People of a certain age might still get a chill at the mention of the 1967 film "Wait Until Dark."
It earned Audrey Hepburn an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Susan, a blind woman caught up in nefarious business. When con men arrive at Susan's Greenwich Village flat to retrieve something she has no knowledge of, the resulting battle of wits and nerves is capped with one heck of a visual shock — it routinely turns up on lists of all-time scariest movie scenes.
The film was based on a play by Frederick ("Dial M for Murder") Knott that ran on Broadway 50 years ago. In 2013, Jeffrey Hatcher adapted the play, tweaking various details, and it's his revised "Wait Until Dark" that will open Everyman Theatre's season this week.
Like any thriller, the play requires surprise. As can be gleaned from the title, it also calls for darkness. It's not too much of a spoiler to note that the terrified Susan eventually uses her disability to her advantage, forcing any would-be tormentor to experience her sightless world — and, for good measure, forcing the audience to do so, too.
"The production people have assured me that we can achieve a complete blackout in the theater," says Donald Hicken, director of the Everyman production.
The original 1966 New York run of Knott's play, starring Lee Remick as Susan and Robert Duval as a villain with the singularly unappetizing name Harry Roat, achieved a good deal of its impact by playing the final scene in the dark.
When the film came out, movie theaters likewise tried to achieve the proper atmosphere. As the on-screen tension increased between an elegant Hepburn and a creepy Alan Arkin as Roat, house lights gradually dimmed before reaching total blackness — a good way to guarantee plenty of screams from an audience at just the right moment.
Building suspense can be easier cinematically, since there is no break in the action. The stage version of "Wait Until Dark" is in two acts.
"But the play gives us a big surprise at the end of Act 1," Hicken says. "And that, hopefully, will sustain the audience through intermission."
Although folks have poked holes in the plot of "Wait Until Dark" for half a century, the basic ingredients of a thriller remain potent.
It all starts with a doll. A woman returning from a trip slips the doll to Susan's unsuspecting husband, Sam. He isn't home when some men come looking for it later, which leaves Susan trying to deal with strangers making odd demands and spinning odder scenarios. She has to decide whom, if anyone, she can trust.
The original version of the play, set in contemporary times, reveals that the doll is stuffed with heroin (it's the same in the movie). Hatcher's adaptation puts the plot in 1944 and substitutes jewels for drugs.
"What I like about the shift of time is that you get that noir feeling," says Megan Anderson, who plays Susan.
The move to the penultimate year of World War II also allowed Hatcher to give the original play a twist involving Sam and a guy named Mike, introduced as a fellow Marine who served with Sam in Europe. Mike enters Susan's apartment just when she needs a friendly visitor most.
"There was such a climate of national support for anyone in uniform," Hicken says. "It was very different from the wars in Vietnam and Korea. This was the 'good' war. People who fought that war were heroes to everybody."
Adds Anderson: "To Susan, Mike was a hero as well as a friend of Sam's, and any friend of Sam's is going to be a friend of Susan's."
Those unfamiliar with "Wait Until Dark" might want to avoid reading anything more. But it shouldn't be giving too much away to mention that Roat isn't the only bad guy in the story, and that the con men get awfully conniving in the effort to retrieve the doll.
"Everyone is involved because a lot of money is involved," Hicken says. "But mistakes happen, and when something goes wrong, criminals have to improvise. Roat adds this diabolical element to what otherwise would be a harmless con. He has no qualms."
And Bruce Randolph Nelson has no qualms about portraying Roat in the Everyman staging.
"It's always fun to play the evil guy," Nelson says. "I like making a mess of things."
Guest artists for the production include Arturo Tolentino as Sam. "Being a native New Yorker, I connect with him in a lot of ways," Tolentino says. "Roat calls him 'Mr. Nice Guy,' and he is a nice guy. He's very human, very humane, a very loving character."
There's only one problem with this nice guy.
"Sam spends the entire play in the wrong place," Hicken says.
That leaves the apartment vulnerable to Roat and the shady Carlino, played by Todd Scofield.
"Carlino puts on a detective facade as part of the con, but he does best when he's not in charge," Scofield says. "He's glad Roat comes along."
As for Mike, actor Eric M. Messner admires "the way he eases into the con. He's the best improviser all the way through."
One more character appears in the play, a young neighbor girl, Gloria. Two Baltimore School for the Arts students, Shannon Hutchinson and Ui-Seng Francois, will alternate in this plot-crucial role.
"She is totally against Susan, but ends up on the same side," Hutchinson says.
"Gloria is kind of insecure, almost disturbed in a way," adds Francois. "But she's really not all that bad. We have to get the audience to like her."
When it comes to generating empathy in "Wait Until Dark," that's more Susan's department.
Like Remick and Hepburn before her, Anderson prepared for the assignment by learning to simulate blindness.
"I've been practicing at home doing things with my eyes closed," Anderson says. "I scooped the litter box and did really well — I'm very proud of that. My daughter would come home and say, 'What blind task are you doing now, Mom?'"
Onstage, Anderson has to avoid looking directly into the other actors' eyes. And, like her colleagues, she has to tackle the additional challenge of performing in a darkened house — the actors will be relying on strategically located glow-in-the-dark tape ("We have to place the tape so the audience can't see it," Hicken says.)
In Susan, "Wait Until Dark" has a central character at once able and disabled.
"What's clever about the play is that it avoids the stereotype of another screaming woman who is the victim of a horror story," Hicken says. "The audience is supportive right away because of this."
Anderson agrees.
"What I love about Susan is her sensitivity and resourcefulness," Anderson says. "She is terrified, but the play gives her an opportunity to be very strong."
If you go
After preview performances Wednesday and Thursday, "Wait Until Dark" opens Friday and runs through Oct. 9 at Everyman Theatre, 315 W. Fayette St. Tickets are $10 to $64. Call 410-752-2208, or go to everymantheatre.org.