Review of 'Voices in the Dark' (by member of DDL, with thanks):

ACT 1:

The show opens up with Lil (played by Gates) in a radio booth talking to a caller. The woman caller is out on the balcony of her apartment talking about killing herself. Lil finally gets it out of the woman that she had let her little girl go with the woman's father. The woman is afraid her father will sexually abuse the little girl just as he had her. During this discussion the number has been traced and the police arrive on the scene just as Lil has convinced the woman to tell the police where her father lives so she can stop the cycle of abuse. During the call, Lil says a few things that indicate she too was an incest victim. At the end of the call they go to commercial break and Lil gets a call from her husband saying he will meet her at their cabin tomorrow.

The next caller is a strange distorted male voice. He keeps asking Lil to help. He has killed a number of women and no one has found their bones. He wants to be helped and he knows Lil is the only one that can help him. She keeps trying to get him to tell her who he is, where he is. The second time I saw the show I realized how many clues were being dropped during this conversation. I missed them the first time around.

The next scene is a cabin in the Adirondacks. It is winter and you can see the snow outside the windows. The cabin has a loft bedroom above the front door, a jacuzzi to the right of the door, the kitchen is on the left part of the house the island stove and counter separate the kitchen from the rest of the house. There is a little door off the kitchen that leads to the pantry. In the center of the room there is a couch, coffee table, and television on a little stand. These are all down a couple of steps from the rest of the house. There are cattle skins on the floor and couch. A couple of deer head on the wall. Very rustic, very manly.

The first person to enter in this scene is Owen. He is carrying about 9 bags. Wearing one of those winter hats with the earflaps down and very thick glasses. It is pretty obvious that he is not a mental giant. As he enters the phone is ring and he bangs the bags over to the table where the phone is. He drops them, picks up the phone and the person on the other end hangs up.

Then Lil enters along with Hack. Hack is a well-dressed man of about 50, pretty obviously gay. She begins to put away the groceries and Hack eyes the vodka bottle asking if she is drinking again. She says it isn't for her it's for Bill. She hasn't had a drink in three years. Hack is trying to get Lil to do her radio call in show on television. Fox has made her an offer and since the woman on the balcony and the threatening caller the night before they have upped the offer. She asks him if the police found the guy. They traced the call to some place in upstate New York but the guy had broken into a house of people who were vacationing in Florida. Lil doesn't want to do television. Her show has already become a circus and by putting it on television it will be even worse. Hack is trying to convince her that this is a great career move. They could even get affiliates to trace the call and get cameras at the scene of the suicide attempt, etc. She is tired of talking to all these desperate people and is thinking of going back into private practice. "Where people talk to me when they are still in the middle of their rope not at the end of it." That way she can concentrate of fixing her marriage and be a full time wife not just the weekend wife she has been lately. Hack says she might as well kill him now because he is close to bankrupcy and needs the commission this deal would bring to him. During the course, of this conversation there are several calls which Lil answers. The person is always asking for Margaret and being told they have the wrong number.

Also going on during this exchange, Owen is trying to carry the eight bags up stairs to the bedroom at one time. Lil tells him to carry up a few at a time. He insists he can do it and people never let him do what he can do. Lil tells him to go to it. He eventually gets the bags upstairs and Lil congratulates him. He starts to unpack her clothes checking out the underwear. Lil tells him that she'll do her own unpacking. Then she sees him putting some of her clothes into his pocket. She asks what he has in his pocket and he says nothing. She confronts him telling him she saw him put her sox in his pocket and to put them back in her suitcase and come back down. All of this is interspersed with her conversation with Hack.

At the end of the scene the phone rings and she picks it up. It is the distorted voice she heard on the radio the night before. Telling her that she is the only one that can help him. Scene goes black.

Next scene Lil is alone in the cabin lounging on the couch reading a book. The phone rings and she waits until the machine picks up. When she hears it is Bill, her husband, she grabs the phone. Asking where he is, she finds out he missed his plane. She tells him about the caller and about Hack conning her into doing a television remote from the cabin next Friday. He says that Hack can't do that without his permission and she asks him to get her out of it. He says he will call Hack on Monday. Then he tells her that he isn't going to make it to the cabin for their week long vacation. Things at work have exploded and he can't get away. He told Blue, the handyman, to have her call when she got there. Obviously she didn't get the message. She is pissed that he isn't going to be there. This is obviously not her idea of a vacation and they were planning to use the week to work out some things in their marriage. He gives her a number where she can reach him, which isn't his apartment. She asks if it is Judy's place and he says it was more convenient the driving back and forth and there are other people staying there too. She offers to fly down to Washington the next day but he says he won't have any time to spend with her. She asks if saving their marriage is worth some of his time and he says maybe there isn't anything there to save. She is hot by now. Asking he why he feels that way and he yells back that he isn't her patient and stop try to analyze him. She yells back "Well, fuck you, you son of a bitch. How is that for non-professional talk." Then she hangs up on him.

