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The audience cheers various decisions made during the playing of \u201casses.masses\u201d at UCLA Nimoy Theater.<\/p>\n
(Myung J. Chun \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
And for the audience at the Saturday showing at the UCLA Nimoy Theater, it felt like a call to arms. Citizens executed in the street for exercising their right to free speech? That\u2019s in here. Run-ins with authorities that recall images seen in multiple American cities over the past few months? Also in here, albeit in a retro, pixel art style that may bring to mind the \u201cFinal Fantasy\u201d series from its Super Nintendo days. <\/p>\n
In a city that\u2019s been ravaged by fires, ICE raids and a series of entertainment industry layoffs, the sold-out crowd of nearly 300 was riled up. Chants of \u201cass power!\u201d \u2014 the donkey\u2019s protest slogan \u2014 were heard throughout the day as attendees politely gathered near a single video game controller on a dais to play the game, becoming not just the avatar for the donkeys but a momentary leader for the collective. Cheers would erupt when a young donkey reached the conclusion that \u201cI kinda think the system is rigged against everyone.\u201d And when technological advances, clearly a stand-in for artificial intelligence, were described as \u201cevil, soulless, job-taking, child-killing machines,\u201d there were knowing claps, as if no exaggeration was stated. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur theater is supposed to be a rehearsal for life,\u201d says Patrick Blenkarn, who co-created the game with Milton Lim, interdisciplinary artists from Canada who often work with interactive media. <\/p>\n
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\u201cWe grew up in a radical political tradition of theater,\u201d says Patrick Blenkarn, right, who co-created \u201casses.masses\u201d with Milton Lim.<\/p>\n
(Myung J. Chun \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe grew up in a radical political tradition of theater, where this is where we can rehearse emotional experience \u2014 catharsis,\u201d Blenkarn says. \u201cThat is what art is supposed to be doing. We have been very interested in the idea that if we come together, what are we going to do and how are we going to do it? What we are seeing in your country, and other countries, is the question of how are we going to change our behavior, and will the people who currently have the controller listen? And if they don\u2019t, what do we do?\u201d<\/p>\n
Video games are inherently theatrical. Even if one is playing solo on the couch, a video game is a dialogue, a performance between a player and unseen designers. Blenkarn and Lim also spoke in an interview prior to the show of wanting to re-create the sensation of gathering around a television and passing a controller back and forth among family or friends while offering commentary on someone\u2019s play style. Only at scale. And while I thought \u201casses.masses\u201d could work, too, as a solitary experience at home, its themes of collective action and reaching a group consensus, often through boos or shouts of encouragement, made it particularly well-suited for a performance.<\/p>\n
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The UCLA Nimoy Theater played host to \u201casses.masses\u201d this weekend.<\/p>\n
(Myung J. Chun \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Beginning at 1 p.m. and ending shortly after 8 p.m., coincidentally, says Blenkarn, the length or so of a working day, not everyone made it to the \u201casses.masses\u201d conclusion. About a quarter of the audience \u2014 a crowd that was clearly familiar with the multiple video game style represented in \u201casses.masses\u201d \u2014 couldn\u2019t stand the endurance test. But in a time of binge-watching, I didn\u2019t find the length prohibitive. There were multiple intermissions, but those became part of the show as well, as there was no set time limit. Blenkarn and Lim were asking the audience, via a prompt on the screen, to jointly agree upon a length, emphasizing, once again, the importance of collective cooperation. <\/p>\n
And \u201casses.masses\u201d holds interest because it, in part, embraces the animated absurdity and inherent experimentation of the medium. While often in a retro pixel art style, at times the game shifted into a more modern open-world look. And the story veers down multiple paths and side-quests \u2014 some requiring wild coordination such as a rhythm game meant to simulate donkey sex, and others more tense, such as \u201cMetal Gear\u201d-like sneaking, complete with the donkeys hiding in cardboard boxes. <\/p>\n
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Audiences vote, often by cheering or booing, on choices in \u201casses.masses.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Myung J. Chun \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
The way \u201casses.masses\u201d shifted tones and tenor recalled a game such as \u201cKentucky Route Zero,\u201d <\/a>another serialized and alternately realistic and fanciful game with political overtones. Other times, such as the surreal world of the donkey afterlife, I thought of the colorfully unpredictable universe of the music-focused game \u201cThe Artful Escape,\u201d <\/a>a quest for personal identity and self-actualization. The donkeys in \u201casses.masses\u201d are an ensemble, often trying to steer the audience in different directions. As much as some push for a protest as a way for communal healing and progressive action, others take a cynical outlook, viewing that path as \u201cintellectually compromised\u201d by a \u201ccommitment to past ideals.\u201d<\/p>\n The goal, says Lim, is to create a sort of game within a game \u2014 one that\u2019s being played with a controller and one of debate among a crowd. \u201cIt\u2019s not about having a billion endings,\u201d Lim says. \u201cWe understand it\u2019s a theater show, and we as writers have objectives for what we want it to go towards. But the decisions people make in the room really matter. The game is half in the room and half on the screen.\u201d<\/p>\n
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