A day in the life of… Apartment A

Every morning, the inhabitants of Block A wake up having had a bit more respite from the harsh life in La Cage. They enjoy luxuries such as nearby running water, reliable electricity, and mostly repaired windows. Breakfast is a crucial social event, bringing the family together.

After that, nearly all of them leave for work. There are contracts to be fulfilled in the workshops, audits and repairs to be done, things to be pawned, and lies to be told. In the two critical days we will spend together in Revachol, the inhabitants of Block A will also have enough time in the morning work shift to participate in sports, political meetings, secret dates, or researching old genealogies. Of course, school is still on, so the teens of the neighbourhood will need to go to their last classes.

Lunch is a more communal affair. The community of Block A looks after each other and really tries to project that sense of “living together”, trading gossip, doing announcements, and sometimes calling on their friends and acquaintances.
The lunch can also quickly turn into preparing for a meeting of the “Home Owner Association” (the collective organ deciding who gets to live in the building and how) or even descend into an undignified shouting match with some punches added for good measure over the difficulties of living together, what the rent should be and whetherthe janitors are doing their job right. But of course that never happens in the upstanding Block A. And when it does happen, everybody acts as if it hadn’t by the next lunch.

After lunch, a day of honest work. For us, of course, it means just one work shift followed by both individual and common activities. Theatre, mass, lectures…and sorting out problems around the place. And if time allows, the inhabitants of Block A LOVE to meet the less fortunate people in the neighbourhood, at least so they can enjoy being looked up to. Their privileged position creates opportunities for them and gives others many causes to try to befriend them. These are the people with the most power among the powerless; who knows what kind of favours they could arrange?
Of course, the most they can offer is usually hard work in their workshops. And when they meet the people from the Local Union Branch (or, as they call it behind well-locked doors, Elian´s gang), they make sure to scrape out of their way.

All is right with the world now. Yes, there is bloody and unavoidable conflict brewing, but everybody loves to pretend that is just life.

Designer notes:

Along with Block B and Immigrant Housing, Block A makes up the majority of the characters. They make up the main population of the place: in their case, people wealthy enough to be quite sure to have food even next week, but still not really sure they can get medical care, and entirely sure they are stuck in a bad place with nowhere to go. Their game is about living in a place with some degree of comfort, but also about the inevitable bloody revolution against the current tyrants of the neighbourhood on Friday evening – and what comes after that. Block A will be in the eye of the hurricane made up of the building’s power struggle. The storm will start gathering slowly from the start of the game, become intense after the gang is gone, and culminate into a final confrontation on Saturday evening.