant for when the emotions finally caught up with him. Benny’s player had a hard time imagining going through the process multiple times, as the emotional toll was high and powerful. I had not cried as Daniel, but in discussing my thoughts while he lied in state I couldn’t really help it. Jim’s player had been sure it would be him, and that Daniel would be the one to live and chronicle the story. I put on Daniel’s voice one last time and said “That’s just your author’s soul dear. Lady Verona: center stage, and leading the way.” It was a beautiful run, one for which I am thankful. We saluted it with imported cognac Benny’s player had brought, for which I was also thankful. It seemed appropriate.
So now the regret: no Act II. Act II fills out more of the lives as they react to loss in their own particular ways. It is less scripted then Act I, providing only broad themes to work around, and ultimately ends with another death. During these scenes the deceased character can be present and talking, or even touching the other characters, who can react emotionally to these actions. However, he is a shadow who is not acknowledged by the other characters who also cannot be said to “sense his presence”. After the game I realized that is because the character is not so much a ghost, but a memory. When someone you know well has gone, you often feel you can imagine that you know just what they would do or say. This brings equal parts sadness and comfort, a mix of longing for someone while still feeling their presence. Because of time restrictions, we were not able to have those scenes. I do not believe they would have offered closure in any way, rather that they would have offered another point of humanity. In this way, players could see that death is the end of many things, but not all things, and that our connections exceed the limitations of our lives.
However, the fact is that this game happened in the way it had to happen, and I love that it happened with these people and at this time. I value our shared experience and the opportunities it offered for me to develop personal relationships with people so different, and yet so similar, to myself. If the game did not have a chance to fully fulfill its promise, that existence of absence is not absence of existence, it did grant me a small window through which I can view lives other than my own. Through which I can mourn for the imagined Daniel and my ever-present mother.
And I have to tell you, I don’t think I will ever hear that song the same way again.
http://download.alexandria.dk/files/scenario/3819/I%20Say%20a%20Little%20Prayer.pdf
Actual Play
I Say a Little Prayer is a freeform game by Tor Kjetil Edland that explores the AIDS epidemic of the 1980’s through the eyes of five gay men who co-habitate in a large city that seems to alternately both welcome and despise them. Halfway through the story one of them will die, and another dies at the end of the game, both of them taken away at the dawn of the “gay cancer” that was whispered about quietly in America.
To play Say a Little Prayer takes four hours, but we had less than two, a function of timing at the conference. The facilitator the was a little hesitant to play a shortened version, though ultimately we all agreed to just play through Act 1. I was initially surprised at her reluctance, but having now played the game a little and read what would have followed, I completely understand it now… more on that later.
Still, I am glad for the experience, truncated as it may have been. I Say a Little Prayer is one of the most elegantly designed games I have ever played, one which incorporates complex societal ideas, visceral experience, and the nature of memory and grief. While I have heard it described as a smaller version of Just a Little Lovin’ by Tor Kjetil Edland and Hanne Grasmo, a larp which involves elaborate costumes and multiple characters who play each day of the game as a year in game time, and which Evan Torner has eloquently described as a life-changing experience. For my part though, I was very fond of the tight intimacy between the characters squished into their tiny apartment, and not being much of a person for huge dance parties, I suspect it was a bit more to my taste.
We began with a frank discussion of the history I Say a Little Prayer represents, and our own connections with AIDS. In our group some of us had lost close friends or lovers, some of us were gay and had lived in fear by association, others grew up in families steeped in medicine, and one of us had grown up far overseas, where it was linked to drug use instead of sexuality. I have never lost anyone to AIDS, though I have known people who have, but my mother was a nurse and I grew up surrounded by the knowledge of its existence. It has been a part of the world around me to the point where I almost could take it for granted, a constant but unsubstantiated fear. I think it is fair to say playing this game threw it into a much more personal realm for me, and alerted me to blinders I was not even aware that I had been wearing.
