You all remember my sister Rebecca?
And perhaps you remember last Spring when she directed a very cool production of “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown” (and shared it with all of us)?
This year (tonight and tomorrow night, at Christ Community Church, actually), she’s directing a thriller called “Wait Until Dark”. I got to see it last weekend and it is a great show. Very cool, very different from what I’m used to seeing in high school theatre!
I thought it might be fun for you locals and non-local theatre lovers to enjoy her Director’s Note for the show. (Fair warning: if you read it, you’re going to need to see the show to find out what happens!)
And for those of you who aren’t handy to Franklin, TN – rent the Audrey Hepburn movie version of the play this weekend for fun!
Either way – enjoy my big sister’s coolness, some photos from the production, and even a time-lapse video of striking the set last weekend + re-constructing it this week. We’re a multi-media operation here, y’all.
Get on the express train
The best part about a thriller is the thrill, the pay off. All the set-up is like carefully laid tracks so that, in about an hour, an express train can blow through. We all know the pay off is coming.
Wait Until Dark is one of the great suspense plays in the American theatre repertoire. After the play was first produced on Broadway in 1966, Audrey Hepburn starred in a 1967 film version. Knott’s classic play has been in rotation ever since, even seeing a broadway revival starring Quentin Tarantino and Marisa Tomei in the nineties.
Why is suspense so appealing? I think I love the knowledge that something exciting must happen, the conflict must be resolved somehow, and it’s coming soon, but it’s a mystery how. The big “Boo!” is inevitable, and I can’t turn my eyes away. As we prepared this show we discussed differences between suspense and horror. Most of us agreed that we don’t like to be scared, but we love to be thrilled.
The key difference in my mind that sets a thriller apart is the narrative anticipation. Knott sets us up beautifully. He opens with three sketchy guys looking for something hidden in a doll, and in classic suspense style, the doll isn’t really the important thing. (Hitchcock coined the term “MacGuffin” for the thing everyone is chasing, but nobody in the audience cares about. Like “papers” in a spy story, or “diamonds” in a heist.)
The important thing is laying the tracks for that express train. The doll ends up in Susy’s Greenwich Village apartment. She is newly married and newly blind, and we meet her in one of the greatest entrances in theatre. Her house is filled with evil, and she only has a momentary wisp of suspicion. We learn that the doll is hidden in Susy’s apartment building. Roat, Carlino, and Mike desperately want that doll. And that’s how the train gets out of the station.
Some of the joy of watching a thriller unfold is watching for details that will pay off later, but without letting the audience predict what is coming. For example, when Gloria warns Susy that a kitchen knife is sharp, we know that that knife is going to have a role in the play besides paring fruit. Knott has beautifully engineered his thriller to keep us moving toward the end goal. Enjoy the details and clues.
The characters in this play are not as important as characters in other shows. I know, shocking, right? But every play has one primary focus, and in Wait Until Dark, the plot is king. The goal is to keep the train moving forward, and we will never make it if we stop at every station to meet the locals. In spite of that, Knott has created some interesting characters who illuminate the modern spirit of the play.
Gloria gets shuffled back and forth between her parents, Suzy wants to drive her away, and Sam will never return her schoolgirl crush. She seems like an unwanted little girl. She seems alone. Suzy also seems alone. She has no community to protect her, and her husband not only presses Susy to defrost the fridge on her own, but he pushes her toward total independence.
That independence is a hallmark of modernity. At FCS, we study time periods in a four-year rotation, once every four years we focus on Modernity. And I love how Wait Until Dark spotlights that isolation of modern life. Suzy must be isolated and independent for the play to work.
Suzy might be the world’s champion blind woman, but she and Gloria bravely break through that isolation and work together towards justice.
Our longing to see this justice gives fuel to the thriller train because once we see innocent Suzy threatened by the bad guys, we all root together to see her triumph over them. Our desire to see her safe increases with our appreciation for her, and with the increase of danger. By the end, we should all be leaning forward, willing Suzy to win.
Pardon my exuberance if you see my head sticking out the window of the train and hear me cheering, “Suzy! Suzy!” But who doesn’t long, with everything that is in you, to see good triumph over evil?
Rebecca Faires
Autumn 2012
oh my goodness – your family is so multi-talented! i had to leave a comment today because i grew up in franklin! i don’t find people on the interwebs that often from my hometown. i live in AL now, but love franklin. in fact, when i lived there, christ community church used to be a few blocks from our church (i think it’s moved since then?). how cool though; thanks for sharing!