I Think That Start Again: A Prologue Could Be Reasonably Adapted To Stage. Specifically Like A Play Or

I think that Start Again: A Prologue could be reasonably adapted to stage. Specifically like a play or whatever. It’s short enough and you can make the time loop stuff look really interesting by using things like the actors and set to make it look like time is rewinding and when a loop is going on like normal and they’re just going through the House you basically watch the set and characters move on the beats you saw while time was rewinding

It’d be structured very similarly to the game, in a way. It starts with Siffrin and the party being defeated by the King, time rewinding to the start of the next loop pretty soon after. The loop that follows is probably an hour or so long of the party going through the house before getting defeated and sent back again. The next loop leads into the true ending of the game and is a little shorter than the previous one on account of Siffrin zoning out and missing some scenes. When time loops back after they defeat the King, Siffrin wakes up in the meadow like how the true ending goes.

I imagine that when time is moving normally, the set/scenery will be moved around by crew to make the illusion of characters moving from location to location in the House. It wouldn’t be anything too complicated. When time loops, everyone but Siffrin does these movements through the House in reverse—Siffrin kind of just stands there whenever time loops back. Because of this, the set design would be relatively simple to reduce any points of failure.

A spotlight shines on Siffrin whenever the actor is doing any kind of internal monologue, like introducing the other members of the party or going on a ramble in their own head. All the other characters hold still whenever this happens. If its a short line of dialogue, like when Siffrin hears the King rambling about whatever and says “You’ve heard this all before” its kind of echo-y (unsure if the actor for Siffrin will have a voice double for this or whatever). When time loops back, the entire stage darkens and becomes backlit or smth like that (idk how to describe it you just gotta see the vision here). When the final lines of the performance are given, the entire stage darkens and you can’t see any of the characters, similar to how the screen goes white at the end of the game when the final dialogue boxes play.

I think that, in the format of a stage play, all of Siffrin’s references to the stage itself add an extra layer of meta narrative, similar to some really cool performances of other plays I’ve heard of in the past. Idk this is just a fun idea I’ve had swimming around in my head that would be interesting to be seen on a stage. Also the entire thing is still black and white that’s very important