The Superpower of Wait Until Dark
By Jerome Langston
“Starting is always a difficult thing, in any walk in life, but with a play, it looks like this giant mountain to climb. But when you arrive, and as soon as the actors sit at the table… and you hear their voices, and hear the energy, you can start to already see it coming into view…” says acclaimed director and playwright, Mark Shanahan, who is in Norfolk to direct the latest Virginia Stage Company production of season 47, “Wait Until Dark.” We’re inside the side lobby of the Wells Theatre, late on a Thursday afternoon, and Mark and I are joined by actress Meredith Parker, who plays the lead role of Susan, in the Frederick Knott penned thriller. The cast is only in its second or third day of rehearsal, and so Mark, who was last here as director for season 45’s “Dial M for Murder”, is still deeply entrenched in building a strong foundation for this current show. “The best thing you can do when you’re directing a play, is get people who are generous with each other, in the room, and then help them, or get out of their way,” he says.
It was producing Artistic Director Tom Quaintance who approached Shanahan about directing “Wait Until Dark following the artistic success of the “Dial M for Murder” production, which was of course also a Frederick Knott play. “Tom knows that I love mysteries. I really do. “They’ve just captivated me since I was a kid,” Shanahan says. “While this isn’t a whodunit… this is a good old-fashioned thriller.” Local theater nerds, as well as longtime patrons of shows at the Wells, are familiar with Shanahan’s lengthy creative partnership with VSC. “A Merry Little Christmas Carol” is his popular adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic, and that show has been running in repertory each holiday season, with “A Sherlock Carol”, which he also penned. Additionally, the director/playwright/actor often works with costume designer Jeni Schaefer, whom he regards as one of the best in this country, and then there’s his longtime creative “bromance” with actor/director Steve Pacek, who stars as Mike in this production, but was also recently the director of the aforementioned “A Sherlock Carol.”
“Wait Until Dark” tells the suspenseful story of a blind woman living in a 1940s Greenwich Village apartment, who finds herself threatened by a trio of male criminals, who are searching for something that they believe she possesses. The play premiered on Broadway in February 1966, with Lee Remick starring as Susy Hendrix, and Robert Duvall as Roat. She received a Tony award nomination for Best Actress in a Play. There have been multiple revivals since, and the 1967 film adaptation starred Audrey Hepburn, and was a critical success. Hepburn earned both Academy Award and Golden Globe Award noms for her performance. Jeffrey Hatcher wrote the adaptation that VSC is now producing. “It’s not a major rewrite but it’s a more economical, condensed version that is set 20 years earlier, and I think the changes are really smart, and really fun,” says the director, who also serves as artistic director of the Westport Country Playhouse, in Connecticut.
The two-act play features a cast of six actors, and includes Seth Andrew Bridges as Roat, and Wyllow Smith as Gloria. Scenic design is being provided by Jo Winiarski, John Gromada, is the sound designer, and Seth who stars as Roat, is also the play’s fight choreographer. Shanahan teases that the use of sound will inform much of the show’s “visual” language. “It’s filled with suspense and has a kind of crackling energy and plot that drives through, where there’s a lot of deception and deceit going on, right in front of this woman, but essentially it plays into people’s fears of the unknown,” Shanahan says of the work. Meredith makes her VSC debut as Susan, the heroine of this thriller. The actor is an associate artist at Flint Repertory Theatre, and she tells me early on during her portion of the chat, that her husband Drew Parker starred at VSC over a decade ago, as one of the two leads in K2, which opened season 36. Such a small world sometimes. My friend Edward Morgan directed that play, with its massive mountain taking up the stage, and her husband was great at playing the very complicated character of Taylor.
“I saw they were casting, specifically a low vision actress, and I’m a low vision actress. And my husband encouraged me… So I put a tape together, and Katja reached out. And I hadn’t heard anything…,” says the actress. She eventually got a call back, and of course…landed the role. I ask her to describe Susan as a character. “I think Susan is a secret superhero. That’s really how I see her. Her hero’s journey is so inspiring for me, throughout this,” Meredith says. She explains how being a low vision actress gives her a greater relatability to this character, who is completely blind. “It’s a very unique, and rare opportunity for me to be able to really see myself so specifically in a character…”
Towards the end of my chat with both artists, I ask the director, sort of in closing… why this play works for this time. “This is a play about people who can feel powerless, against people who can exploit them. And what it offers us is something inspiring to say, the very things that you think might be something that might hold you back, or keep you from being able to feel your own power, and have your own agency… are the things that might also be your superpower.”
WANT TO GO?
“Wait Until Dark”
January 28 through February 15
Virginia Stage Company