Mud Creek Players brings real tension & fear to stage in “Wait Until Dark”

By DANIEL SHOCK
A Seat on the Aisle

The dark. My 14-year-old son still sleeps with the closet light on. As a kid, I had a nightlight. Fear of the dark is one of those universal childhood experiences – a fear not of the dark itself, but of what might be hiding in it. Our imaginations fill the shadows with menace.

These days, I’m rarely unsettled by darkness. But I still wrestle with a related fear: blindness. I suspect when Frederick Knott wrote Wait Until Dark in the 1960s, blindness was widely equated with total darkness – an unending absence of light and independence. That understanding has evolved. I’ve seen YouTube videos of blind people riding bikes, using echolocation to navigate their world with impressive confidence. But the idea of losing one’s sight still unnerves many of us, especially when placed in a world filled with deception and danger.

Wait Until Dark takes those fears and ratchets up the tension. It asks: what if the person who can’t see is the one who sees most clearly? And what if the darkness isn’t empty, but filled with someone waiting to strike?

Mud Creek Players’ production of Wait Until Dark leans into that suspense and delivers a solid, well-crafted thriller. The setting – a basement apartment in 1963 Greenwich Village – is impressively realized. The set is warm, worn, and perfectly evocative of the time and place. It feels lived-in, which makes the invasion of that space feel all the more violating.

Susy Hendrix (Lexi Odle-Stollings) is antagonized by Harry Roat (Kelly Keller). (Photo by Rob Slaven / IndyGhostLight.com)

As Susy Hendrix, a recently blind woman adjusting to her new reality, Lexi Odle-Stollings delivers a sympathetic and grounded performance. Through no fault of her own, Susy becomes the unsuspecting target of three con men searching for a missing doll that has been used to smuggle drugs. When the doll ends up in her apartment, Susy finds herself at the center of an increasingly elaborate and sinister scheme. Whether it’s empathy or sympathy we feel, she earns it honestly. We believe her vulnerability – and her strength.

JB Scoble gives a particularly menacing performance as Mike Talman. His presence shifts from charming to chilling with alarming ease. Kelly Keller’s Harry Roat is appropriately disturbing, walking that fine line between control and madness. Trevor Brown brings a fittingly brutish energy to Carlino, the third member of the con. Every criminal trio needs a guy who’s a bit of a liability, and Brown fills that role well.

As Gloria, the young upstairs neighbor, Evelyn Odom has perfected the “annoying kid” role so well that you can’t help but suspect it’s acting (and pretty good acting at that). Zachary Thompson’s Sam Hendrix, Susy’s husband, is affable and caring – a presence we miss when he’s offstage and feel safer when he returns. Sidney Blake and Thomas Burek round out the cast as two policemen, both looking the part and landing their key moment when it counts.

Director Andrea Odle and her team have shaped a tight, suspenseful production. Jay Ganz’s set design is both functional and familiar, creating a believable Greenwich Village basement apartment that feels lived-in and increasingly claustrophobic as the tension builds. Lighting by Clay Howard and sound by Stephen DiCarlo work in tandem to immerse us in Susy’s world – one where the ring of the phone or the flick of a light switch can shift the entire balance of power. Their contributions are crucial in helping the audience experience what it might feel like to navigate a world without sight.

While there’s no language or explicit content to speak of, Wait Until Dark does involve moments of real tension and fear – especially when the stage is plunged into darkness. It’s appropriate for older children, but I’d suggest around age 9 or 10 as a minimum, depending on your child’s sensitivity. As always, know your kid.

In a world of brightly lit screens and fast-moving entertainment, Wait Until Dark reminds us of the power of stillness, silence, and yes – darkness.

Recommended. Don’t miss your chance to catch this chilling and suspenseful thriller before it disappears into the dark.

Remaining Performances of Wait Until Dark presented by Mud Creek Players: Thursday, March 27 at 7:30 p.m., Friday, March 28 at 8 p.m., and Saturday, March 29 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased online at mudcreekplayers.org or at the door, if available.

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