I Say a Little Prayer includes two workshops, the first of which gave me pause on my first read-through. Players form into groups (we had groups of three), and one player closes their eyes while the others touch and massage body parts away from the bikini areas. As I had assumed a semi-leadership role in organizing the game, I saw it as my role to go first in my group. It was strange, offering that kind of trust to people I barely knew, and even stranger not to know exactly who was touching me where at any given point. When it was my turn, I marveled at the feel of the fabric and the sinew beneath, at the marvelous diversity of our bodies, and at the trust being extended to me. The end result was that we developed a friendly intimacy and comfort with one another’s bodies in a much shorter time span than I would have thought possible. After the end of this exercise players establish their limits for the game, the places they simply do not want to be touched.
After the workshop, players choose their characters. After they were described, I was the first to choose, and I chose to play Daniel. Daniel was a drag queen who performs under the name Lady Verona, and who eternally arranged to help others open their hearts while remaining an elusive and mysterious figure himself. Concerned that I, as a white, heterosexual, cis-gendered male might trip into caricature I quietly asked one of the other players (who had shared his identity as a homosexual) to please let me know if I crossed any lines. He laughed and told me I would be fine, and I was again struck by the deep trust that had developed so quickly.
I wrote Daniel’s name on one side of the name tag in my lanyard, and on the other I wrote Lady Verona. When out of drag I declared Daniel preferred to be addressed as “he”, but Lady Verona was very insistent on the opposite. Another player loaned me her scarf, which became the sole prop I would use as head-dress, scarf, clothing, or blanket. As Daniel, I was no longer a heavyset bear of a man, but a creature of beauty and poise. Vain and selfish, self-admittedly so, but never the less a little bit of light in a dark world. As Daniel, or more particularly as Lady Verona, I swore I would lead my loved ones and teach them all that I knew.
The characters existed in context with one another, in many ways defining one another, so play is not really possible if one of them is missing. While I describe my experience from a Daniel-centric perspective, I also want to quickly summarize the friends and housemates that meant so much to him. Probably the most important to Daniel was Tommy, a struggling actor with a mercurial temperament, whose deep affection for Daniel meant that he put up with more manipulation and backhanded compliments than he probably should have. Benny was the new guy, only recently relocated from the rural world he had grown up in, and excited to try as many new things as possible. Robert was an idealistic dancer, full of life and love for his partner Jim, and very caring towards everyone in the group. Jim was a student of comparative literature, who described himself in play as being on a “hero’s journey”, and who was interested in turning his relationship with Robert into an open one.
We also developed the little apartment we shared, a tiny one-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a brownstone with no elevator. Benny slept on the futon, Jim and Robert shared the bed, and Tommy and Daniel slept in a walk-in closet they had converted into a bedroom. The space was mostly open, and since the bathroom lacked a shower, bathing happened in a tub they filled from the kitchen sink. Jim’s orderly stacks of books competed with Robert’s randomly strewn clothes, and Benny’s cigarette smoke created a fug that competed with Daniel’s perfume. Sometimes they would go to the roof, which was covered in sticky tar, for a chance to take in all of New York. Sometimes Daniel slept out there in an improvised hammock so he could see the stars.
The vignettes between the characters develop the characters first as a community telling stories to one another, then in small scenes particular to certain relationships, and then as a group on the morning-after of a big party, allowing players to grow to know the characters as individuals and as a part of a complex weaving of friendship and insecurity. Each scene we played exhibited traits we might have found appealing or disappointing in our characters. For my part, I valued Daniel’s easy-going nature and interest in guiding his friends to follow their hearts, but found his light-hearted manipulations of others, especially Tommy, to be downright cruel. Daniel was something of a tease who liked to keep people guessing, to seem to be approachable, but to always be just out of reach, merrily taunting his friends to follow him still further.
At the end of the first Act the characters in the game participate in a lottery, and the character chosen in that lottery dies at the end of Act I. Players choose between one and five entries, based on how much risk they think their character has taken, that will bear their name in the lottery. In our group we tended to skew a little on the high side in this Act, which I suspect is often the case since the characters are not yet fully aware of the danger they are in. Daniel put in three slips… but Lady Verona put in two, and his name was chosen, to the surprise of everyone but me. Daniel had promised to lead the way, a thing I myself had tried throughout the game to do the same for my fellow players. It was, in that way, fitting. Sad and heartbreaking, but fitting.
