GAME PLAY Artist Interview: Charles Battersby ("That Cute Radioactive Couple")

My piece explores the intersection of theatre and gaming by starting the story as a play, then continuing it as a video game.  After the show, the audience can download a custom mod for a game called Fallout: New Vegas.  In the mod, players can visit locations seen in the play and meet the characters to find out what happens to them after the events in the play.  The actors from the show voice the characters in-game too.

When people say video games aren’t art I tend to name 100 games that are.  Have you played The Longest Journey?  No?  Go play it right now.  Seriously, why are you still reading this?

An obstacle in the general acceptance of video games as an art form is all the terrible games your mom plays on Facebook.  Buy your mom a copy of Ico.

My most emotional reaction elicited by a game was sheer terror when Psycho Mantis moved my Playstation controller with only the POWER OF HIS MIND!  How did he know I like Eternal Darkness?  HOW!

True or False: video games are now more culturally important than they were in the past. True. A whole generation of consumers has been raised with Playstations.  They have their own cultural references that non-gamers just don't get.

I discovered the merit of video games as an artistic/theatrical medium after making my first Neverwinter Nights mod.  I could make the video game characters say whatever I wanted, just like actors in a play.

What video games in performance can provide that traditional media cannot is interactivity!  What is Skyrim but a story that the Player gets to tell?

Why should people see your Game Play show? Aside from the game aspect, it's the funniest play about the apocalypse you'll see this summer.


Charles Battersby is the author of That Cute Radioactive Couple. The show runs July 7 – 28, 2012. Tickets can be purchased here.