Questions from the Actress

I’d been sound asleep in our Milwaukee hotel last month when I heard someone trying to get in our room. The key card went in the slot, then out. In, then out again.

If I hadn’t just visited the Wait Until Dark cast at Court Theatre in Chicago the day before — and told the actor playing the psychopath that if someone were in the room, not saying a word and not making any noise, I wouldn’t know they were there – well, I might have figured oh, someone had just made a mistake. They had the wrong room. I would have gone back to sleep.

But whoever it was at the door never apologized. He never said a word. Did he get in? Was he in our room? Did I hear someone breathing? Finally I got up, went to the door. There was Hanni, wagging her tail, hoping someone might come in and play with her. She wouldn’t be acting like that if a stranger really were in the room, would she? I crouched down, gave her a big hug, then felt my way up the doorframe to the security lock. I flipped it shut.

I laughed when I told Emjoy about this during her visit last Monday. Emjoy Gavino has the Audrey Hepburn (Susy) role in Wait Until Dark — she plays a blind woman alone in her apartment with a psychopath. “that damn play of yours!” I cursed. “It’s got me scared!” She laughed along with me, then settled in to watch me make my way around the kitchen. I emptied the dishwasher, cleaned off the counters, washed out the sink. Emjoy followed as I padded down the hallway to the garbage chute, one hand carrying the sack, the other trailing the wall. Back in the apartment, I found my way to the couch and sat down. She had lots of questions. “Do you have the furniture close together like this for a reason?” “When you rush to answer the phone, do you have to feel around for it? or can you tell where it is by the sound?” I couldn’t answer that last one for her. I don’t think about it, really. The phone rings, and I answer it.

Emjoy said she was glad I’d decided to do the dishes – Susy does the dishes in the play. There is one short scene where Susy uses a white cane, so I showed Emjoy how I’d learned to use mine. When we sat down again, Emjoy got quiet for a bit. She seemed hesitant to ask the next question. “That night in the hotel,” she finally said, breaking the silence. “Did you jump up out of bed right away to try to figure out what was happening?”

“Oh, no!” I told her. “No way! I had to listen first. I had to listen to figure out what was going on.” I told her I heard the key card go in the slot, then out. In the slot, then out. “If I’d jumped up and started moving around, I wouldn’t be able to focus on what I was hearing.”
When I thought I knew what was happening, I shouted towards the door. “You’ve got the wrong room!”! The key went in again. Or was it out? Then silence. I stayed there in bed, listening, for a long while. I called Hanni. She didn’t come. I finally got up then to figure out where she was. That’s when I found her, wagging her tail at the door.

“That’s good,” she said, thinking to herself as she talked. “That’s good. That’s what I thought.” In one scene of the play, when things are getting scary, Emjoy had been told that maybe she should move around, you know, to try to figure things out. “But I thought maybe I should stand still, just listen. And from what you just said, I think I might be right about that!”

Emjoy’s visit to our apartment confirmed a lot of things she’d already thought through, and she thanked me profusely for letting her come over. As she started putting her boots back on to leave, the phone rang. “Perfect!” I exclaimed, rushing over to answer it.

The verdict? I don’t have to feel for the phone. I can tell where it is by the sound.