Strike a light! Fetch the blackout curtains
Wait Until Dark (Richmond Theatre and touring) Verdict: Those darn exit lights! Faithful Ruslan: The Story Of A Guard Dog (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry) Verdict: A paw effort
The dramatic punch of Wait Until Dark, a 1966 play by Frederick ‘Dial M For Murder’ Knott, comes when the stage is plunged into darkness near the end.
A woman is under attack. In that total blackness, the suspense should become unbearable as we imagine terrible brutality being visited on the unfortunate soul.
Alas, in modern theatres, health and safety demands that the auditorium exit signs remain lit at all times — and so, despite the main lights being off, we can still see figures clumping about on stage. It rather spoils the tension.
The woman under attack is Susy, wife of an absent photographer. Susy is blind — and the big selling point of this production is that Karina Jones, the actress playing Susy, has herself been blind since she was 13.
Ms Jones certainly convinces as the initially confident, later more vulnerable, woman who becomes the victim of an attempted con. But Alastair Whatley’s production is pretty creaky, as is the plot.
Three criminals are trying to retrieve a stash of heroin that has been hidden in a doll. They think the doll is in Susy’s split-level flat (a detailed but perhaps slightly unimaginative set by David Woodhead).
The thugs are well enough played by Jack ellis, Graeme Brookes and Tim Treloar, but the direction is unambitious — humdrum sound effects and some dicey fight scenes. Playwright Knott, who never wrote again after this offering, relies on a landline telephone in a way that dates the play markedly. Mobile phones have made con-trick stories much harder to plot because the innocent can always check a story.
Knott toys briefly with the idea of conmen themselves being easy to dupe. But the story probably has three plot-twists too many to be credible. This show may divert audiences who love old-fashioned proscenium-arch yarns, but it had a distinct aroma of mothballs.
One regrettable development: the Richmond has joined the maddening fad of demanding to inspect your ticket if you re- enter the theatre after the interval. An over-officious usher who was hectoring punters as they wandered outside at the end of the first half was firmly told by a few patrons: ‘ Don’t worry — we’re not coming back!’
SOVIeT gulags had guard dogs which were trained to trust no one but their handlers. This made them entirely unsuitable for any life other than in the labour camps they guarded. When the camps were shut, most of the dogs were shot.
Dissident writer Georgi Vladimov (1931-2003) wrote a novel about one such dog, Ruslan. It has been turned into a play which is showing at Coventry for another week and will then have a run in Glasgow.
Vladimov seized on Ruslan — faithful, mute, trained to be violent when so instructed — as a symbol for the Soviet Union’s masses. It is a neat idea and I went expecting satire and maybe some sentimentality (the story does not have a happy ending). Sadly, Faithful Ruslan concentrates on shouty, leaden allegory. And, boy, at almost three hours, the evening drags.
A youthful, multi-tasking cast has plainly been worked hard by director helena Kaut-howson. Let’s hope they didn’t feel they were in the salt mines. The acting includes much insistent staring into the distance and clenching of jaws.
Max Keeble deserves praise for his performance as the dog. he barks nicely and spends much of the time crouching on all fours. Martin Donaghy, as Ruslan’s cold-hearted master, and Sinead Sharkey, as one of the ensemble leaders, also catch the eye.
But I could have done without the bad language (most of it from an irritating character with a London accent) and there is a surfeit of directorial flourishes and gloom. It all feels slightly studenty, humourless and as subtle as an Alsatian’s bite.