‘Valparaiso’ is a dark multimedia experience

Boise Contemporary Theatre transformed Fulton Street Theater into a thought-provoking multimedia-filled world for Valparaiso, a postmodernist play written by Don DeLillo, the winner of the National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize Nominee.

DeLillo’s pen creates a surreal world where an ordinary business trip becomes a flight into the glaring light of celebrity. A world where nothing remains unseen and nothing is left unsaid.

Valparaiso, directed by Matthew Clark, takes DeLillo’s twisted view of talk show-televised revelations and routine airline announcements, creating an atmosphere of anxiety and ambiguity that lingers in the audience until the last word is spoken and the lights finally go down.

Valparaiso leaves the viewer with more questions than answers and is left wide open to multiple interpretations.

Michael Majeski (John O’Hagan) travels to the wrong Valparaiso – there are three cities in existence with this name – becoming a celebrity in the process.

Majeski questions his identity throughout this journey, “Some stranger had crept inside, like surreptitiously, to eat my airline food. Or someone had been superimposed on me, a person with my outline and shoe size but slyly and fundamentally different … Why am I?”

His wife Livia (Jodeen Revere), obsessed with her exercise bike and plastic cigarettes, finds Michael’s experience quite amusing, but her childlike psyche never allows her to see the truth.

Suddenly, the audience becomes a part of the show in the second act, which takes place live on the Delfina Treadwell talk show.

Teddy Hodell (Justin Ness), Defina’s assistant, brings the audience back into the play, after intermission, with his humorous and boisterous personality.

Ness performs his character flawlessly, leading the audience from a confused state of awe to a calmer atmosphere of comfort.

It is Delfina Treadwell (Janet Haley) who finally gets the truth out of Michael on her talk show, creating closure for the audience.

Valparaiso closes on Feb. 23. Call 331-9224 for more information.

Tammy Sands, The Arbiter

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Posted by Archive on Feb 6 2003. Filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.