|
Valparaiso by Sledgehammer Theatre 
Sledgehammer Theatre was created with the intent to bombard the audience's senses, leaving them stricken but thankful for a dramatic theatre experience far different from the norm. In that vein, Valparaiso is a raging success. The onslaught from blaring, unnerving noise accompanied by large, striking screen images of the actors above and to the sides of the stage make by far the biggest impression, although there is a story lurking in there somewhere -- the story of a media out of control and the foolish people who crave it at the expense of their own lives and souls.
Valparaiso is playwright Don DeLillo's vision of the future (or perhaps the present) in which media makes reality, and desperate people seek it out at all costs in order to validate their own existence. On a smaller scale, it is the story of Michael Majeski and his wife Livia. Upon leaving on a business trip to Valparaiso, Illinois one day, he "accidentally" ends up in Valparaiso, Florida and then Valparaiso, Chile. The media flocks to this "breaking story," and the Majeski's become sudden celebrities -- roles that they both gobble up at first, until the media begins scrutinizing their lives just a bit too closely with undesirable results. The first act is a tiresome, mind-numbing hour filled with the noise, the videos, the annoying repetition of the same lines, and the beginning of the Majeski's fame that the couple so eagerly embrace -- literally, as both Michael (Matt Kautz) and Livia (Lisel M. Gorell) become sexually attracted to their respective interviewers (Nicole Monica and Sonny Perez) who are making them famous. As Michael's slightly crazed wife Livia, Lisel seems to dominate Act One from the moment she opens the show in a vision of horrified confusion and anguish amid the discombobulating music provided by Knee Jerk Reaction, her close-ups encompassing the large video screens to make her so much larger than life. As she later states, television makes people real. Alas, Livia seems to have the impression that you can only be real by being "larger than life." The second act begins to get a bit more intriguing. With a disturbing chorus of four topless zombie stewardesses sitting along the front of the stage, talk show host Delfina Treadwell (Shonda R. Dawson) and her trusty sidekick Teddy Hodell (Walter Murray) begin their dissection of the Majeski story with us, the audience, playing the part of the studio audience. What the Majeski's have told the media so far is not nearly enough. "We need to know everything," explains Delfina, and this is their only goal -- whatever the consequences. Ultimately those consequences turn out to be a Twilight Zonish ending that, though interesting, only disracts and lessens what seemed all along to be the goal of the play. Instead of contemplating the role of media in our society, we're instead led to wonder whether any of it really happened at all. On the other hand, we did see it on the television screens, and how much more real can you get??? Captivating performances by the four leads and the brutal slamming of our senses with light and sound make this a show worth seeing, although it is hardly light, summer theatre entertainment. But what with the trend of ever more invasive media, the predominance of television as the medium through which we get our news and learn about our world, not to mention the recently unveiled technology through which people can be made to appear they are saying things that they are not really saying, there is no doubt Valparaiso is a story for our times. And though I was bored through much of it, found most of the characters to be unreal, lifeless, soulless, mechanical creatures, and kept finding myself tuning out under the bombardment of the obnoxious lights and noise and oft-repeated lines -- I will assume that this was all the goal of DeLillo and Director Matthew Wilder: to desensitize us and turn our brains to mush whilst we watch the images of the television screen/stage flicker mindlessly before our eyes, forced to be more aware than usual that what we are seeing on that screen/stage is just one vision of the world, and not necessarily "The Truth." Rob Hopper San Diego Playbill ~ Cast ~
Livia Majeski: Lisel M. Gorell Michael Majeski: Matt Kautz Interviewer: Sonny Perez Interviewer: Nicole Monica Teddy Hodell: Walter Murray Delfina Treadwell: Shonda R. Dawson Chorus: Kimberly Colburn Laura Falkner Kay Hulbert Jennifer Martino Playwright: Don DeLillo Director: Matthew Wilder Scenic Design: David Weiner Costume Design: Sarah Brown Lighting Design: Brian J. Lilienthal Sound Design: Knee Jerk Reaction Stage Manager: Angela Nianne Fagundes |