After the conversation she breaks down crying. Then she starts to pull herself together looking for something around the cabin to distract her. She goes to the refrigerator and pulls out the vodka bottle looks at it then put it back without opening it. She goes over to the VCR and looks through the tapes. Finding "Romancing the Bone", "Forrest Hump" and one other porno title I can't remember. She puts "Forrest Hump" into the VCR and stands there watching it getting a little interested (shades of Sub-Rosa) when the phone rings. She picks it up saying, "I thought that would get your attention." Expecting it to be Bill. It isn't. It is the guy, Red, asking for Margaret. She squeals when she finds it isn't Bill. They start talking and the talking turns into flirting as they tell each other they have been stood up. This guy starts to cheer her up a bit and they agree to meet the next night for drinks in town. But only after he has told her he is a cop in town to give a speech at a cop convention and she can check him out with folks in town.

The next scene opens with Lil and Blue, the handyman/caretaker, in the kitchen. He is telling her a story he is writing where this guy's laundry eats him. He is hoping Lil will help him get his stories published. During this conversation Lil and Blue are making dinner and setting the coffee table in the living room for a nice romantic dinner. Blue is wielding a big knife in the kitchen chopping onions and stuff for the stew. He waves it in her face several times. Blue is an electrician and he explains to Lil about how Hack had come up on Friday to have him rewire the power for her remote. He shows her the huge circuit breaker box on the floor and explains that it bypasses the fuse box. She is miffed that Hack had already started to arrange for the remote before she agreed to it. It turns out that Blue had called into her show once. She asked if she helped and he said yes. It is obvious from the conversation that Blue and Owen are pretty good friends and that Blue looks out for Owen. Lil mentions that she caught Owen trying to take her socks and when Blue starts to get upset that he might steal something Lil brushes off the incident as nothing. As they are cooking she cuts her finger on the food processor. Nothing too horrible but Blue gets very upset. More upset than the injury requires. Lil goes to the bathroom to bandage her finger and change clothes. When she is heading to the bathroom to bandage her finger she sees Owen peering in the window and screams. Then yells at him to come in the house. She is in the bathroom when Owen finally enters the front door.

Blue hits Owen telling him never steal anything again. Then teases him about being jealous of Blue and Lil. It quickly becomes obvious that the two men are intimate and Blue cares about Owen as he gives him his coat for the walk back home. Owen leaves and Blue smells his armpits deciding he needs a little help he gets some almond extract out of the cupboard splashing it on his pits and face. Lil comes out of the bathroom leaving her clothes on the edge of the jacuzzi. She sniffs the air and says she hopes she didn't put almond extract in the stew. She hates that smell, then the two head to town. After they are gone, Owen comes in picks up Lil white satin camisole and starts masturbating.

The next scene Lil comes into the cabin. Obviously having walked a long way in the snow. As she enters the phone is ringing. She picks it up. It is Red. They have missed each other at the inn. He was early and when she didn't show he got directions to the cabin. He let himself in through a little side door where they keep the wood by the house. She is starting to get a little nervous that he was in the house but asks why he didn't stay. He says he wasn't alone that he caught a slow guy, Owen, in the house jacking off with her camisole. She looks and it gets grossed out and throws it away in the bathroom. Red tells her that she doesn't have to worry about Owen ever doing that again. She asks what he did. Red tells her he had a serious talk with him and then took the butcher knife in the kitchen then slit his stomach ending by putting him in the jacuzzi. Lil thinks he is kidding and asks what he really did and he repeats the story. As he gets more and more graphic she hangs up the phone. She goes to the jacuzzi and carefully lifts up the solar cover. Next comes the blood-curdling scream. The phone rings again and Red tells her that he added some of Owen's fingers to the stew to give it body. She gets the knife from the kitchen discovering that it is sticky with blood and gets a towel to hold it with. Red goes on to play a recording from the threatening caller. It was him all the time. He then plays a recording of Owen screaming in pain as he is killed. The first act end as Lil slides down the wall in terror and grief.

