That question is at the heart of the New England Youth Theatre's decision to undertake Frederick Knott's, difficult and dangerous thriller, which opens tonight and runs through April 21.
It's difficult because the demands of staging the play are immense and multi-faceted. "This is not a play that should be done by amateurs," said Director and NEYT Founder Stephen Stearns.
And, yes, it's even a little dangerous. As the play winds to its chilling conclusion, the stage is in complete darkness. Selling out to his role completely, Jacob Lepkoff falls to the stage during Saturday's run-through and brings a bowl down on his head. He also sustains a cut on his elbow. As the lights come back up, he assures everyone he's OK.
"Wait Until Dark" marks another landmark leap for a theater company which has made a habit of them. Actually, it's a landmark achievement for NEYT in two ways.
First, it reflects the burgeoning success of its technical program, which had its coming-out
Second, the play represents a new foray by the NEYT into unprecedented dark territory. A classic play written in the mid-1960s, "Wait Until Dark" tells the story of Suzy Hendrix, who has been blind for a year, and lives in Greenwich Village with her husband Sam. All of her newly learned skills of coping in a dark world are brought to the fore as she is terrorized by three con men looking for a doll stuffed full of heroin which they believe is hidden in Suzy's apartment. As the plot unfolds, she slowly turns her disability to her advantage, outwitting her pursuers in a deadly cat-and-mouse game.
It was made into a movie in 1967, starring Audrey Hepburn and Alan Arkin -- the film's final scene ranked 10th on Bravo's list of "100 Scariest Movie Moments."
"It will be interesting, audience-wise. This theater thrives on laughs. This is going to be really intense," said Allie Bliss, who plays the central figure, Suzy.
There is murder, mayhem and a whole lot of evil let loose on the stage. The play perhaps could be considered rated PG-13 -- NEYT has asked that no children under age 12 be brought, unless accompanied by a parent.
The play is visceral, chilling, the playwright has a knack for exposing characters' insecurities, and the insecurities in all of us, and rubbing them raw. But the darkness is not gratuitous.
The darkness in "Wait Until Dark" is in service of some pretty valuable ideals -- of making the choice to resist evil, of standing up to efforts by others to control you, of triumphing over obstacles.
"For me, it's Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and civil liberties," said Stearns. "We're talking about things that are happening now, about what it is to have a choice and have a voice. ... This is a piece that dramatically demonstrates that. It's relevant to our society. ... I wanted to do this play just as a statement of triumph over senseless violence and evil."
Still, for all the play's timeliness, the decision to stage it was not made lightly. Stearns had planned for NEYT to do the play once before, in 2001, but then came brutal murders of Half and Susanne Zantop at Dartmouth College. In that climate, Stearns felt it was the wrong thing to explore violence on stage.
As time passed, Stearns knew he had a core group of veteran actors now who could handle the demands of the play. Still, he had more due diligence to perform.
He showed the film to a group of NEYT board members and parents and told them he wanted to do the play. Did they have reservations about it? They gave their endorsement.
Then he showed the film to Bliss and asked her if she would be willing to take on the role of the blind heroine, Suzy Hendrix. "I said 'Allie, do you have the guts to do this?'"
"When I first saw the movie, it freaked me out," Bliss admitted. "But I realized, it's an amazing opportunity. ... We've been given the best of everything."
To master her role, Bliss wore a blindfold at home and did a few rehearsals blindfolded. The experience was a revelation.
"When I was blindfolded, I wanted to have people touching me constantly. I needed to know where they were. When I finally took the blindfold off, everything opened up," Bliss said. "You do notice things. I could hear that someone was still there. I heard someone crinkling paper. It does open up a world."
Stepping into character opened up a world for Lepkoff, who plays the baddest bad guy, Roat, with a cool malevolence that is chilling to watch.
"I picked him as a typical psychopath. He's never experienced conscience. Because of that, he's developed uncanny control of any situation," Lepkoff said. "He's really without mercy -- and that's what makes him so frightening."
As for playing a psychopath, Lepkoff said, "It's fun ... Actually, I wouldn't say fun so much; it's a rush. ... When you truly get it right, you start to feel that control."
And that's the challenge, truly getting it right.
"For us to really sink the play, it has to feel almost exactly real," Lepkoff said. "It's a challenging play. ... The technical side of things is quite challenging."
The NEYT cast and crew devoted a half dozen rehearsals to the technical side of the show alone. The set, the props, the special effects are all things the actors have to interact with, in addition to each other. Timing is as important to the crew as it is to the cast.
During Saturday's run-through, there were, predictably, a few glitches, but more went right than wrong. And for a play which carries a message about the triumph of resourcefulness and ingenuity over evil, coping with those glitches is a case of life in rehearsal imitating art.
When all is ironed out, the technical aspect of the show should be dazzling. The set itself is an entire city apartment, complete with kitchen, a living room, front hallway, corridor to a bedroom and even a working darkroom. The apartment is fully furnished. All the lights in the apartment function, as does the telephone and the doorbell. The kitchen has all the appliances, and when you open the refrigerator door, the little light goes on. When it rains, you can see the raindrops pelting against the kitchen windows. NEYT has a bunch of other tricks up its sleeve, but we'll leave them for audiences to discover.
In a lighter moment, NEYT veterans chuckle about the not-so-long-ago days when a set was a piece of painted plywood and the furniture consisted of a few stools.
"How many years did we just have cardboard?" Stearns said.
Not anymore. The Technical Theater Program is burgeoning, and program adviser Larry Lawlor is proud to show off the set and its features, like a real estate agent showing a prime rental property. Where do I sign?
With that comes more work for the students involved in the technical side of the show, which far outnumbers the onstage cast, which has a core of six actors. It also imposes some performance pressure on the crew. When the curtain goes up, the crew has to hit its light and sound cues on the mark.
"They all just step right up," Lawlor said.
Prior to Saturday's run-through, the set is a beehive of activity as cast and crew place props, check lights and sound bits, work through trouble spots and resolve dozens of unanswered questions. Theater is problem-solving.
But not without its lighter moments. When the Vermont Yankee siren goes off for its regularly scheduled test, the crew pauses, listens and wonders if it's a sound cue gone awry. When they realize it's real, work goes on.
The cast has been equally wrapped up in the play's technical challenges.
"We talked about the set as a character," Stearns said.
Because the stage had sets for another show on it, until recently, NEYT mapped and measured out the set in a borrowed barn and rehearsed there.
"Because of the darkness, I needed to set this thing on its feet as soon as possible," Stearns said.
After the run-through on Saturday, cast and crew could tell they were closing in on something powerful.
"I do wonder what the audience will think," Bliss said.
Performances of "Wait Until Dark" at NEYT, 100 Flat St., are Thursday through Saturday, April 10-12 and 17-19, at 7:30 p.m., with matinees on Sundays, April 13 and 20, at 3 p.m. A special vacation week performance is Monday, April 21, at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are on sale at www.neyt.org. Tickets are $12 adults, $9 for students. For reservations, call 802-246-NEYT.