New York

Surrender

While you might not want to give up your cushy, delivery-everything lifestyle, maybe you want a more visceral understanding of war than getting totally pwnd by fourth-graders in Rainbow Six. Here to immerse you in the grim realities, Surrender, tickets available now.

From a veteran film&theater director and a veteran of the Iraq war, Surrender's a three-act interactive military training and combat exercise staged in a SoHo theater, a venue where brutality typically comes in the form of tutu moose knuckles. The first act's a 100min training course: "recruits" (i.e., you) dress in combat gear (desert fatigues, boots, etc), receive a replica M4 carbine, and learn basic combat techniques like squad formations, weapons mode selection, target zeroing, and kill shots, thus providing an intensely realistic context for your dramatic cries of "pew! pew! pew!" Next, the newly-minted soldiers hit up a multi-stage complex of room-to-room combat situations, including protecting a military prison, riding in a Humvee convoy, and sweeping insurgent houses; in your pocket, you'll find a "casualty card" that uses current war stats to predict your probable fate, e.g., killed by IED, shot in the neck, or shrapnel to the brain (sadly, no card has you winning "2nd place in a beauty contest, collect $10").

In the final act, you'll return "home" to experience typical homecoming scenes, from a military funeral, to a Walter Reed rehabilitation, to a family dinner even more uncomfortable than the ones that once drove you to spend so many lonely, murderous hours on Xbox Live.

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