Review: Hale Centre Theatre Presents WAIT UNTIL DARK

Although Frederick Knott is not known for an expansive body of work, it has required only three plays, most notable for their intricate plots, to grant him a modest position in the pantheon of mystery playwrights: DIAL M FOR MURDER and WRITE ME A MURDER, both of which received the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and WAIT UNTIL DARK.

In a 1995 interview with Mike Giuliano of The Baltimore Sun, Knott clarified his intentions in composing these works. "I was always intrigued with the idea that somebody would plan a crime, and then you see that everything doesn't turn out right. You can plan a murder in great detail and then put the plan into action, and invariably something goes wrong and then you have to improvise. And in the improvisation, you trip up and make a very big mistake."

This predilection with criminal machinations is clearly apparent in WAIT UNTIL DARK.

The play has a glorious but rocky history, as reported by The Guardian at the time of Knott's death in 2003: box office success in 1966 on Broadway with Lee Remick garnering a Tony nomination and in London with Honor Blackman; the 1967 film starring Oscar-nominated Audrey Hepburn; and then the flop of its 1998 revival, attributable to the miscasting of Marisa Tomei and Quentin Tarantino.

Now, this still popular chestnut is on stage and in the round at Hale Centre Theatre in Gilbert Arizona through November 22nd.

The story line is pretty famous.

Susy and Sam Hendrix live in a downstairs flat in Greenwich Village.

It's 1966, and Hale's scenic designer and prop master, McKenna Carpenter, has done a yeoman's job in giving the place an appearance of period authenticity ~ to wit, an old box of Dash laundry detergent, a rotary dial phone, a vintage photo enlarger, and similar trappings.

Sam is a photographer who, on a recent business trip, unknowingly, at the behest of another airport passenger, smuggled a doll that contains a fortune in heroin. (Knott did not allow much stage time for this character, which is unfortunate in that, for the time that McKay Moody appeared in this role, we saw a polished talent that merits future attention.)

Susy, blinded in a car accident, is essentially a stay-at-home housewife who is helped along in her daily chores by her pre-adolescent upstairs neighbor Gloria (Mason Berchman, appropriately annoying and ultimately lovable). All (well, maybe not all) are blind to the fact that doll is stashed on the premises.

The chills and thrills come into play when three con men converge on the apartment in a nefarious scheme to get the bad goods. The criminal mastermind is Harry Roat (an intensely menacing Dennis Kelsch). His co-conspirators, Mike Talman and Sergeant Carlino, whom he's blackmailed into sinister service, are given fine definition by the performances of David Michael Paul and Karl Haas. As a cohort, they enact a play within a play, assuming false identities and disguises, all to trick a seemingly defenseless woman.

No doubt, under normal circumstances, a heist wouldn't require as convoluted a scenario as playwright Knott has concocted. It may take a while for the audience to get a grip on Roat's plan. The good news is that, thanks to the careful direction of Jim Roehr and some very fine acting, Hale's production engenders just the right amount of tension and mystery to keep the audience enthralled in what becomes an intricate cat and mouse game. The mood is amplified by Boyd Cluff's lighting and sound design, both conspiring to create an atmosphere and tone of gravity and peril.

As in all of its iterations, the success and effectiveness of WAIT UNTIL DARK depends on the portrayal of Susy. In this regard, Juli Buehrle delivers a shining performance. She confers upon the role a natural and appealing innocence that makes the character's emergence as a force to be reckoned with all the more surprising and satisfying. Once vulnerable, she ascends to assert her independence and self-reliance. As she is deprived of one sense, her acuity in other senses expands and serves her well in discerning what danger lurks behind the venetian blinds and shadows of her Greenwich Village apartment.

WAIT UNTIL DARK runs through November 22nd at:

Hale Centre Theatre ~ 50 West Page Avenue, Gilbert, AZ ~ 480-497-1181 ~ https://haletheatrearizona.com/ ~ boxoffice@haletheatrearizona.com

The run time is approximately 2 hours 15 minutes.

Photo credit to Nick Woodward-Shaw

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