"If You Can Get To Buffalo", a cleverly splashy and quirky multimedia play, is a personal reflection loosely based on real events.  The time was 1994, and the place was both nowhere and everywhere: a new world we now call the internet.

This is a story about some early adopters of the internet, who, as might be expected, are quite the melting pot -- a combination of some of the world's most successful players and types you would warn others to stay clear of.  Some of these created a virtual world on the net known as LambdaMOO, a text-based virtual world experience where users typed and communicated with strangers, and “hung out” with other “friends” in this virtual house.

The story is based on the real life accounts of journalists who covered the emergence of this world, like then-Village Voice writer Julian Dibbell (portrayed with great verve by Greg Carere).  Sometimes, the line between reporter and participant blurred: New Yorker writer John (played with elegant aplomb by Demetri Bonaros), for example, entered into an online menage a trois with his wife and a stranger. There is also the character of real-life TV host Charlie Rose, played with broad humor by Starr Busby; Julia Sirma-Frest as Starsinger, one of the many denizens of LambdaMOO, who at one point delivers a nice song; and many other virtual inhabitants (played by Iftias Harrom, Alex Viola, and Minna Taylor).  Rob Erickson is also wonderful as the manipulative Mr. Bungle, the Svengali-like protagonist of the show.  (Erickson has also produced the music for the multimedia elements in the show.)

The play explores the friendships that formed in this virtual world, and asks whether they were real or fake. It explores events that occurred in this house, promises made and broken, personal freedoms given and taken away, and personal spaces invaded. It asks: if you give your trust to someone too soon on the internet, and they violate that trust, just who is to blame? In truth, though, the real question here might be why we ever assumed internet relationships should be treated any differently than real world ones.