This story is part of a series about arts and culture in Washtenaw County. It is made possible by the Ann Arbor Art Center, the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, Destination Ann Arbor, Larry and Lucie Nisson, and the University Musical Society.
Patrick Blenkarn says
asses.masses, the show he co-created, is "a performance, but it’s a game, but it’s also theater, and it’s also live art."
On Feb. 15 and 16 at 1:00 p.m., the
University Musical Society will present the first U.S. performances – or playthroughs, depending on your perspective – of asses.masses at the Stamps Auditorium, 1226 Murfin Ave. in Ann Arbor. The video game/theater performance, which relies on audience participation, is expected to last approximately seven and a half hours. Meals will be provided along with a series of intermissions.
Unconventional presentation aside, there's a simple narrative premise to asses.masses. Blenkarn's co-creator, Milton Lim, describes asses.masses as an "epic about a herd of donkeys that are trying to get their jobs back."
"We're all going to go home knowing each other better than when we came in and having had a great time, and a kind of transformative experience, and all that," Blenkarn says. "We don't really have a category right now for that type of activity, which for us, as people in our 30s, was a very normal activity to do in a basement or a living room or at a friend’s house."
Blenkarn and Lim both draw attention to the social — and even political — skills that gamers draw upon as they play: "It really is all about playing together and taking turns," Blenkarn says.
Deciding whose turn it is to play is a deceptively simple question, he adds, and it involves complex negotiations around power and teamwork.
So as asses.masses unfolds, Lim says, participants explore questions like, "How do we negotiate that power? How do we negotiate leadership?"
But Lim is also eager to point out that asses.masses is meant to be played both by those "who know video games like the back of their hands," and by those "who have never touched a video game controller."
"All of those people in the room will see those very values reflected in the game," he says.
The two creators are also interested in larger social questions, which Lim says "include questions around how we live, how we like to spend our time, how we like to have fun, and how we imagine we can have a place in this world."
For Blenkarn, these questions can be boiled down to something even more elemental, involving "how we look at each other" or "how we breathe together."
Lim refers to both the game and the theater in which it is played as "a social space that everyone cultivates and takes responsibility for together, which is what we hope to see in the world."
"It's a beautiful opportunity to say, ‘We're gonna [use] the platform…to experiment with new ways of taking care of each other, whether we know each other or not,'" Blenkarn adds.
Accountability is one way in which this plays out. Bad behavior in the game quickly translates to bad behavior in real life.
"You’re not really anonymous in asses.masses," Blenkarn points out. "So if you want to be an asshole, the lights are on. … It's not like a midnight movie where people can heckle in the dark. Everybody can see you."
Blenkarn and Lim insist the game isn’t intended to produce one reaction over another, and they don’t want to dictate how participants experience it. But, Blenkarn says, "I don't think it's didactic to say I hope that you leave asses.masses having been opened to some degree."
"Technologies can be used to do that," he adds. "They can be used to create those types of openings, and especially in a time when there seems to be a lot of closing of doors and borders."
Ottawa-based Blenkarn says he and Vancouver-based Lim recognize that donkeys have "a particular significance in a particular country," alluding to the donkey’s association with the Democratic Party in the United States.
Lim says asses.masses is "specifically designed for looking at that intersection between games and the social aspects of the participatory theater."
"It's a bit of a movie marathon. It's a bit of a binge watch," Blenkarn says. "It feels like the mix of a birthday party and a small wedding."
Tickets for asses.masses are available
here. Blenkarn and Lim will also speak as part of the
Penny Stamps Speaker Series on Feb. 13 at 5:30 p.m. at the Michigan Theater, 603 E Liberty St. in Ann Arbor.
Natalia Holtzman is a freelance writer based in Ann Arbor. Her work has appeared in publications such as the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, The Millions, and others.
Photo courtesy of University Musical Society.