BWW Reviews: WAIT UNTIL DARK Is Worth Seeing - and Hearing - at Northwest Classical

After I graduated high school, life took me away from theater for about eleven years, until I realized that I missed it. I volunteered with a community theater in Chula Vista, California, where I was living at the time, and that became my home away from home for the next eight years. My first assignment? Running tech for that old chestnut Wait Until Dark. I didn't know the play, hadn't seen the movie, and was genuinely spooked by the intensity of the fight at the end. I've always harbored a little affection for the piece.

Northwest Classical Theatre Company is new to me; in my year or so as a reviewer they had not reached out to me until now, so this was my first time at their very intimate space in Southeast Portland. It's a lovely spot, well designed, with very clever use of space. I'm not sure how they manage to shoehorn Shakespeare in there, but I look forward to finding out.

Their production of Wait Until Dark is based on a revised script by Jeffrey Hatcher that premiered in 2013. The original, by Frederick Knott, opened in 1966 and was set at that time; this version is backdated to the 1940s. The loot is slightly different, and there are a few four-letter words added to the text, but beyond these cosmetic touches the script is the same.

Susan Hendrix lives in a basement apartment in Greenwich Village with her husband, Sam, a photographer. She has been blind for the last year or so after a car accident and is still adjusting to her new condition. Sam pushes her to be stronger and more self-reliant, but she is resentful and perhaps bitter, so is not all that adept at doing things for herself. A couple of criminals break into the apartment looking for a doll, then come back the next day when Susan is alone and play a con game on her while Sam is away, trying to make her give up the doll voluntarily. She doesn't know where it is, but she manages to pick up on details that give the con men away, and soon she finds herself in a life-or-death struggle. More than this I cannot tell you.

The play is not a masterpiece; the opening scenes are as clunky as ever, the kind of stuff Broadway audiences used to be patient enough to sit through while waiting for the good parts to come. Samuel Dinkowitz and Tom Mounsey do fine work as the criminals - Dinkowitz has a special talent for voices that he puts to good work here - but they can't rescue the dialogue. Things get better when Clara Hillier arrives as Susan; she treats the play as if it were fresh and clever, and she has excellent chemistry with Steve Vanderzee as Sam. Hillier is resourceful, never asking us to feel sorry for the character, and never overdoing her blindness. Clearly she's done a ton of research, but she doesn't hit us over the head with it. She just plays the role simply and clearly, and we root for her as the danger grows. Heath Koerschgen is impressive as a sympathetic stranger, and Kate Thresher adds some humor as a young neighbor.

Director Bobby Bermea has found impressive ways to get the audience involved in the show. The set wraps around the audience, so we're surrounded by the action, and he finds ways to keep the climactic battle fresh and new, which makes it genuniely scary. The choice to use 1940s radio music interspersed with fake ads for the theater and its sponsors during preshow and intermission was unfortunate; it didn't create the kind of mood you want for a thriller. However, the sound and lighting design was otherwise outstanding, and the set was just perfect. (NWCTC did not provide a program to the audience the night I attended, so I don't have the designers' names, but they did their jobs admirably, especially given the space limitations.

So yes, Wait Until Dark is an old chestnut of a thriller, but these plays get done over and over because they're effective. You'll have a good scary time if you go see it. But now I really want to see what Northwest Classical can do with a real play.

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