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Home > Blogs > Arts and Entertainment > Archives > 2009 > May > 05 > Entry
Voices tell the story in Victoria’s ‘Dark’
Although it’s a thriller from another era, “Wait Until Dark” stands up to jaded contemporary scrutiny pretty well in an effectively staged and nicely detailed production by The Human Race Theatre Company that opened Tuesday, May 5, at the Victoria Theatre.
The Chase Broadway Series finale is about a blind woman who eventually sees through a con perpetrated by two harmless criminals and one truly menacing one. They hope to retrieve a drug-filled doll that has ended up in her apartment by chance, but can’t be found.
You may find yourself wondering at one point why she doesn’t just call the police. You may not believe she would send a young neighbor girl to the New York Port Authority bus station on her own with the instructions to stay there all night if that’s how long an errand takes.
But there aren’t many loose ends in Frederick Knott’s 47-year-old script that was made into a movie starring Audrey Hepburn. It’s talky, however. The characters go to great lengths to explain what they’re going to do until the climax in Act 2 when Annie Paul, as Susie Hendrix, battles to the finish with Rob Johansen as bad guy Harry Roat Jr.
Sometimes visible, but often not, things and people go bump in the night during that scene, which director Drew Fracher keeps fairly simple. That’s a good idea, because the outcome will not surprise most people even remotely familiar with the story. Camouflage and subterfuge wouldn’t make it scarier.
Johansen looks like a bad guy and Paul is convincing as a sightless woman, but the most important quality for Fracher’s cast members is probably their voices.
Paul sounds young and sweet and kind, which makes her eventual courage a more effective contrast. Buz Davis’ delivery as con man Mike Talman is perfectly smooth and sympathetic. It’s easy to see why Susie would trust him so quickly.
The cast also includes Scott Stoney as “Sgt. Carlino,” Jamie Cordes as Susie’s photographer husband Sam and Sydney Elena Schultz as young upstairs neighbor Gloria.
“Wait Until Dark” will continue through May 17 at the Victoria Theatre, First and Main streets. Tickets are $41-$81 at Ticket Center Stage, (937) 228-3630, (888) 228-3630 or www.ticketcenterstage.com.
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