\u201cWe started experimenting with this weird, interactive, intimate conversation with an animatronic and building it into a story that is surprising and maybe funny and maybe unsettling \u2014 something that leaves you with an unusual experience,\u201d Woliner says.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
From left to right, Ruby Carlson Bedirian, Eric Notarnicola and Jason Woliner, who collaborated on \u201cThe Man in the Tuskhut,\u201d stand behind the saloon with animatronic skeletons.<\/p>\n
(Carlin Stiehl \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n
The animatronic improvises in conversation based on a story outline written by Woliner and Notarnicola. Inside the Tuskhut, the animatronic spurs surprising encounters with guests, Notarnicola says. \u201cSome people come in and play a character. If they\u2019re interested in role-playing, then they get to do that. Other people play it a lot more straight,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
The buzzy show, not advertised on social media, has been gaining popularity through word of mouth. \u201cWe haven\u2019t spent a penny on marketing,\u201d says Woliner. The collaborators have sold out 200 encounters with the animatronic, hosting 20 encounters per day.<\/p>\n
In the Ken Burns\u2013style sepia-stained historical documentary, visitors learn that the man was killed by \u201cArctic cold that was both his companion and his adversary.\u201d His travels include encounters with Inuit people, snow blindness and a stinging need for solitude that leads him to abandon his family for a life in the Arctic trading post. The documentary echoes the protagonists of Jack London novels \u2014 men up against the wild, grappling for survival \u2014 a trope Woliner enjoys.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve done a few things with those kinds of lonesome, filthy men,\u201d Woliner says with a laugh.<\/p>\n
Once inside the Tuskhut, visitors sit across from the man in a dimly lighted room. Hooks line the walls. Medicine cabinets collect dust on bookshelves \u2014 ones with \u201cremedies for ailments, some imagined, some real.\u201d Later, the man muses: \u201cReal medicine is having something to believe in.\u201d A radio buzzes in the background with static and news of \u201cthat Hitler fella,\u201d as the man says. The bizarre encounter is different for each visitor who sits in his haunting gaze.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people have had experiences that seem similar to going to a confessional or to a therapy session because some of the prompts and questions are open,\u201d says Sara Velas, founder of the Velaslavasay Panorama and collaborator on the project. \u201cPeople say: \u2018I hadn\u2019t heard someone talk to me in that tone of voice since my grandfather was alive.\u2019 It\u2019s a framework with many different outcomes, and it has been really special to observe.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
From left to right, Jason Woliner, Ruby Carlson Bedirian and Eric Notarnicola next to an animatronic skeleton.<\/p>\n
(Carlin Stiehl \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n
Notarnicola says the scope of animatronic entertainment technology is far-reaching across language and culture. \u201cWe\u2019re able to run the experience in over 30 different languages. We\u2019ve run the experience in Spanish, Slovak, Polish and Chinese,\u201d he says. \u201cIt removes this boundary of communication where anyone, anywhere can experience it and communicate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruby Carlson Bedirian, head of engineering and enrichment at the theater and collaborator, says many visitors try to stump the animatronic or break it. \u201cMany of the people coming are, proportionally, insiders \u2014 they\u2019re interested in this form,\u201d Carlson Bedirian says. \u201cThere have been so many artists and technicians and specialized artisans who have had really amazing interactions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The animatronic had a storied history before joining Woliner and Notarnicola\u2019s world. As they discovered, the robot was manufactured as part of a U.S. military operation. It was used in an immersive training facility at Camp Pendleton to prepare soldiers for the war in Afghanistan. By a bizarre twist of fate, it ended up in the filmmakers\u2019 possession through eBay, after a man named Juju kept the animatronic in his living room in Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe found them through Reddit \u2014 there\u2019s an animatronics-for-sale Reddit \u2014 and a guy had posted that he was trying to unload them,\u201d Woliner says. Woliner spends time on the animatronic Reddit alongside Disneyland and Chuck E. Cheese enthusiasts.<\/p>\n
One of the animatronics even appeared in the most recent season of \u201cThe Rehearsal.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re trying to use them for good,\u201d Woliner says.<\/p>\n
“The Man in the Tuskhut”<\/p>\n
When: Dec. 11-14 and Dec 19-20 with more dates to be announced next year<\/p>\n
Where: The Velaslavasay Panorama, 1122 W. 24th St. in Los Angeles<\/p>\n