Messina | Larp

Messina, Sicily

Cast List:

Benedick

Beatrice

Claudio

Hero

Don Pedro (potentially understudy role)

Friar Francis (potentially understudy role)

Margaret Ursula (potentially understudy role)

Dogberry (potentially understudy role)

Leonato (potentially understudy or can be NPC)

Don John (NPC)

Conrade Boracchio (NPC)

Antonio (NPC)

(misc. Servants, watchmen etc as additional NPC roles)

At the time the Plothole to the Isle of Sycorax opens:

Leonato, a kindly, respectable nobleman, has welcomed friends home from war. He lives with his daughter Hero, who is in love with Claudio (one of the newly returned soldiers), as well as with his witty and sarcastic niece Beatrice, the daughter of his brother Antonio, who is the Duke of Milan; Antonio is away attending the wedding of Princess Claribel of Naples to the King of Tunis, but is expected to join the party shortly - likely joined by his close companion Sebastian, Claribel’s uncle.

The friends feasting in his house include Don Pedro, a prince, and his bastard brother Don John, whose attempts to usurp his brother have been thwarted, and whose presence at the party is both as guest and prisoner, with tensions high between the two Dons.

Don Pedro’s best friend is Benedick, who is as witty and sarcastic as Beatrice; the two often playfully and flirtatiously make jokes at the other’s expense, but both are too prideful to admit that they have romantic feelings for the other.

Claudio and Hero are to be married by Friar Francis, and local watchman Dogberry is in charge of ensuring that everything goes according to plan.

Meanwhile, Hero and her best friend/waiting gentlewoman Margaret Ursula hatch a plan to convince Beatrice that Benedick is in love with her, whilst Claudio and Don Pedro convince Benedick that Beatrice is in love with him, each with a series of tricks and jokes.

However, Don John is plotting with his companion Conrade Boracchio to convince Claudio that Hero is having an affair; their plan is to trick Claudio into witnessing Margaret Ursula sneaking her lover Conrade Boracchio into her room and to convince him that this was actually Hero, sneaking another man into her bedroom the night before her wedding. This plan, of course, requires the diabolical duo not being caught by Dogberry and his team of watchmen, as well as requiring Margaret Ursula’s unknowing assistance to play her part in the ruse.

Note: Friar Francis has a particular interest in alchemy and potions - these potions vary from a serum that can allow the drinker to appear as dead, whilst secretly living, as well as actual poisons and a range of other liquids with magical properties. Dogberry is often called upon as an entertainer, whether he is aware of what has made people laugh at/with him or not.

As such, before the Plothole opens, the following plans are made but not yet set in motion:

For Claudio and Hero to be married by Friar Francis
For Don John and Conrade Boracchio to convince Claudio and his friends that Hero is unfaithful; potentially by using Margaret Ursula as an unwitting pawn in their game (if Dogberry and the watchmen do not overhear to foil these villainous plans)
For Hero and Margaret Ursula to convince Beatrice that Benedick loves her, in order that she might admit her own love for him
For Claudio and Don Pedro to convince Benedick that Beatrice loves him, in order that he might admit his own love for her in turn

At a masquerade ball in Messina, welcoming Don Pedro, Benedick, Claudio and the returned soldiers to Leonato’s house, all of the above characters are feasting, dancing and drinking, when a magical whirlpool appears; the Plothole envelops them all, and when they awaken, they are on the shores of an unknown island, with several others from strange lands that they do not know or recognise…