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It's the relationship to live theater that seems particularly illuminating when discussing Hitman. Like live theater, you're a performer living in a role that you'll never be able to access in the same way again. In any particular play, an actor exists as that character for a few short hours, until the run of the play ends. And then, it's done; those exact circumstances, the alchemy of direction and staging and casting that created that expression of that character, will never exist again.So it is with the Elusive Targets: You will never be that Agent 47, in that version of Sapienza, hunting down that target, ever again.The transience of the Elusive Targets turns Hitman into a heightened, vivid play space. It's not a place where you learn things you didn't know before, but instead it's a place where you reveal what you already knew. It tests your skills under pressure, showing you precisely what you can and can't accomplish. You don't learn how to be Agent 47. Here, you become the Agent 47 you've always been. Every moment echoes outward, weighted down with meaning. This is what this experience will always be.Live performance is also a space to conjure and reflect upon the passage of time itself. They mark time, but more than that, they let us see the ghosts of all of our temporary experiences. When the performance ends, you will have to live with whatever happens forever. When I pull the trigger on 47's silenced pistol, or attempt some mad trap to eliminate my targets, any damage done will last. There is no reloading—time only moves forward. This can become a metaphor for aging, the frailty of relationships, anything and everything that has an ending. As theorist Howard Barker put it, theater is a rehearsal for death."When the performance ends, you will have to live with whatever happens forever."
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