While recovering from an accident that has blinded her, Susan crosses paths in the hospital with Sam, a Vietnam vet and photographer coping with emotional troubles. It isn’t long before romance kicks in and the two marry after a few months. Though a gifted photographer in his own right, Sam does portrait and glamour photography to pay the bills, while Susan stays home, still learning how to manage the challenges of sightlessness. Sam pays a neighbor girl, Gloria (a teenage hormone case) to help Susan out, but she’s just another source of stress for Susan.
When Wait Until Dark opens three thugs are trying to locate a doll they’ve used to smuggle contraband. Their female associate ditched the doll in one of Sam’s bags, when they sat next to each other on the train. For reasons as yet unrevealed, said associate wouldn’t disclose the whereabouts of said doll, and now she lies dead in the bedroom offstage, because one of these villains got itchy. To his credit, playwright Frederick Knott has given each one of these characters distinct characteristics. One in particular, feels a bit deranged.
Before Sam leaves for work, it’s pretty clear there’s some strain in their new marriage. Though nothing fatal. Mike, an old war buddy of Sam’s, turns up looking for him. He has a few hours to kill before his connecting train. While exchanging pleasantries with Susan, a police detective arrives asking questions about the discovery of corpse and talk of a missing doll. Understandably, Susan is terrified, but luckily, Mike is there to take things in hand.
If you haven’t guessed by now (or knew already) Wait Until Dark’s most salient quality is suspense. Blind woman still learning the fundamentals of survival is put in danger, when her husband is turned into an unwitting mule. Sam is nowhere close when Susan must pull herself together, and find her resourcefulness, when (naturally) it would be easier to to give in. She doesn’t come by her heroism easily, and the strategy she needs to prevail is hardly obvious or even intuitive. But perhaps the best attribute of Knott’s drama, is a solid, compelling, touching narrative that engages us, apart from the problems at hand. It would have been easy to elicit pity for a blind woman, surrounded by felons. But instead, Knott gives the besieged Susan the opportunity to prove herself to them, to us, and to herself. Not because she’s brave, but because she won’t let herself surrender. And she has skills they never counted on.
Once again, The Core Theatre has come through with a gifted, canny, persevering cast and crew that delivers an absorbing, pleasurable, memorable performance. We feel the authenticity of the dialogue, the emotions are unselfconscious and resonant. As she comes closer and closer to catastrophe, we are right there with Susan, mind racing, fighting panic, searching for answers, counting every step.
The Core Theatre presents Wait Until Dark: playing March 22nd-April 14th, 2019. 518 West Arapaho Rd, Ste 115, Richardson, Texas 75080. (214) 930-5338. www.thecoretheatre.org