The Game by Bekah Brunsetter Explores the Impact of an MMORPG-Addicted Spouse on His Marriage

This article was published by Triangle Review on 11 April 2024.

PlayMakers Repertory Company's last show of its 2023-24 season is the world premiere of The Game by Winston-Salem native and University of North Carolina alumna Bekah Brunsetter, who wrote for NBC's This Is Us and wrote the book for The Notebook The Musical, which opened on Broadway last month.

The Game, directed by PlayMakers Rep's producing artistic director Vivienne Benesh, is the first production funded by PlayMakers' New Play Commissions Fund for the creation of plays that promote Southern stories and women's voices.

Though based on Aristophanes' Lysistrata, The Game is set in current-day Troy, North Carolina, not ancient Troy in Asia Minor. It features five women of differing generations and circumstances, who have formed a support group for women whose partners are addicted to the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) aptly called The Game.

The group is formed by Alyssa (Megan Ketch), who is a successful architect at the child-bearing stage of her marriage, and is comprised of four other women: pregnant military wife Cleo (Elizabeth Dye); online-auction fashionista Rhonda (Kathryn Hunter-Williams); childless older widow Myra (Cinny Strickland), and lesbian war photographer Jen (Sanjana Taskar). 

The play takes place in Alyssa’s large and affluent living room, with interludes from her husband’s video-game man cave that rises from beneath the stage from time to time.

Brunstetter’s writing highlights the women’s disparate personalities while enveloping them (and the audience) in their common womanhood and need to be seen by their partners.

Ketch portrays Alyssa with angst and desperation that conjured my own feelings, nearly 20 years ago, when my husband was spending more time playing World of Warcraft than with the kids and me. I grew teary when Alyssa confronts the possibility of divorcing her husband over The Game, because I have been in exactly that place.

But The Game is a comedy, and Ketch and the other actors deliver their often-poignant marital messages with laughable "It happens to all of us" aplomb. A highlight of the production, Cinny Strickland plays Myra with grandmotherly, baby-boomer. wisdom-concealing ditziness. Strickland’s well-rounded rendition of her character called to mind so many women I know.

In fact, in every character, I saw women that I've known throughout my life -- a true testament to the heart-touching universality of playwright Bekah Brunstetter'swriting, and the talented team of actors in this production.

Lucas Dixon makes his PlayMakers debut as Homer, the MMORPG-addicted husband of Alyssa. Homer's lazy, laid-off, video-game-playing college-boy lifestyle is driving Alyssa to the point of leaving. Dixon plays Homer with ease, underscoring the ludicrousness of a very real situation. It could just as easily have been my husband in his comfy "office" chair, playing Warcraft at 2 in the morning with a regular partner who lived in New Zealand. I was mentally uplifted by the similarities, the validation of my feelings at that time, and the assurance that I was and am still not alone.

Scenic designer Lee Savage's set is gorgeous. I wanted that spacious and luxurious living room in my own house. It provides plenty of space to view the physical interactions of all the actors.

Having the man-cave chair and video console rise and disappear from beneath the stage -- the same way a video-addicted partner or family member rises from and disappears back into their solitude -- is genius. 

But the most meaningful part of Lee Savage's set is the Pantheon-like building that forms the backdrop of the stage -- giant three-dimensional, marble-like stone columns beneath a giant gable roof that looks as if it were plucked from the ruins of ancient Rome. The statement is clear: regardless of digital and MMORPG technology, the relationship issues portrayed here today have persisted throughout human history, and always will.

When the production is over, the audience is left laughing at the intrusion of MMORPGs in their own lives, relieved in the acknowledgement that such marital/partner challenges can be overcome, and hopeful in the likelihood of forming meaningful connections with friends they have yet to meet.

Seeing The Game is sure to be an entertaining and meaningful way to spend your next date night. Who knows? It may pave the way for overcoming the intrusion of MMORPGs in your own family.