Review: WAIT UNTIL DARK Brings Spine-Tingling Thrills to Stoneham

If you’re watching a psychological thriller on stage and suddenly find yourself clutching the arm of your seat, that usually means the show is good and having its desired effect.

And if the show is “Wait Until Dark,” at Greater Boston Stage Company in Stoneham through March 22, be ready to cling to both arms of your seat, because it’s not just good, it’s great.

Written by Frederick Knott, the story takes place in 1944 Greenwich Village, where Susan Hendrix, a blind woman, finds herself terrorized in her own home by a trio of men searching for something they believe she unknowingly possesses. As the danger escalates and the walls close in, the fiercely resourceful Susan realizes that her blindness may be her greatest battle asset, but only if she can survive long enough to use it to her advantage.

Adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher, the play premiered on Broadway 60 years ago at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, where it starred Quincy-born Lee Remick and Robert Duvall. A hit 1967 feature film adaptation starred Audrey Hepburn and Alan Arkin, and a 1998 revival top-lined by Quentin Tarantino and Marisa Tomei played an out-of-town tryout at Boston’s Wilbur Theatre before moving to Broadway’s Brooks Atkinson Theatre, now the Lena Horne Theatre.

In Stoneham, under the perfectly paced, sharply conceived direction of GBSC producing artistic director Weylin Symes, “Wait Until Dark” is a spine-tingler with more twists and turns than a rollercoaster ride. The well cast company of actors includes Eliza Barmakian – a revelation in her GBSC debut – as Susan; Paul Melendy, often comedic but here scary as all get-out as Roat; Bill Mootos as the crooked Carlino; Thain Bertin, in his GBSC debut, as Sam; Amalia Tonogbanua as Susan’s supportive schoolgirl neighbor, Gloria; and, in his GBSC debut, Mamadou Toure as Mike. Alternating with Barmakian in the role of Susan is Jenny S. Lee.

At a recent press performance, visually impaired actor Barmakian played Susan, a woman recently blinded in an automobile accident who becomes unwittingly involved in the sinister plot when her husband (Bertin), an unknowing drug mule, leaves a heroin-filled doll in their apartment. Dressed in a stylish black blouse and matching wide-legged slacks by Costume Designer Deirdre Gerrard, Barmakian brings out Susan’s increasing empowerment in ways that are both contemporary and impressive.

The audience won’t always know who to trust, when the villains slither down the stairs into Susan’s basement apartment – a well detailed set by scenic designer Katy Monthei – and the suspenseful story begins to take shape. Tensions also escalate as sinister con men Roat and Carlino navigate around Susan’s suspicions. Melendy’s Roat has shades of sociopathy, while Mootos’s Carlino is classic 1940s-style gangster. Together, the actors create a sense of menace that roils through the story, even, or maybe especially, when they’re trying to pass themselves off as something other than criminals.

When Mike enters the scene in military garb and wastes no time charming Susan into a romantic swoon, it briefly seems that things might not end so badly. Toure plays Mike with charm, but ultimately proves that while you can put a man in a uniform that doesn’t guarantee respectability.

While much of the play simmers, the finale – with its squaring off between Barmakian and Melendy – all but boils over with frighteningly realistic physicality thanks to the well-executed work of fight choreographer Naomi Kim. The high-stakes action is amped up by lighting designer Jeff Adelberg, who, for the show’s scare-inducing climax, has the stage in darkness except for the shadowy light coming from the venertian blind-covered cellar windows, the open refrigerator, and the lit matches Roat uses to see Susan.

Those flashes of light may be plot-driven, but they also draw attention to Barmakian who, with this performance, has become a bright light on the Boston theater scene.