THEATER and THEOLOGY

A LARP for 12 players, produced in cooperation with Theater in the Rough:

A LARP, or Live Action Role-Playing game, is a form of role-play in which participants physically act as characters inside a shared fictional situation. Instead of describing what their character does around a table, as in some role-playing games, players move, speak, negotiate, explore, and make choices as their characters in real time. It is partly a game, partly improvisation, and partly theater, except there is usually no outside audience; the experience is for the people taking part.

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Creators: Lian Yedidya, Natan Skop, Hila Meinrath

 

Illustration: Lianna Boermeester

 

A live role-playing game about words, identity, and community

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Engolemment is a participatory and improvisational performance-game that explores how language shapes who we are — and how we shape ourselves through language. During the game, participants play a group of Golems — anthropomorphic creatures created by kabbalists versed in secret knowledge who imbued them with life. Each Golem is limited to a small number of words that can be used to communicate with the other Golems. Within this limitation, the players will discover the words to shape themselves, both as individuals and as a community. The characters must obey their creators’ instructions, working together as a group toward a common goal — building a wall to protect their village. However, little by little another story emerges that casts new light on the mystery of their existence.

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The Story

 

In a small and remote Jewish shtetl, the first Golem, Truth (אמת), was created  by the local rabbi. A man well-versed in the secrets of the Kabbalah, he sought to prove his powers by studying the Sefer Yetzirah (ספר יצירה, lit. Book of Creation). At first Truth sat around idly, only repeating a single word, it’s own name. Until the townspeople began to assign it countless tasks, which it fulfilled faithfully.

 

One day, while arranging the genizah, Truth discovered it could utter sacred words and use them to change its nature. And thus, slowly, it developed consciousness. When the residents of the shtetl began to feel threatened and attempted to return him to dust, the Golem ran into the forest and disappeared.

 

Over the years and generations that passed, the secret of creation was leaked to others in the community, who copied the secret instructions and fashioned Golems of their own.

 

A dozen Golems now live among the shtetl residents — each with its own name and  role. Today, there is peace and prosperity among the shtetl residents and the Golems. Each Golem bore a seal (חושן) – a personal tablet of words, engraved with the words that brought it to life.

 

But when rumors spread of a mysterious and impending threat, shtetl residents decided to build a defensive wall — made of stones bound by sacred words — and thus the wall, too, was imbued with the power of life, just like the Golems themselves.

 

Now the Golems face a fateful decision: between duty and self-sacrifice for the sake of the community, and the change to discover who else they might yet be.