PATRICK Hamilton’s Gaslight, first seen in 1938, has a long and powerful legacy, including a new word for the English language and legislation recognising the coercive control that is at the core of the play.
Frome Drama has chosen it to launch the 2025 season, and their production at the Merlin is directed by Richard J Thomas. It is a classic drawing room drama, full of menace and mystery, and solved by a dogged retired detective. The premise is that Jack Manningham (not his real name) is trying to persuade his wife that she is going insane, like her mother did before her. He hides her things, paperwork, and removes items of furniture, blaming her for their disappearances. As the gas lights in the Victorian house flicker, dim and brighten without explanation, Bella begins to doubt her sanity.
The five characters, Jack and Bella, their servants, the flirtatious Nancy and the faithful and perceptive Elizabeth, and the unexpected visitor Sergeant Rough, are observed over one intense and dramatic night, where discoveries are made and timing is all important.
Whether the director or the lighting designer decided to try to toy with the audiences’ perception by endless dimming and flickering of lights, and by (incomprehensibly) moving the fireplace and desk from one side to the other of the stage, but NOT moving the window to the street to match, I really don’t know. I, and many of the people sitting around me, were irked by a presumably tension-raising ploy that left excellent actors and a powerful script fighting against the set, soundscape and lighting.
Anna Van Leyden was a totally convincing Bella, subtly finding just the right level of dependency, determination, induced hysteria and panic. Daniel Sung captured the louche cruelty and calculated control needed by Jack. Lydia Massey had all the calm wisdom of the older servant, and Emma Parrish the pertness and sexual domination of the ambitious Nancy. Stephen Kebbell’s Sgt Rough was cleverly exultant, but perhaps sometimes too hesitant. All of them battled direction that turned their backs to the audience, so that their voices faded and flared with the lights.
Gaslight is a play about tension and menace, and these actors were abundantly capable of delivering just that – as the whoops and cheers of the audience confirmed. It’s only a pity they were not left to do just that.
GP-W