Review: WAIT UNTIL DARK Ramps Up The Tension At TheatreWorks New Milford

Tension. Tension can make or break a play. At its best, it can bring the audience to the edge of their seat. At its worst, it can make the audience uncomfortable and wish they could leave. The line between the two can be narrow and the trick is to hold the tension without pulling too hard. Pulling too hard can make a scene feel cliché and can elicit the same level of cringe as a poorly made melodrama dressed up as a rom-com. However, when tension is held at the right moment, with the right stakes, and the right cast, you can truly make magic happen; and a spell was cast at TheatreWorks New Milford with their production of Wait Until Dark.

Written by Frederick Knott and adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher, Wait Until Dark thrives on tension. It plucks the strings of your anxieties one by one until your muscles are screaming for the inevitable crash of expectation that comes at the end of a thrilling work of art. But a script can’t do it on its own. It needs the right cast, the right crew, and the right moment to come to life and enrapture an audience in the way that only live theater can. And this perfect storm of circumstances is exactly what crashed into New Milford for this run of shows.

The audience enters a darkened Greenwich Village apartment, home to Susan and Sam, but Sam and Susan are not the inhabitants that the audience first meets. In fact, the tone is set from the first moments of the show, when we witness those who wish to do Susan harm discussing their plans within Susan’s actual apartment; the scene of recently committed and future crimes. When we do finally meet Susan, we quickly learn the crux of Wait Until Dark’s appeal: Susan is unable to see. In what is typically a trope of visual comedy, the audience is instead left unnerved as the blind Susan, respectfully portrayed by Ali Bernhardt, blissfully strolls past the mechanics of her future strife, who remain frozen in place and silent to avoid detection. This level of anxiety and discomfort is what drives Wait Until Dark forward as we watch the plot unfold.

Bernhardt expertly, and convincingly, weaves her way into the audience’s hearts as the sweet, powerful, and desperately independent Susan: From the way she crosses the stage to crashing into misplaced furniture with controlled abandon, the audience has no choice but to cheer for her as she unravels the schemes of her antagonists. Bernhardt is surrounded by a strong ensemble who work together to raise the stakes and keep the audience invested as the tension ramps up: From the devilishly devious Roat, played connivingly by A.M Bhatt, to the wholesome helper, Lieutenant Mike, endearingly played by Jim Hipp, to the chaotic wildcard of Gwyneth Anderson’s Gloria, this cast is designed to be more than the sum of their parts. The cast is rounded out by Eric Greenfeld and Sam Everett, who both brought comfort in this stressful world as the familiar faux-cop conman trope of Sargeant Carlino and the well-meaning spouse in Sam, respectively.

To top off the evening, the brilliant attention to detail of the set and lighting designer, Lief Smith, gave the cast the sandbox in which they play: Using the depth of the set to play with levels and the lighting (or lack thereof) to set the mood. All of these tools together, in the hands of director Keli Solomon, creates a wonderfully tense evening at the theater that is sure to thrill audiences for the rest of the run.

Tickets

Wait Until Dark runs every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from March 29th to April 14th, with Fri/Sat shows at 8pm, Sun matinees at 2pm, and a special Pay What You Will performance on April 4th. 

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