Review: ‘Night Watch’ at Raven Theatre is a lively mystery-thriller that’ll keep you guessing
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If you’re a fan of “Only Murders in the Building,” the comedy-mystery series on Hulu, you’ll likely enjoy Lucille Fletcher’s “Night Watch,” a very lively mystery-thriller also set in a posh Manhattan apartment but currently performed at Chicago’s intimate and affordably priced Raven Theatre.
Herein, a New Yorker named Elaine is finding it hard to sleep. And thus she paces around her apartment, heading toward a window, even as her husband tries to calm her down. Suddenly, she screams: the window frames the body of a dead man, sitting in a chair in an apartment across the street. The couple calls the cops but they find no body. And then things intensify from there: One sighted corpse easily leads to another.
Why does the woman see what she sees? What is her husband’s role? What of her best friend? Are the police telling the truth? What exactly is going on in the apartment across the way?
And there I have to stop, lest I spoil anything.
Those questions are plenty to occupy you for a couple of escapist hours. “Night Watch,” which has plenty in common with “Rear Window” and other noir entertainment experiences, actually dates from 1972. As such, it embraces many of the psychological stereotypes of the era: a potentially unbalanced leading woman (Aila Ayilam Peck), a chilly husband (Kroydell Galima), a shrink who may be malevolent or just condescending (Kathy Scambiatterra), a gruff cop (Christopher Meister), a questionable best friend/other woman (Jodi Gage) and a colorful single man who waltzes in and out of the action (Matthew Martinez Hannon).
With the help of a witty set from Mara Ishihara Zinky, the director Georgette Verdin leans in to all of that. She has found a very entertaining and skilled cast, half of whom have fun transforming into minor characters, as the script dictates.
“Night Watch” is no great masterpiece, but the late Fletcher, who wrote for “The Twilight Zone” and also penned the famed radio play “Sorry, Wrong Number,” sure knew how to craft a mystery. And at this juncture, anyway, “Night Watch” also has the advantage of being a little-known show, as compared with “Sleuth,” “Deathtrap” and similar psychological thrillers, the half-forgotten plots of which have a bad habit of returning to your head just when you are enjoying yourself.
Not so for most folks with “Night Watch,” notwithstanding the 1973 movie starring a perfectly cast Elizabeth Taylor. The original play version still works, zips along nicely at Raven, and seems to keep everybody in the building guessing.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
Review: “Night Watch” (3 stars)
When: through Nov. 12
Where: Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark St.
Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes
Tickets: $35-$45 at raventheatre.com
