Thriller 'Night Watch' offers dramatic twist

Veteran actress Kinch leaves stage for Alaska

The actors staging "Night Watch" are annoyingly tight-lipped.

Ask them who the killer is in the Chapel Theater's new thriller play, and they won't spill the beans.

That's because they want you to come see for yourself.

It's a bit of a departure for the acting troupe, more serious in mood and tone than the usual lighthearted fare, as Elaine Wheeler (played by Karen Kinch), struggling with late-night insomnia, thinks she sees a dead body in the window across the way. As the play progresses, Elaine's sanity is called more and more into question.

"A fellow board member gave it to me to read and I loved it," said "Night Watch" director Cynthia Dano. "I read about ten scripts after that, and there were a couple good ones, but none of them measured up to this in my mind, for this type of play."

Dano said she really liked the ending of the play, but of course she couldn't go into that.

"I don't watch a lot of suspense movies or anything like that, so maybe for people who really are into that sort of thing, the ending won't be quite as big a surprise," she said. "But for me, someone who doesn't really pay attention to that genre, I was very intrigued by the whole thing."

The play marks Dano's directorial debut. She said that there are two reasons for audience members to turn out for the performances.

"At Chapel Theatre, we've been working on a four-year reputation of putting on good productions, so I hope not to let the audience down," she said. "We have some strong actors —everyone's an experienced actor, so that's kind of nice for me; I'm not starting with someone who hasn't ever been on the stage. The other thing is that Karen Kinch, the lead, this will be her last run here in Moses Lake. So that alone, I hope, will draw people, because she has a very challenging role in this and I think people, especially people who have been great followers of the theater, will definitely want to see her in this role. "

Kinch returned the kudos to Dano.

"She sees things that many directors wouldn't see after doing things like this for ten years," Kinch said. "She's just got a real natural knack for this, so everybody be sure that we can get her to do this again, because she's really talented."

Kinch said she's leaving because she is getting married and moving to Alaska.

"I can't think about it; I just won't be able to or I'll fall apart," she said. "There's too much blood, sweat and tears in this place."

After four years, Kinch said this play makes for a good final performance because of her "incredible lead" role.

"It's one that I think will stretch me every way there is to stretch," she said. "It's not a fluff part; it's a part that has a lot of different emotions in it and I think any actress would be tickled to death to have the chance to do this role."

Eric Van Woert, who plays Elaine's husband, John, said that acting in a thriller requires different work than a comedy.

"When you're doing a thriller, especially if people know that they're watching a thriller, you can't show any facial expressions or anything because people will be like, 'Oh, it's him,' or 'Oh, it's her,' or "Oh, there's something going on between them,' or 'These people are conspiring against her,'" he said. "In comedy, every facial reaction that you get is going to be dramatized, and it makes it funnier and makes the laugh larger. For a thriller, you can't give anything away, especially if you're trying to hold a punch until the very last possible moment."

Van Woert said that he personally thought "Night Watch" is probably the most important thing to be done in the theater.

"Normally we've always been known to be strictly comedies, strictly up and light-hearted kinds of things," he said, noting that the play borders on thriller-horror.

"It's absolutely the best murder mystery-thriller that I've ever read," Kinch said. "I've read a lot of them; I've been pretty ho-humish about most of them. This one is cool. It's very very good. You should be sitting on the edge of your seat."

The play opens May 27 and runs through June 12, with a matinee on June 6. Curtain is at 7:30 p.m. for evening shows and 2 p.m. for matinees. Tickets are $10.

For more information, call Chapel Theatre at 765-1383.