Susan (Tina Traboulsi), who’s blind, listens to ex-cop Carlino (Rob Garcia) lie about his crooked motives in Wait Until Dark. Photo by Robin Jackson.
By WOODY WEINGARTEN
Wait Until Dark, a theatrical thriller that’ll run through Dec. 14, proves that nothing can replace live theater. You’re not in front of a two-dimensional movie screen but, instead, you’re right there, close to the characters, close to the scary action, possibly gripping the edge of your seat until the suspenseful drama ends. You’re watching a play that’s often dimly lit or totally blacked out on purpose, nervously expecting the main character, who’s blind, to suddenly be attacked or killed.
The audience at the Barn in Ross, packed with white-haired ladies at a matinee, is kept in the dark, so to speak, as long and as much as the protagonist is.
Superb direction by Carl Jordan and solid acting by a cast of six Ross Valley Players keep the intensity going throughout, overcoming a complicated, dated 2013 script that’s a rewrite of the original 1966 Broadway version.
Jordan ensures that the play’s stereotypical characters aren’t quite caricatures but that their pawn-like movements from the pens of writer Frederick Knott and adaptor Jeffrey Hatcher are followed.
In contrast, Tina Traboulsi is so realistic as Susan, a newlywed who hasn’t adjusted yet to sightlessness caused by an auto accident, you might feel a desire to reach across the stage to keep her from stumbling over furniture that was moved, to protect her from the danger of three intruders who separately enter her apartment without her knowledge, permission, or desire.
Sporadic humor, almost all of it intended, may break through the tension from time to time,
A leather-gloved Roat (David L. Yen) leaves no fingerprints while searching for a valuable doll. Photo by Robin Jackson.
although Susan’s paranoia starts early and builds geometrically as each character enters the stage. She, naturally, suspects everyone, including her husband, of lying to her or plotting something even more evil.
Rob Garcia portrays Carlino, an ex-con, ex-cop involved in a non-theoretical conspiracy with just enough likability to make his otherwise menacing demeanor tolerable.
Portraying a snarly, leather-gloved criminal, whom Susan and you may both believe wouldn’t blink at the need to dispose of someone in his way, is David L. Yen as Roat.
David Abrams inhabits the personality of Mike, who may not be so dead-set on killing — or getting caught.
Coco Brown and Diora Silin, who alternate each performance of Gloria, play a troubled teen who repeatedly drops into Susan’s basement apartment to avoid a mom who entertains a string of men, and Benjamin Vasquez (Susan’s disappearing hubby, Sam) fill out the cast of the murder mystery.
A mysterious doll with something valuable hidden in it becomes the taut focal point of the climax of Wait Until Dark, which was made into a 1967 movie starring Audrey Hepburn and Alan Arkin with different plot points.
It takes almost no time for costumes and furniture that could have existed in the World War II era to quickly pull the audience into the basement digs in Greenwich Village. Gifted sound cues by Billie Cox and equally perfect lighting designed by Frank Sarubbi pinpoint a noir atmosphere that cinematic classics from director Alfred Hitchcock and Hollywood power couple Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall honed.
The plotline may take place in 1944, with occasional references to such past-their-sell-date items as malt-flavored milk mix Ovaltine and radio soap opera heroine Helen Trent, but two hours of intensity in Ross are definitely here and now.
Wait Until Dark will play in the Barn at the Marin Art and Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Ross, through Dec. 14. Tickets: $30 to $45. Info: 415-456-9555 or www.rossvalleyplayers.com.
Sherwood “Woody” Weingarten, a longtime voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle and the author of four books, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net or on his websites, https://woodyweingarten.com and https://vitalitypress.com.
