The Shaw Festival Theatre Review: Wait Until Dark
By Ross
In sharp, intense shards of light playing deadly games in the shadows, a prelude of film noir violence unfolds in the abstract, setting the scene most vividly. We are instantly drawn into the darkness and knife’s edge of Wait Until Dark, the 1966 play by Frederick Knott (Dial M for Murder) that brings to mind Audrey Hepburn and the famed 1967 film adaptation. Adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher (Tuesdays with Morrie) and brought to intense life by director Sanjay Talwar (Theatre 180/Mirvish’s Oslo), the production plays with our now-heightened senses in that dark and delicious cavernous set—crafted with great effect by Lorenzo Savoini (Soulpepper’s De Profundis…) and accentuated in the most exacting ways by Louise Guinand’s (Stratford’s Casey & Diana) superb lighting design. It’s an igniting framework that keeps us activated and immersed, guiding us through the razor-sharp darkness.
Most people are familiar with Knott’s plays, maybe not from the stage but from the excellent film adaptations made famous by their directors and female leads. In Shaw Festival‘s production of Wait Until Dark, the energy is electric and apparent from that first montage of startling images that lead us into the belly of the beast, teasing us with misalignments and mistrust of those we most want to believe in. It’s hard to set aside the memory of Hepburn as the blind housewife, Susan, in the 1967 film version; her voice still resonates so clearly inside, but as portrayed by Sochi Fried (Shaw’s Candida), the deep effect holds true, mainly because of Fried’s solid investment in the part and the parameters set out before her.
The sinister air emanates out of the darkness into our hearts and minds, causing our muscles to tense and our heart rate to quicken, from the get-go, thanks to the fine work of composer and sound designer John Gzowski (Stratford’s Macbeth). His work provokes a visceral response, as we join with a recently blinded housewife, left alone in an apartment in New York City, who slowly becomes ensnared in a tense, deadly game of deception and survival, armed only with her cunning and her greatest weapon: the darkness.
A pack of ruthless con-men circle the apartment, desperate to recover a lost item that has great value to them, and somehow that item, a doll, has fallen into the hands of Susan’s husband, Sam, portrayed by JJ Gerber (Shaw’s My Fair Lady). It seems the doll was dropped into his valise by a woman he met haphazardly on a train; a woman who has just recently been found murdered and left in a parking lot just down the street. No one, or so it seems, knows where the doll is that everyone seems to want, and neither Sam nor Susan understands just how valuable this doll is to those shady souls who lurk in the shadows, especially the most violent one, Roat, played tightly by Bruce Horak (Spontaneous’ Goblin:Macbeth). Roat will do pretty much anything to get that doll, which becomes more and more apparent as the play ticks forward into the night.
Phone calls are made to draw people in and out, while others move unseen around Susan, some trying to help, like the young Gloria, fiercely portrayed by Eponine Lee (Stratford’s R+J). And there are others, like Mike, portrayed gallantly by Kristopher Bowman (Shaw’s Murder-on-the-Lake), and Officer Carlino, played intently by Martin Happer (Shaw’s Witness for the Prosecution), whose motives are less clear and obvious. That elusive doll hiding somewhere in the apartment is at the heart of this thriller, safely tucked away out of sight, but not out of mind. Yet somewhere in the darkness of it all, Susan stands solidly in the way of these men claiming their prize. And she is a force to be reckoned with.
It’s a captivating and combustible construct—smelling of lingering smoke and squeaking danger at every turn, with every flick of the blinds. But Susan is far from being the scared victim. She seizes hold of her unseen strengths, and quickly flips the script. With the help of a very game Eponine, it becomes clear that these women—especially Susan—are not as defenseless as the men initially believed. And as the suspense and danger in the darkness keep ratcheting up, Wait Until Dark finds its footing against all odds.
The unraveling is both clever and precise. However, after reading the notes on the adaptation’s alteration of the year, I found it difficult to pinpoint how the connections to the 1940s truly added up to something strong or concise. Aside from brief mentions of WWII and its impact on the characters, the deeper emotional undercurrents and trauma effects don’t seem fully realized or unpacked within the psyches of these men. While Hatcher’s ideas, as written, sounded fascinating, they didn’t fully make it onto the stage in any meaningful way, beyond the period costumes by Ming Wong (Stratford’s Salesman in China).
But their omission didn’t really shift the suspense, surprises, and the clockwork timing of the piece. The remarkable display of quick thinking that keeps Wait Until Dark moving along, as well as the unveiling of all the puzzle pieces, is on full display, dynamically lit from within. Unfortunately, with all the work of conjuring and coordinating the systematic torturing of our heroine, the lethal and dangerous dance the two must make in the dark with gasoline and matches used against the other, feels a tad clumsy and rushed. Unfortunately, those trippings deflate the tension too quickly lacking the depth it needs to truly land and find their mark.
Wait Until Dark is, as a whole, a pulse-quickening thrill ride that keeps audiences on the edge of their seats, gasping for air when not holding our collective breath. And although the ending keeps us guessing about who’s really in control, the grip that holds the scene tightly begins to weaken and loosen in the final moments. It doesn’t crash the play, but as directed, the Shaw Festival production doesn’t exactly kick those moments into high explosive degree, failing to fully explore the darker depths of the villains’ violence. Nor does the production offer a more nuanced look at the mental anguish behind the reframing—remaining firmly in classic noir territory, executed with style but lacking thematic complexity. Still, the cast as a whole delivers with remarkable precision and intensity, crafting a taut, shadowy dance that keeps Wait Until Dark a gripping and dynamic theatrical experience.
