INTERVIEW: ‘Black Feminist Video Game’ is mashup of theatrical forms
Photo: Black Feminist Video Game stars Christon Andell and Constance Fields. Photo courtesy of The Civilians / Provided by Everyman Agency with permission.
For writer Darrel Alejandro Holnes, these past few weeks have been virtually unprecedented. His new play, Black Feminist Video Game, has been streamed live, and now those performances are available for on-demand viewing. Traditionally, in the prev-COVID era, such a performance would engage in-person theatergoers in New York City or another theater capital. Thanks to the virtual format employed The Civilians, where Black Feminist Video Game is being produced, Holnes and company have partnered with theaters like Los Angeles’ Center Theatre Group, New York City’s 59E59 Theaters, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Lafayette College’s Williams Center for the Arts.
The show is truly receiving a national audience.
The play is a mashup of styles and forms. The protagonist is Jonas, a biracial teenager with autism, according to press notes. He is prone to broadcasting all aspects of his life online, and this includes highly personal thoughts and commentaries. As the audience watches him, he tries to win the heart of Nicole, and he believes the way to achieve his goal is through a classic 2D video game, hence the title of the show.
The production, directed by Victoria Collado, stars Christon Andell as Jonas, Starr Kirkland as Nicole and Kyla Jeanne Butts as Sabine, among others.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Holnes, who is a Panamanian American writer, performer and educator, according to his official biography. His other works include the poetry collections Migrant Psalms and Stepmotherland. He has worked with a number of high-profile theater companies over his career, including the Kennedy Center for the Arts American College Theater Festival, The Brick Theater and Kitchen Theater Company. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
How did the idea for this unique theatrical experience first come to you?
I had been to Berlin on several occasions to visit my longtime friend, Santiago Cruz, a Panamanian visual artist, and made many friends in Berlin’s Black community and began to become part of that community, which is quite diverse and beautifully inclusive. I decided to return one summer to collect interviews for the purpose of making a play and with the help of Label Noire secured many interviews, one of which was with a biracial graduate student on the spectrum whose coming-of-age stories resembled my own and whose interview always stayed with me. Nearly five years later, I finally had the opportunity to work on that play in the 2019-2020 Civilians R&D Group and this is the result of that process.
How difficult was it to bring a variety of ideas together into one piece of art?
I’ve always conceived of this as a single art piece. Summers in Europe watching artists like the Gob Squad and Ariel Efraim Ashbel and Friends taught me that we as human beings contain a multitude of media in various modalities that we consume daily. So similarly, a single story like an individual person can be told using multiple modalities, multiple forms. Yes, this is a play, but more than anything I think of it as a piece of performance, as a work for art, as a living, breathing, complicated thing just like you and me.
What was it like to prepare this production for a virtual audience during a global pandemic?
I was (and still am) very upset about the tens of thousands of people, mostly Black people, who died in New York City at the start of the pandemic, and the thousands, now millions more who were dying all over the world. I was (and still am) enraged by police brutality that kills countless Black and brown people daily and by Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd. When all that happened, I turned to writing to work through my anger, fear and anxiety, but to be honest, I really struggled to believe that art could still save me today like it did in high school from anxiety, depression and despair. But somehow it saved me again. It didn’t erase that grief or sadness, but it helped me manage it. This play gave me hope when I wrote it, and I hope it gives audiences everywhere hope that it is possible for us as a society to learn from our mistakes and be antiracist feminists who support inclusion, diversity and justice.
What do you believe the play says about love and identity?
I think it says that love, including love on the spectrum, is possible for everyone and that it’s an action word; it’s a verb. Love without action is not enough to push us past our differences; it’s not enough to heal our wounds. For me, love + action = compassion. That’s one of the many things our main character struggles with throughout the play, one of the many things we struggle with as humans: how to act with compassion for each other. I think more compassion in this world would lead to more racial and social justice and equality for all. That’s what I hope for our future.
What intrigues you about video game culture and how gamers can enter and exit alternate realities?
I’ve always loved the escapism that video games provide. When I was growing up, I’d retreat to video games after a hard day of being bullied at school or experiencing other growing pains. A new game was always cause for celebration; they provided me with agency that society often denies Black folks, brown folks, queer people and others to be seen as more than a stereotype, token or an exception. It allowed me, especially in my Blackness, to be infinite and all-encompassing, and that’s the kind of liberation I wanted to explore in the play. It’s akin to the liberation I’ve felt after learning about Black feminism and centering it in my daily social practice. Gaming and Black feminism have and continue to set me free, so it felt natural to bring them together in the play.
How important are theater companies like The Civilians when they provide space for writers and artists who want to experiment?
I am grateful to have been a member of the 2019-2020 Civilians R&D group cohort because we had such a special group that included Gabriel “Gaby” Alter, Michael Alvarez, Matt Barbot, Kathleen Capdesuñer, Rachel Dickstein, Kate Douglas, Grace McLean, Whitney Mosery, Crystal Skillman and Jason Tseng, and the rare opportunity to work with two very talented and supportive producers: Ilana Becker and Megan McClain. It was great to have found a like-minded community of artists that valued both research and experimentation. Given my background with performance art and performance artists, my research background, and my work in other literary forms, it can be challenging to fit complex ideas into a single form that is supported by a strict and very limiting development process. I cherish that with this production I’ve had the chance to find the forms that best fit my idea and to work with director Victoria Collado and game makers Che Rose and Jocelyn Short to learn and grow the idea together, to learn and grow as professionals, and to learn and grow together as friends. It’s been a real joy to work with this team.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Black Feminist Video Game by Darrel Alejandro Holnes is available for on-demand viewing through May 9. Click here for more information and tickets.
