If You Can Get To Buffalo – Location, Tickets, Reviews
Trish Harnetiaux’s new play If You Can Get To Buffalo, presented by the Incubator Arts Project, looks at the dark side of the early days of the Internet.
Inspired by Julian Dibbell’s 1993 article A Rape in Cyberspace, the play takes us to LambdaMOO, the original online social network from the early 1990s. LambdaMOO’s only rule was “there are no rules” and it allowed users to adopt fake identities. LambdaMOO descended into chaos when an anonymous hacker manipulated the network and abused other users.
Dibbell was alarmed by the behavior he saw on LambdaMOO and he tried to warn the public, despite the excitement over the internet, of the consequences of a virtual world with no rules or real names.
Maxamoo
If You Can Get To Buffalo explores the impact of events in virtual world on the real world, especially online violence. This is an important issue, but little original insight is offered here. Instead of an investigation, the play is more like a presentation on cyberspace for people who know little about it. It tells the audience about how online anonymity may backfire, but it fails to offer observations that we haven’t heard before.
The show provides some clever banter and elicits laughter from time to time but we wanted deeper insight into both the societal-level consequences and the victims’ personal experiences. The trauma suffered by LambdaMOO’s users feels empty when the only demonstration of their situation is a creepy looking guy lurking in the background.
This being the early days of the internet LambdaMOO was an all text environment, meaning there are no distracting pictures, vines, or gifs. The production uses projections of upward scrolling text to imitate the intensity of LambdaMOO’s users’ experience. Although it is an interesting installment, it is also distracting at times.
Public Opinion
Have you seen If You Can Get To Buffalo? What did you think? Comment below or tweet to us at @Maxamoo.
Critic’s Reviews
None yet.
TICKETS
$18.00 (click here for tickets)
DATES
Performances through February 23, 2014
LOCATION
Incubator Arts Project at St. Mark’s Church
131 East 10th Street
New York City
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RUNNING TIME
1 hour 15 minutes, no intermission
CAST & CREW
(partial list)
Written by Trish Harnetiaux
Directed by Eric Nightengale
Featuring Rob Erickson, Julia Sirna-First, Alex Viola, Starr Busby, Greg Carere, Minna Richardson, Demetri Bonaros
NEWS
Kippy Winston’s Weblog
If You Can Get To Buffalo (Wing Dings)