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Rebooting Brecht: Reimagining Epic Theatre for the 21st Century

Rice, Andrea
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555688903742283

Abstract Details

2019, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, German.
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.
Edgar Landgraf, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Kristie Foell, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Clayton Rosati, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
75 p.
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

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Rice, A. (2019). Rebooting Brecht: Reimagining Epic Theatre for the 21st Century [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555688903742283

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Rice, Andrea. Rebooting Brecht: Reimagining Epic Theatre for the 21st Century. 2019. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555688903742283.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Rice, Andrea. "Rebooting Brecht: Reimagining Epic Theatre for the 21st Century." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555688903742283

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1555688903742283
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© 2019, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.