Wait Until Dark

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Outstanding!

That’s the only way to describe the Evergreen Players production of Frederick Knott’s suspense-driven play Wait Until Dark at Evergreen’s Stage Theatre. Directed by Bernie Cardell, this technically difficult play from set design, to intricate characters, to performing on stage without lights, has been carefully constructed and executed by a gangbusters cast.

Time remains short with only one more weekend remaining in the run. Although Center Stage is owned and operated by the Evergreen Chorale, and shares its space with the Evergreen Children’s Chorale and other community organizations, it would behoove the Powers That Be to consider extending the runs for the Players. They deserve the consideration and exposure.

All too often suspense plays fall apart, at least for me. Either the plot is paper-thin, the story line a stamped-out formula, or the characters are nothing more than paper doll cutouts. The only thing thrilling is having the house lights come up.

Not so with this play or with this production.

A couple of two-bit con men, Mike Talman (Robert Olguin) and Sergeant Carlino (Tony Catanese) have been summoned independently to a Greenwich Village basement apartment by an unknown source. Their unknown source turns out to really be an unknown source to them. Harry Roat (Patrick Collins) bowls them over with intimate information about them.

Olguin and Catanese provide Mike and Carlino with distinct ruffian personalities covered in slippery slime. They will do anything for a buck. They flirt with hard-edged humor giving the impression they have the know how to figure everything out. Little do they realize they are about to run head first into a blind alley.

Collins gives Harry an almost inhuman demeanor with razor sharp focus on getting a job done. Harry Rout is not someone I would care to meet on a dark street. Collins chisels Harry from head to foot with a con artist’s knife.

The job involves an innocent photographer, Sam Hendrix (Eric Wahlberg), a doll from Canada stuffed with more than cotton, or whatever dolls are stuffed with. This particular doll has a large amount of cocaine in her gullet.

A woman by the name of Lisa, who at one time had been in cahoots with Mike and Carlino, approaches Sam in a Canadian airport, asking if he would take the doll to a little girl in a New York hospital. Innocent enough, Sam agrees. A contrived sequence of events connects Harry with Lisa, and a detailed plan to get the doll is laid out. Lisa doesn’t appear on stage. She can’t.

A simple plan, so it seems. Nothing can go wrong if all of the details are attended to.

However, one small detail has been overlooked. Sam’s wife, Suzy (Haley Johnson) is blind. This should make their job easier than expected. She can neither see nor hear where they are or what they do. Convinced the doll is stashed in the apartment, all they have to do is make sure Sam is detained.

Oh, how wrong smart con artists can be. They have not taken into account the senses of the blind heightened where even the smallest noise gives those who cannot see more information than sighted persons. The blind pay attention to details the overly confident ignore.

Suzy knows when 9-year-old Gloria (Desiree Samler) doesn’t close the refrigerator door. Gloria lives upstairs, frequently assisting Suzy with shopping and chores. Gloria likes Sam a great deal. Gloria and Suzy’s relationship crackles with animosity. Endowed with the 9-year-old smarts, Gloria demonstrates no hesitancy to shoot off her brat-sized mouth at Gloria. A fifth grade student, Samler is already an accomplished actor. This young lady has a stunning career ahead of her. Providing substance, she takes Gloria on a smooth transitional ride through a fog of a misconstrued relationship.

Johnson’s by-word is consistency. Never once does she falter in convincing the audience she is blind. Every moment on stage, she wears the garment of believability enabling her to realistically piece together the puzzle swirling in her darkened world.

While everyone but Sam sees Suzy’s blindness as a disability, Suzy figures out how to level the field, turning her so-called disability into a strength which also feeds her shaking courage.

Much of Act II literally takes place on a darkened stage. No small trick for audience or actors. Exquisite timing is called for, and exquisite time is delivered. The actors aren’t just sitting in the dark mouthing words to each other. They move tripping into things that go bump in the dark. Suspense prickles the hair on the back of the neck. Technically, no back stage lighting cheats on the darkened stage. Tables are turned in more than one way, but the play flows logically. Harry a robotic mentally hard-core con artist shows a spark of humanity when a blind woman who hopes she has the wherewithal to outsmart him, brings him to his knees.

Emily Pritchett, Mari Geasair and Cardell allowed time for a great deal of thought to go into the set design and dressing. Brandon Dill supplied original music, and Gene Kato designed sounds in the light as well as in the dark to lead a skeptic by the hand into enlightenment.

Above and beyond everything else, It is quite clear this cast and crew care about Wait Until Dark, care about their characters, and care about having a great deal of fun. Not an element that can be faked, it shows. Even two minor characters played by Robert Payo and RJ Franklin as two Patrolmen, point toward artistic integrity. It is all too easy for a cast of a community theatre to allow a well-written play carry the brunt of energy. Technically and artistically, no sign popped up anywhere indicating anyone allowed anyone else to carry their weight.

For a community theatre production, Wait Until Dark stands as a professional endeavor.