By Russ Tarby

Contributing Writer

In storytelling – whether fiction, stage plays or film – a MacGuffin is an object that serves to set the plot and keep it in motion despite lacking intrinsic importance.

The MacGuffin motivates the characters but remains insignificant, irrelevant in itself.

The most famous MacGuffins in popular culture include the statuette of a bird in “The Maltese Falcon,” the Ark of the Covenant in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and the glowing briefcase in “Pulp Fiction.”

In playwright Frederick Knott’s 1966 thriller, “Wait Until Dark,” the MacGuffin is a missing doll.

CNY Playhouse currently presents a compelling rendition of Knott’s story directed by Kassandra Melendez-Ramirez, a Redhouse educator helming her first production at the ShoppingTown venue, running through Jan. 25.

Melendez-Ramirez knows the value of the MacGuffin. “When I first read ‘Wait Until Dark,’ I couldn’t put the script down,” she writes in her program note. “I needed to know what would happen next.”

The play’s characters are easily divided into good and evil, and the three scam-artists are the only ones who know that the missing doll is packed full of $100,000 worth of heroin.

On the other hand, our heroine, newly blinded Suzy Hendrix, played with rare realism by legally blind actress Maria Mucaria, has no idea that the doll contains pricey narcotics. Although Suzy spends the better part of two days dealing with the intruders, she never bothers to ask why they’re so determined to find the darn doll.

Anyhow, Mucaria is so convincing as the blind basement-tenant that the audience holds its breath – concerned about her safety – as she moves around her Greenwich Village apartment. Mucaria’s Suzy, however, is no victim. Vulnerable, certainly, but intuitive and resourceful as she copes with mortal danger.

Violence threatens to break out at every turn as the criminals grow more desperate, the play has plenty of humor, too. In a quip-filled Act 1, Suzy befriends one of the crooks, a female grifter called Mack Talman, thinking the scammer is just an old acquaintance of Suzy’s husband, Sam (played by a big, black-bearded Zach Gray).

At the opening night performance on Jan. 10, the snappy give-and-take with Mack (portrayed by the charming Chelsea Lembo) often caused Mucaria to have trouble keeping a straight face, a tic which distracted from the show’s otherwise ominous tone.

Likewise, actress Norriah Haskins portrayed Suzy’s neighbor girl, Gloria, who does errands for the blind lady. Haskins, a real-life fifth grader at Seymour Dual Language Academy, creates a believable though surly, foot-stomping character, but many of her lines were simply unintelligible, spoken too softly. The girl needs to project!

Elseways, two other cast members really shined.

Actress Chelsea Lembo makes Mack the ultimate tough-chick, from her flashing eyes to her ingratiating smile to her tipping toes. Lembo’s natural warmth allows her to pull off a difficult feat: portraying a duplicitous con artist pretending to be Suzy’s bosom buddy while scheming to discover the doll with the dope.

Similarly, actor Jesse Orton plays Sgt. Carlino, another convict, this one posing as a policeman. Orton is a joy to watch and to hear. His twangy New Yawk City accent helps bring to life his character, a ragtag urban rounder with a decidedly comic punch.

As the trespassing trio’s de facto leader, Roat, actor Jason Zencka initially comes off as more smarmy than scary, but later proves every inch a villain, fully prepared to dispatch his partners in crime.

In the end, the doll appears in Act 2, and the MacGuffin is finally relieved of its illicit contents, but the expensive stash never goes any further than Roat’s pocket, as the bad man’s attempt to silence Suzy backfires dramatically.

“Wait Until Dark,” produced by Kathy Burke Egloff, runs at 8 p.m., Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Jan. 16 and 17, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 19, and at 8 p.m. Jan. 23, 24 and 25, at CNY Playhouse, located near the Macy’s entrance at on the second level of ShoppingTown Mall, in DeWitt. Tickets cost $20 on Thursday and Sunday and $22 on Friday and Saturday; cnyplayhouse.org; 315-885-8960.