Alexander Nathanson
Huis Clos
Introduction:
With this game I was trying to recreate what I saw when i first read ‘’ Huis Clos’’; this title is a play written french existentialist writer and philosopher, Jean Paul Sartre.
Existentialism; or the was an intrinsic part of the time, Sartre himself describes existentialist as “what all existentialists have in common is the fundamental doctrine that existence precedes essence”.This game would try to get the player in a similar situation as the characters in the play.
Requirements:
1 closed space
3 players
Rules:
The players enter the room, they all take a seat and they will be explained the rules of the game.
At the end of the game they will be left with this quote, “ Hell is the others”,which is one of Sartre’s most important quotes; which is most of the time wrongly represented, Sartre was not trying to say that others create hell, he was saying that since we only really know ourselves and the only other thing we have to look at us is other’s view of us which means that if we are surrounded by people that think badly of us we will think badly of us.
So as to manage to recreate this aspect in the game. the players will all have a different character that they will be(they need and can make their characters background story as rich as they possibly can) asked to judge one another.
1 a widow| widower
that cheated on the husband| wife and he she committed suicide
2
a usurer
used to hurt people for money
3
and a politician who doesn’t understand the struggles common people have and doesn’t respect them.
they will have 5 minutes to add details to their character.
they will be told they have 10 minutes to judge one of the three for their actions.
after the 10 minutes pass, the player that is judged will loose and the two other players will win and will be told “L’enfer C’est les autres.”