By Amanda Cuda
Elizabeth Fuller and Joel Vig know that true horror is largely about the unseen. It's about suggestion; about what our imaginations can conjure out of the mere hint of the terrifying.
That's part of the reason why their play The Interrupted Journey: A UFO story. A Love Story. A True Story!, which depicts an alien abduction, depticts no literal aliens. Indeed, Fuller says, the idea is to invoke the presence of otherworldly beings in the show's presentation and atmosphere.
"The drama comes from the music and the acting," says Fuller, when interviewed at her Weston home. "I've seen people walking away from this, saying 'I saw everything.'"
Fuller and Vig will present a staged reading of Interrupted Journey at 8 p.m. July 19 and 20 at the Theatre Artists Workshop 5 Gregory BLVD, Norwalk. The play is based on a book by Fuller's late husband, John G. Fuller, which
told the story of real-life couple Betty and Barney Hill. The Hills claimed that, in 1961, they were abducted by extraterrestials while on their way back from a vacation at Niagra Falls.
The Hills, an interracial couple at a time when "that was a dicey situation," Fuller says, knew something had happened to them, but were reluctant to go public with their story for fear that that they would lose their jobs and their reputations. The incident put such a strain on the couple's relationship, they sought the help of a psychiatrist who used regressive hypnosis on them seperately. Fuller says that even though the couple weren't together during the sessions, they told theexact same story about the alleged abduction.
Whether or not someone believes in extraterrestials, Fuller, says the Hill's story makes a compelling caase for their existence. It also makes great fodder for a play, she says.
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