Patient’s Journey to Paranoia a Troubled Trip

A man checks into a hospital for routine tests and a much-needed break from his workaday routine. But his rest cure becomes a journey into madness, as patients from a nearby psychiatric ward disrupt his complacent perceptions and send him plunging into paranoia.

Welcome to “The Day Room,” Don DeLillo’s drama at the Court Theatre. Located in the psychiatric ward, but never seen, the Day Room becomes an extended metaphor, the launching pad for DeLillo’s dramatized meditation on the nature of reality.

DeLillo is an acclaimed novelist who has written prose of such intellectual density it amounts to a kind of meta-language, a Joycean effusion dizzying in its sheer scope and complexity.

But there’s a fine line between effusion and effulgence. First produced in the mid-’80s, “The Day Room” occasionally crosses that line. Ironically, it is the density of DeLillo’s language that makes it so theatrically cumbersome. Dialogue seems self-consciously theatrical, particularly in the seriously flawed second act, which concerns a young couple--most likely also inmates of the Day Room--searching for a fabled theater company that may not exist.

Obviously derivative (no, Godot never does show up), DeLillo’s metaphysical game-playing could be insufferable in a lesser staging. Fortunately, director Victor D’Altorio approaches his material with a pointed whimsy that focuses DeLillo’s intellectual barrage.

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“The Day Room,” Court Theatre, 722 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends July 15. $20. (323) 930-9304. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.