"Wait Until Dark" a classic thriller at the Glendale Centre Theatre

---Theatre Review

An evening of heart-stopping suspense awaits any who see WAIT UNTIL DARK, the new thriller playing at the Glendale Centre Theatre. Written by Frederick Knott (Dial M for Murder) and directed by the multi-talented Gloria Gifford, this edge-of-your-seat murder mystery is a surprising, though not unwelcome, departure from the theater's usual lineup of musicals and romantic comedies.

The opening scene - with its "dark and stormy night" ambiance, eerie spine-tingling music, and noir stage lighting - hints at the play's sinister nature, but when the door to the apartment slowly opens and a figure in black slips in, all doubts vanish. It will be gooseflesh and chills, not giggles and guffaws for this show.

Mike Talman (played by hunky John Schwartz) is the first of three menacing characters to enter the silent Greenwich Village apartment. He and the fake "Sergeant" Carlino (Al Vicente) are con men recently released from prison and in desperate need of hard cash.

Harry Roat, the last to arrive and clearly the mastermind, explains the elaborate con they are about to play on the couple who live in the apartment. (Roat is played by Jeremy Waters with such frightening intensity he receives a thorough "booing" at curtain call. It´s what actors who play villains hope for, but his performance might be too intense for younger theatergoers.)

Sam Hendrix (Marco Tazioli) is the young husband who, as a favor to a woman in an airport, unwittingly brought a doll loaded with illegal drugs into the country. When the woman arrived to collect the doll, it had mysteriously disappeared. So did she, a few days later.

The con men, pretending to be Sam's friends, have come to convince his blind wife that she must find and hand over the doll before her husband is arrested for smuggling and murder. Susy believes their story at first, but becomes alarmed when she notices odd things happening.

Lauren Plaxco´s performance as the blind housewife is flawless. The audience never questions her lack of sight and after a while they give up looking for little things that don´t ring true. (Did she rehearse blindfolded, one wonders, or perhaps study with a truly blind person?)

Once the men realize she's on to their con, the game turns deadly. Terrified for her husband, yet refusing to surrender the doll, Susy finds a way to stall their plans and send for help. When that fails, Roat turns murderous and the suspense becomes almost unbearable.

Occasionally in live theatre, something happens that the producers hate, but the audience loves. In a matinee performance of WAIT UNTIL DARK, a woman became so scared at this point that she shouted out a way for Susy to save herself.

After a moment's shocked silence "the house came down" in a flood of released tension and giddy laughter. Plaxco stayed in character beautifully (Brava!) but Waters grinned, though he tried not to, and the laughter doubled. (GCT can't help but provide a moment of comedy it seems, even in the darkest of its plays!)

The actors quickly got back into the scene, and as soon as they did, the audience followed immediately and willingly into that dark and terrifying place. Bravo to both cast and crowd!

Regardless if the unexpected happens or not, WAIT UNTIL DARK is a must-see season closer before the holiday show begins. Be prepared for a mildly complicated setup and then a roller-coaster plunge into terrifying, nail-biting, heart-pounding suspense.

WAIT UNTIL DARK plays Thursday – Saturday evenings at 8 pm with Saturday & Sunday matinees at 3 pm, until November 21, 2009.

Tickets range from $15 - $19. Call (818) 244-8481 for reservations, or visit www.glendalecentretheatre.com

GCT is located at 324 N. Orange Street, Glendale, CA 91203. Metered street and lot parking w

ith free spaces available on the upper level of the B-of-A parking structure.