An old blind woman has a doll stuffed full of heroin, and three gangsters are desperate to get it back. To make matters worse, there are a couple of murders, an apartment drenched with gasoline, and a knife fight.

This is the dilemma in the cat-and-mouse suspense play Wait Until Dark, written by Frederick Knott and presented by The Stage Company this Friday night.

The play takes place in a basement apartment of an old woman in Greenwich Village in 1960. A doll that was supposed to be delivered to a sick girl in the hospital disappears from the airport, and is now stuffed full of drugs that three gang members are trying to get back.

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One of the gang members poses as a policeman, and another one pretends to be a friend of the woman’s husband’s in order to find out what happened to the doll.

The woman realizes what is going on later in the play, and she gains the advantage over them by turning off the lights in the house. Tension builds toward the end as one of the gang members douses the house with gasoline as they try to trap the woman into one of the rooms.

I am very optimistic and very pleased about this play, Roy Weshinskey, the director, said. The stage is a wonderful representation of a basement apartment, and the cast has done a great job.

This is an evening of entertaining theater, and I could not have asked for a better team of actors and production people.

Wait Until Dark was made into a movie with Audrey Hepburn as the woman, but Weshinskey said the play is better because of language and production value.

The plot of the play is the same, he said, but the production is better because there were a lot of changes in the movie to serve the film that were not beneficial to the script.

Weshinskey has been directing for over 40 years, and he is also one of the founding member’s of The Stage Company, which is now in its 13th season.

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Melodrama is somewhat difficult because (tension) is not written out for you, Weshinskey said. The actors have really gotten into their characters, and this is probably one the best directing experiences I have had.

Wait Until Dark opens at 8 p.m. Sept. 29, . It will run for three weekends with shows at 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday.

Ticket admission is $7 for Friday and Saturday shows, and $5 for shows on Sunday.

For more information call 549-5466.