The facilitator asked what the first signs were that Daniel was sick. I answered that he fell too ill to perform, the first time anyone could recall that happening. How did his friends react? They were concerned, but were sure he would get better. He just never did. Did you tell your family? Never. How did Daniel feel about being the hospital? Angry, at least at first. He couldn’t see the stars anymore.
I Say a Little Prayer keys events to music from the 80’s, which sets the tone in terms of time and emotion and helps ease transitions, both those of the players into and out of the story and the characters through their lives. For the scene in which a character dies, Chopin’s Funeral March is played. Each player grips the person who is dying somewhere on their body, and then let go one by one, with the person who is closest releasing last. When the last person lets go, the player closes their eyes.
It was a strange thing, having people cry over me while I lay there. People I did not know well, but had grown to care for in the persona of characters I had also grown close to. Because of my angle I could only see Jim, who was a wreck, and was the first to relinquish his hold in deference to the others. As one by one I felt grips I could not identify loosen and disappear, I thought about my own relationships with death. I thought about my mother, who I had given morphine too when she was in hospice with us before cancer took her at last. I thought about the sensation of her fuzzy hair, and how the hole in my life still stands open. Tommy (I found out later) was the last to let go from his place at my left ankle. I closed my eyes.
And then Daniel died. The year was 1985.
Before we debriefed, the facilitator played Aretha Franklin’s “I say a Little Prayer”. It seemed to speak just to us.
The moment I wake up
Before I put on my makeup
I say a little prayer for you
While combing my hair, now
And wondering what dress to wear now
I say a little prayer for you
Forever, forever, you'll stay in my heart
And I will love you
Forever and ever, we never will part
Oh, how I'll love you
Together, together, that's how it must be
To live without you
Would only be a heartbreak for me
We all dealt with the game differently. One of us had lived through the events we were portraying, and felt inured to the raw feelings he saw around him. Another felt that the experience filled a missing link in his own life. Yet another felt nothing, and was afraid what that meant for when the emotions finally caught up with him. Benny’s player had a hard time imagining going through the process multiple times, as the emotional toll was high and powerful. I had not cried as Daniel, but in discussing my thoughts while he lied in state I couldn’t really help it. Jim’s player had been sure it would be him, and that Daniel would be the one to live and chronicle the story. I put on Daniel’s voice one last time and said “That’s just your author’s soul dear. Lady Verona: center stage, and leading the way.” It was a beautiful run, one for which I am thankful. We saluted it with imported cognac Benny’s player had brought, for which I was also thankful. It seemed appropriate.
So now the regret: no Act II. Act II fills out more of the lives as they react to loss in their own particular ways. It is less scripted then Act I, providing only broad themes to work around, and ultimately ends with another death. During these scenes the deceased character can be present and talking, or even touching the other characters, who can react emotionally to these actions. However, he is a shadow who is not acknowledged by the other characters who also cannot be said to “sense his presence”. After the game I realized that is because the character is not so much a ghost, but a memory. When someone you know well has gone, you often feel you can imagine that you know just what they would do or say. This brings equal parts sadness and comfort, a mix of longing for someone while still feeling their presence. Because of time restrictions, we were not able to have those scenes. I do not believe they would have offered closure in any way, rather that they would have offered another point of humanity. In this way, players could see that death is the end of many things, but not all things, and that our connections exceed the limitations of our lives.
However, the fact is that this game happened in the way it had to happen, and I love that it happened with these people and at this time. I value our shared experience and the opportunities it offered for me to develop personal relationships with people so different, and yet so similar, to myself. If the game did not have a chance to fully fulfill its promise, that existence of absence is not absence of existence, it did grant me a small window through which I can view lives other than my own. Through which I can mourn for the imagined Daniel and my ever-present mother.
And I have to tell you, I don’t think I will ever hear that song the same way again.
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