Theatre in the Dark

Odyssey Theatre, Los Angeles

(310) 477-2055

***

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Those suffering from claustrophobia may not make it through Theatre in the Dark, said Paul Birchall in LAWeekly.com. But it would be a shame to miss this show, which unfolds across 90 minutes in an “inky darkness” that’s “only occasionally alleviated by a momentary flash or murky ghost light.” Director Ron Sossi and his actors use the opportunity to artfully manipulate virtually all senses but sight as they stage a collection of vignettes, ranging from traditional ghost stories to newly commissioned one-acts to experiments invented by the ensemble. In each playlet, the darkness becomes “almost a character.”

The idea of staging theater in the dark is hardly unique, but this production “takes what could have been a mere gimmick to new heights,” said F. Kathleen Foley in the Los Angeles Times. That’s not to say that Theatre in the Dark is flawless. The sketches waver in quality: Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s tale about a man on a train to oblivion is a classic short story that works brilliantly, while the original works “tend to veer into the reiterative.” However, the production is a fantastic sensory experience. “This is a sound designer’s dream assignment, and veteran designer John Zalewski doesn’t disappoint.” The actors, meanwhile, respond surprisingly well to being asked to work in near anonymity. They make each performance “very much a labor of love.”