Rebooting Brecht: Reimagining Epic Theatre for the 21st Century
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Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK
2019
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| Online Access: | http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555688903742283 |
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ndltd-OhioLink-oai-etd.ohiolink.edu-bgsu15556889037422832021-08-03T07:10:40Z Rebooting Brecht: Reimagining Epic Theatre for the 21st Century Rice, Andrea Germanic Literature Mass Communications Mass Media German Bertolt Brecht Walter Benjamin Guy Debord spectacle Marxism Posthumanism Immersive Play Epic Theatre Theatre Video Games Gaming Anime Visual Novels Doki Doki Literature Club Visual Media Mass Media Mass Communication Media Studies This thesis highlights the ways in which Bertolt Brecht’s concept of epic theatre pertains to video games, more particularly, visual novels. Digital drama and romance genres (aka “dating simulators”) are known for their “realism” for their ability to make the player feel as if they are interacting with real people. Yet, the deceptiveness is their apparent inability to replicate fully the kinds of social interactions a person can have. The plot structure oftentimes is also rather simplistic: the goal of these games is that the player gets the girl of their dreams, despite any hardships. The horror game Doki Doki Literature Club (2017) by game developer Dan Salvato challenges these genre shortcomings and aspire to make productive, I will argue, a Brechtian notion of epic theatre. Salvato had a love-hate relationship with visual novels. To him, visual novels were nothing more than “cute girls doing cute things” where any tragic backstory or character arc is just another objective the player must overcome to make the girl of their dreams fall in love with them. Like Brecht, Salvato wants to destroy the illusions created by visual novels and shock people into reflecting about such illusions. He created Doki Doki Literature Club, a horror game disguised as a dating simulator, which takes a critical look at issues such a mental health that visual novels often gloss over and treat as plot points in the story. 2019-05-31 English text Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555688903742283 http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555688903742283 unrestricted This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws. |
| collection |
NDLTD |
| language |
English |
| sources |
NDLTD |
| topic |
Germanic Literature Mass Communications Mass Media German Bertolt Brecht Walter Benjamin Guy Debord spectacle Marxism Posthumanism Immersive Play Epic Theatre Theatre Video Games Gaming Anime Visual Novels Doki Doki Literature Club Visual Media Mass Media Mass Communication Media Studies |
| spellingShingle |
Germanic Literature Mass Communications Mass Media German Bertolt Brecht Walter Benjamin Guy Debord spectacle Marxism Posthumanism Immersive Play Epic Theatre Theatre Video Games Gaming Anime Visual Novels Doki Doki Literature Club Visual Media Mass Media Mass Communication Media Studies Rice, Andrea Rebooting Brecht: Reimagining Epic Theatre for the 21st Century |
| author |
Rice, Andrea |
| author_facet |
Rice, Andrea |
| author_sort |
Rice, Andrea |
| title |
Rebooting Brecht: Reimagining Epic Theatre for the 21st Century |
| title_short |
Rebooting Brecht: Reimagining Epic Theatre for the 21st Century |
| title_full |
Rebooting Brecht: Reimagining Epic Theatre for the 21st Century |
| title_fullStr |
Rebooting Brecht: Reimagining Epic Theatre for the 21st Century |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Rebooting Brecht: Reimagining Epic Theatre for the 21st Century |
| title_sort |
rebooting brecht: reimagining epic theatre for the 21st century |
| publisher |
Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK |
| publishDate |
2019 |
| url |
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555688903742283 |
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AT riceandrea rebootingbrechtreimaginingepictheatreforthe21stcentury |
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