Monologue

A player holds a monologue which is partly or completely outside of the fictions space and time. This can either interrupt all other play or go on alongside. The monologue is a tool to give other players insight into the speaking characters story and create game openings between them. It has the added benefit of making the speaking player feel like a main protagonist and give them closure to their own story.

Different uses

Monologue box

The player marks a square in the air, rather like a TV-screen around her face, does the monologue or meta comment, and then closes the box with the same gesture. This technique has at least once been mistaken for a way to give off game messages, but that is not its purpose.

Ping the glass

Every player has a glass and something to ping it with. (A pen, a spoon, whatever is convenient.) When a glass is pinged, the owner of the glass gives an inner monologue, and marks the end of it by taking a sip from the glass. This technique can be used either for players to elicit monologues from others, or just as a marker for the monologue itself. It was first used in New Voices in Art in 2007.

The Monologue as a tool for the Gamemaster

The type of Monologue that is often used during Slow take-off and Slow Landing. All the players stop their talking (most often also their activities) going into a neutral, pausemode, optionally closing their eyes. A Narrator (or GameMaster) tells a fragment of text verbally that can be used to direct the story or the situation into a new stage. Often used together with the instruction Freeze.

Monologues can also be requested by a gamemaster as in When Our Destinies Meet

Examples and Referances

This is very much in use in Jeepformgames like Doubt,Growing Up,The Journey It gives a feeling of a Brechtian theater where the narrator not only talks to the audience, but sort of acts out like a director at stage. Refer to plays of the type as The Caucasian Chalk Circle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Caucasian_Chalk_Circle).