Act 2:

Lil enters the cabin her hair is all wet and she is still brandishing the knife in front of her checking the cabin to see if anyone is there. She locks the doors runs up to the loft gets a sweater and a heavier coat out of a trunk then gets back down to the kitchen where she drinks a vodka as she dials 911. Before she gets through there is a knock on the door. The guy announces he is a policeman. She demands he shove his ID under the door then asks him who the circuit judge is. He is freezing and wants in and is bitching up a storm because she won't let him in. Finally she lets him in but keeps firm hold on the knife. She asks how he knew to come. He explains that her husband was worried about her and had asked the police to check and make sure she was okay. Lil begins to trust him a little when he shows her his gun saying that if he were a killer she would already be dead. She tells him to look in the jacuzzi. He does then proceeds to go throw-up in the bathroom. He starts to ask her a bunch of questions. The more they talk the more obvious it is he suspects her and she is still not comfortable that he is really a policeman. He eventually takes the knife away from her and handcuffs her to the stove. Putting the knife in his coat. He is helping himself to the vodka. In fact he is getting drunker and drunker. He goes to the bathroom to relieve himself and she tries to grab the knife from his coat. It is a bit too far away and she grabs tongs to extend her reach. She gets the knife and sticks it in the oven. Then dials 911 when she is connected to the Lake Placid police they tell her there is no Detective Egan on the force. He is pretty drunk by now and she makes him some coffee when it is heated she throws it at him. While they are struggling she reaches in the oven pulls out the knife and stabs him. He falls down. She grabs a screw driver from and unhooks the handle of the stove. She is looking for the key in his shirt pocket when he starts to move.

She runs over to the phone starting to dial 911when the light go out. She gets a flashlight and goes up to the loft where the rotary dial phone is. She needs to give them directions to the cabin and they are by the phone downstairs. She runs to get them and discovers Egan isn't on the floor anymore. She starts to look around and discovers a person in the loft. It is Owen. Only this guy is not nerdy at all like Owen was. He is hot. Red is Owen's alternate personality. He bounds down the stairs as she starts to bolt for the door. She backs into the kitchen where she trips over Egan. Red drags him in front of the counter and re-handcuffs her with her hands behind her back. He plays a tape of Blue's call to Dr. Lil on the radio. Basically Blue is asking for permission to come out of the closet and have sex with the man he loves, Owen. On the tape, Lil tells Blue that if both parties are consenting adults then they shouldn't be ashamed of their feelings. Red is pissed that she didn't get all the pertinent information; was too rushed to go on to the next caller. During this discussion, Lil sees that Detective Egan isn't dead. He quietly sits up and gets her attention with his little penlight. He makes sure she sees that he has put the handcuff keys in a cup of coffee on the counter. After that Red sees that Egan is still alive and acts like he is going to try and help Egan. However he takes off his belt and starts to strangle him. Lil, still handcuffed, tries to stop him but Red pushes her away. Then he drags Egan behind the kitchen counter. Out of sight of everyone in the audience, he violently stabs Egan time and time again. He starts to take a drink from the coffee cup and Lil tries to distract him by getting him to talk. She keeps calling him Owen. Trying to get the Owen personality out of him. She thinks she has succeeded but Red is faking. He gets physically abusive when she bites him. She ends up splayed over a bench and he starts singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider as he slowly walks his fingers up her body. She lays completely motionless eyes tightly closed. (This scene really, really bothered Gwyn). In this position, he give her a hard time about forgiving her father for sexually abusing her and for giving in to him. She says she was only 8. He tells her when his father came after him he was only 4 and he still fought it. He starts a video tape recorder and tries to get Lil to admit she was wrong. She does. She was wrong - it never occurred to her to ask if both parties were mentally all there. If that makes her a bad person, so be it. She starts to cry and he turns off the video he tells her that she is going to die. As he is telling her this she works her way over to the kitchen and the coffee cup for the handcuff key. She gets them unlocked without him seeing. Then he moves over to the counter where she is standing and she throws the stew at him. She runs upstairs for the rotary dial phone calling 911. She is begging for help when he comes up after her. They struggle in the loft and she gets in a couple of good shots. He pushes her down two stairs to the little landing and on the way down she hits her head on the bulkhead (I know this isn't what you call it but I can't think of the right word.) It is really scary. As he comes down the landing to get her she hits him in the head with the phone. He flies over the banister but still hangs on and she bashes his hand. He falls into the jacuzzi. She comes flying down the stairs as he says his hand is broken and he is very impressed with her pluck. However, his jovial tone changes as he sees her head for the jacuzzi with the large cord that was wired directly from the power box. He begs for mercy as she heads toward the jacuzzi. But he gets no mercy. She throws the cord in the water and there is a lot of pyrotechnics. The audience explodes in applause at his demise. At the end, she plays a bit of tape from the player where she is giving Dr. Lil advise that sometimes life causes you to do things you never thought yourself capable of. Through the window there are red lights flashing.

The end.