Carrying on at Clarence

by Gussie Irene Broad

I was not unhappy to be offered the role of "Carrie Nation" in Clarence in its recent run in the Rose Ballroom at the Bellvue-Statford Hotel here in Philadelphia. I should say by way of introduction that my father is a member of the Friends Meeting here - what most of you would know as the Quaker Church, and my mother is the daughter of a Lutheran Minister from Ohiopyle. I am a churchgoer, and a member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union for which I have done organization and community work.

I was pleased to learn that Clarence would be played here in Philadelphia, and I was told that it was a good and pleasant entertainment for decent Christian folk. I should say that I am by no means a fanatic of any kind, and that I do not refuse to associate with those who choose to drink a small quantity of liquor socially. My work, like that of most other Temperance folk is aimed at the millions - and I use that number informedly - of laboring class persons whose poverty and poor estate is profoundly effected by the easy availability of liquor - those who live in squalor and let their neglected children roam the streets while they drink cheap liquor in a subterranean den where the "bar" is a few boards or an old door, and the object of patronage is to become drunken as rapidly as possible to better bear insensate conditions in which no man should be forced to live.

To anyone who doubts this sort of place exists, I will recommend the excellent book: How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob Riis.

To say that Miss Nation is represented unfairly in Clarence is an understatement. I realize that the game was written three years past, however, Miss Nation's biography, The Use and Need of the Life of Carrie A. Nation has been published since last year, and I cannot but wonder if it would trouble the GMs to learn something about the characters that they write, rather than assembling the snippets of a few articles in the Hearst Paper written by journalists who see the world through the bottom of a whisky-glass.

I do not have room here to engage in a biography of Miss Nation, nor is it my intent to do so - to anyone who is interested - and everyone ought to be interested - I commend the aforesaid book. I will suffice it to say that while startling, Miss Nation's conduct in Kiowa and later has been directed against the saloons of the slums, and at the closing of "joints" of a sort that I should hope not even the vilest civilized person would wish anyone to attend. She has raised a hue and cry and done much good. I cannot always agree with her methods, but she is a person of pure heart.

The point of LARP as I understand it is to be entertained. Despite being handed a scrap of paper in which it was explained that I was a clear lunatic, and must wave my hatchet about and attempt to chop up things belonging to people of the better classes, possibly allying myself with anarchists and criminals, I endeavored to play the character as I had read in Miss Nation's Biography. I had come to be entertained and not in fact to lecture upon temperance, but having been given the person of someone who must do that, I certainly wished to uphold my end.

Let me say that I was not entertained. I was not entertained by being tied down to a table, and having the top of my skull removed by mawkish boys who used such as an excuse to touch my hair and fondle it rather rudely. I was not entertained by being told that as the "anti social gland" had been extracted from my brain, I was now no longer a danger to society and should go find "some good character to ally myself with," with a strong suggestion that should be the slavering schoolboy who had just filched my braincase, with whom I should say I would not go on a chaperoned date were he the last boy living on earth save the chaperon.

I did not appreciate being lectured by Mr. Walker about the "spirit of the game." It was clear that the "spirits of the game" were having their way with Mr. Walker, and can only say that if he is let out like that he should be made to walk straight lest he injure himself.

I was not entertained! I was not entertained by a discussion among male players which touched on the subject of my genitalia, specifically their removal for the betterment of the race. I do not care one whit for the scientific principles of sterilization - that is no excuse to hover one's hands suggestively over the torso of a member of the fairer sex, and speak words such as u______ [it is not clear whether Miss Broad did not actually write the word, or whether the Editorial policy of Metagame at the time prohibited the printing of the word - ed.] which are better passed among real men of medicine in private.

Following my forced lobotomization and sterilization, I was turned back into the game with Mr. Walker's admonitions to seek "the spirit of the game" and to "play the character."

I feel I visited upon the GMs no more than they deserved, and I very much resent being told that I "broke the rules" or "played against character." If my actions which seemed sane to me before my "anti social gland" were removed constituted irrationality, then it seems only fair that my actions afterward in which I embraced irrationality must be seen by the GMs as "rational" as they wished.

If it was "wrong" of me to side with Lady Grey, then so be it. It was after all originally suggested that I seek out anarchists! She seemed to be one of the few characters in possession of her faculties, and her rhetoric about the starving masses moved me more than did that of any of the other characters. If it is irrational so be it...I was cured of rationality by having by gland and reins removed!!!

I know there are those who feel that in helping Lady Grey both in the matter of the War Machine, and in the matter of witholding the components of the Astronef, I was a poor sport, and sided with her merely because I felt betrayed by the GMs. But this is not the case. I had good reason for my actions, and had hardly met Mr. King who wrote this character before the game, though I can say I should not receive him now though he perished of pneumonia in the rain.

If I am to be strapped down, and have my vitals and reason carved out, there is no telling what I or others might do! At last I was entertained, though I felt cheated when the GMs overturned a clear victory for the forces of anarchy and chaos on the flimsiest of pretexts!

Horatio King's response is largely off topic, and generally too long to quote in it's entirety. We excerpt a few important segments below

If my brain were to be carved up by someone who was an expert on the matter - as Dr. Schultze specifically was, I suppose I should think just what they wanted me to think! I should not have the cheek to go thinking otherwise. While I may fault the way in which Mr. Walker handled the detail of this scene, I have spoken with him and feel he was clear enough that Miss Nation's volition was not her own to do as she would, but rather to do as the good doctors would have her....

....it is vital to the game that the forces of anarchy be defeated. Lady Grey whilst charming and clever must in the end perish with the rest. In deference to my fellow GM she may be allowed to enjoy the sanctity of marriage, but it is my opinion that even if she repudiates her ways her past acts leave her no final destination other than a lethal chamber, though I have not always been heeded in this regard and some lesser punishments have been agreed to!.

I am not suggesting that the forces of evil and anarchy not be given a fair shot, and I resent any implication that the game is not firmly and fairly balanced. Of course they are given a fair chance, but being evil, needs must fail, and can expect no better - the world of the game will progress as the decent world does, in which all villains get their comeuppance, except perhaps for Big Bill Haywood. Or one supposes ff we cannot have decency in the real world, we can at least have it in the game world. There is nothing unfair about this. They must be given a fair chance and fail because the good characters shall overcome them. The GMs have never engaged in any deus ex machina to insure their victory, nor biased the game in that direction. It simply always so happens and always will!

....I wish to make it clear for one and all that in the game, the rule of law is supreme, and that I shall tolerate no dissent from my own rulings, or those of the GMs who serve with me!