A player-run troupe of actors will be performing an adaptation of Richard III in Fallout 76, featuring a “ghoul” in the lead role. They’re partly inspired by the recent Fallout TV show, which puts a jaded cowboy ghoul in a pivotal role and has led to an increase in players of the online multiplayer RPG. This production will likely be more faithful to the bard than to Amazon Prime. It will open with the line: “Now is the nuclear winter of our discontent.”
“The play really fits the Fallout universe because the ableism experienced by the titular character is similar to that faced by ‘ghouls’ in the Fallout universe,” says Northern Harvest, artistic director of the Wasteland Theatre Company. “We draw inspiration from Walton Goggins’ charismatic portrayal of ‘The Ghoul’ in the Fallout on Prime show: torn duster, badass attitude and all.”
“Just imagine a post-apocalyptic ghoulified Laurence Olivier – that’s what we’re going for. “
The exact date of opening night is yet to be announced but it won’t be the first show we’ve seen from this band of Station 11-style thespians of the apocalypse. They’ve been performing for a few years, previously showing adaptations of Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and A Christmas Carol among others. There are also plans to show Hamlet later this year, with “gratuitous robot sex scenes and plenty of blood”, according to the playbill.
Rehearsals for Richard the Ghoul are ongoing, which is always impressive in a landscape crawling with mirelurks, mole rats and mega sloths (oh my). Not to mention a slew of new and returning players piling into the game off the back of the TV show’s influence. But the director says there have been mercifully few problems, at least with the human observers.
“The Fallout 76 community is notoriously nice,” he told us. “Since we performed our first show in 2021, we have had very few other players disrupt our productions. Most players who randomly come across our performances tend to sit down and watch in awe, walking away thinking ‘wait, did I just watch a Shakespeare play in Fallout?’
“One of our rehearsals was nuked though,” he added. “It is the Wasteland after all.”
And a wasteland audience requires a wasteland adaptation. Instead of 15th century England, Richard the Ghoul will be set in Filly, with the royal houses of England replaced with Vault Dwellers, the Brotherhood of Steel, and the New California Republic. In place of Shakespeare’s Queen Margaret, the “equally prophetic” Jet addict Mama Murphy of Fallout 4 fame will curse the ghoulish king. Meanwhile, the role of Richard will be filled by the play’s director, Jonathan Thomas, and the Theatre Company seems eager for other players to get involved in future productions.
“We hope new players stick around and enjoy the game as much as we do,” says Northern Harvest. “And who knows, maybe they are interested in joining up as an actor!”
Occupational hazards include being nuked, of course.
