If names like “Zork,” “Minecraft” and “Zelda” mean nothing to you, then you are definitely not the target audience for “You Are in an Open Field.” Described as the first “nerdcore musical,” this video game-themed show by the New York NeoFuturists (“Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind”) is playing to the initiated. So if your last gaming experience was Pong, you’ll want to skip this one.
“Nerdcore,” in case you don’t know, is a hip-hop genre appealing to nerds and their obsessions. Here rapping about the joys and agonies of defeating characters like Dungeon Master and Lord Flathead are three young players (Kevin R. Free, Marta Rainer and Adam Smith, who wrote the piece with Eevin Hartsough) who are holed up in their makeshift basement “fort” — i.e., a couch hidden by a blanket suspended on poles.
The trio periodically interrupts their gaming to consult a talking teddy bear and to perform rap numbers accompanied by a two-man rhythm section. Most are scripted, such as “I Wanna Marry You World.” Sample lyric: “Come and pick up this girl/Carry her across the threshold/Take a plunge in your depths/Make her swim like a naiad.”
The actors also wander into freestyle territory, taking on a challenge to make up a song on the spot inspired by a randomly chosen line of dialogue from “Waiting for Godot.”
A menacing hooded actor and a lithe female dancer clad in a skintight white bodysuit play fantasy characters, while pixelated projections of animated figures from the games are projected on a large screen.
It’s all exceedingly silly, but done with enough good humor and antic wit to amuse nongaming aficionados. And there are genuinely funny metatheatrical touches, such as a late-stage meltdown by the hooded actor who says his character doesn’t have “enough of an arc.”