Wait Until Dark at the Geffen October 2013
It’s often that the Geffen Theatre features popular, talented television and film stars. We appreciatively recall Kathleen Turner, Mathew Modine and most recently, the satisfying and engaging, Amy Brennerman. But with the upcoming “Wait Until Dark,” the venerable playhouse brings the stars and a popular film to the stage.
The fun is that the film, “Wait Until Dark,” produced by her then-husband, Mel Ferrar, which earned the charming Audrey Hepburn a reputation as a serious actress, was actually first a play. Jeffrey Hatcher’s new time and setting in the play is alone intriguing enough to come and see the updated version.
The adaptation sounds tricky because it moves the play back to a time when guns were rare and the threat of violence was lurking locally and globally. World War II (1944) was a time when most able-bodied men were away at war.
Alison Pill (The Newsroom, Midnight in Paris, In Treatment), Brighid Fleming, Rod McLachlan, Matt McTighe, Adam Stein and Mather Zickel – are set for Jeffrey Hatcher’s world premiere adaptation of “Wait Until Dark,” written by Frederick Knott. Matt Shakman directs. The presentation will be performed in the Gil Cates Theater at the Geffen Playhouse, opening Wednesday, October 16, 2013. Previews begin October 8.
A ground-breaking thriller about ordinary people plunged into extraordinary circumstances, “Wait Until Dark,” follows a blind Greenwich Village housewife who finds herself in the center of a nightmarish criminal set-up. Depraved thieves believe Susy Hendrix is in possession of their heroin score. And indeed she is,without knowing it. This sets in motion a manipulative psychological war. The question is whether Susy can turn her own handicap into an advantage against the criminals, with the help of her youngster neighbor, once she comprehends what is going on.
There are some pretty big shoes to fill: even today, Alan Arkin’s performance as one of the criminals is as fresh and superb as it was the first time around—and the film is commonly listed in every major list of “scariest movies of all time.” Ironically, Alan Arkin credits the luck of his getting the role with it being so difficult to cast because the producers couldn’t find actors willing to be cast in such a villainous role – not only terrorizing a blind woman, but terrorizing beloved Audrey Hepburn to boot!
Frederick Knott’s 1966 play inspired the eponymous film the following year, plus multiple Broadway productions earning Tony and Academy Award nominations for many of the actors involved – including the film’s star, Audrey Hepburn and a Golden Globe for Ephram Zimbalist, Jr., who played her husband. It was Hepburn’s last film for decades while she raised her family.
Knott also wrote the suspenseful stage and screenplay for “Dial M for Murder.” Both plays feature appealing, not particularly independent young ladies, really, who suddenly find themselves in peril, forced to rely on their own cunning and inner strength to escape their circumstances. Knot is also rightly known for “haunting his audiences as much with what we imagine as what we actually see with our own eyes.”
Knott only wrote three scripts, all of which went on to make millions for other, and of which he only achieved his own goal of “living comfortably.” “Dial M for Murder” was also updated successfully to make the nail-biter, “A Perfect Murder,” with Gwyneth Paltrow and Michael Douglas.
The Geffen Playhouse is a Los Angeles treasure, stark and sweet at the same time. It has been a hub of the Los Angeles theater scene since opening its doors in restored form in 1995. Noted for its intimacy and celebrated for its world-renowned mix of classic and contemporary plays, provocative new works and second productions, the Geffen Playhouse continues to present a body of work that has garnered national recognition.
www.geffenplayhousecom, (310) 208-6500, 10886 Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024