On April 26th and 27th, Valley Road Theatre Company held its production of “No Darkness.” This show was unlike any other. It is inspired by both “1984” by George Orwell and “The Overcoat” by Nikolai Gogol, turning the production into a dark twist on the human condition and the realities of society during those time periods, realities that are eerily relevant today. The two stories were married to form an original script written and directed by Mamaroneck High School’s own Alex Gross (’25).
The originality does not stop here. The play was not like any traditional stage and audience performance. Instead, “No Darkness” took on an immersive theatre style. Gross describes the style as “a fragmented ‘open world’ format for the production that fully surrounds the audience in a dystopia with no escape.”
The cast, made up of Mamaroneck High School students and other high schoolers from around Westchester county, performed throughout the entirety of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Larchmont. As they performed around all of the rooms of the church, the audience was instructed to walk around and immerse themselves into the story.
As audience members meandered through the lowly lit church, ironically contrasting the name of the production, they were faced with an option. They could either choose a character to follow, plunging into one pathway of the intertwined story, or they could simply wander the church, following the action, the music, or the crowd. Every audience member saw a different story, the story of their pathway throughout the performance.
The actors performed the play two and a half times in about two and a half hours, letting the audience experience different characters and storylines as time went on. The performance started halfway through the story, and then proceeded to tell the story twice. It finished with a breathtaking finale, leaving the audience both inspired and terrified. The actors seemed to be acting on a strategically timed schedule, planned perfectly with the lights and music that were on an automated track.
Valley Road Theatre Company is no stranger to an immersive theatre experience. The production group, started and operated by Gross, counts No Darkness as its third fully immersive production. Many of the cast members have worked together throughout their own high school theatre journeys, and this ambitious performance strengthened an existing bond. Gross expresses this, sharing that “Nothing has been more rewarding than developing a tight and collaborative relationship with the cast.”
To the audience, the level of collaboration and commitment that the cast and crew had in the performance and the overall aesthetic of a nightmarish world were admirable. The professionalism and dedication the actors demonstrated were pushed to a maximum during the most interactive parts of the show.
At some points characters would grab audience members, physically pulling them to the next part of their performance, sometimes even speaking to them. This extremely unique performance created a captivating experience; audience members were not just watching the play from a distance, they were a part of it.
Gross will continue his study of theatre at Yale University next year. He explains, “I’ve always wanted each production I’ve directed to do something wildly new and be creatively dangerous. [No Darkness was] the start of the next chapter in my theatre-making journey.”
