Gaslight

Queensland Theatre (QT) started its 2024 season with a play that introduced the term ‘gaslighting’ into many conversations about relationships in the last decade. Written in the 1930s by troubled playwright and novelist, Patrick Hamilton, the action is set at the very tail end of the Victorian era in a claustrophobic and gloomy London terrace house. Lee Lewis directs and her delight in working on this traditional theatrical material shines through in this co-production between QT and Rodney Rigby at Newtheatricals (Come From Away, Jersey Boys, and Good Night, Oscar), with casting by Lauren Wiley. The Australian premiere in Brisbane will be followed by a national tour.

This very new adaptation of Gaslight by Canadian theatre-makers, Johnna Wright and Patty Jamieson (which premiered at Ontario’s Shaw Festival in 2022) contains a few new tricks that don’t ring true for me, but they have certainly streamlined the action to give the story pace. The writers cleverly dispense of several extraneous characters so we can focus on the lady of the house, Bella (Geraldine Hakewill) and the three main suspects in her recent nervous breakdown and continuing stress: husband Jack (Toby Schmitz), housekeeper Elizabeth (Kate Fitzpatrick) and new housemaid Nancy (Courtney Cavallaro). The three women perfectly illustrate the limitations the Victorian era placed on women’s social mobility and aspirations. Courtney’s Nancy is a quick-witted survivor who does not play the demure underclass servant at all. Kate’s senior housekeeper truly chimes, capturing a working class woman who needs to remain emotionally detached, while allowing her dry wit to sing. Great to see Kate back on a Brisbane stage. As the lady of the house, Geraldine’s Bella is uncomfortable with her wealth and position. She is constantly nervous, wavering like a manic depressive between dark depths and frivolous highs. She doesn’t like fitting into the role she’s been dealt, and is constantly aware of the dangers of rebelling by way of her Mother’s tragic example. And this is exactly what attracts her charming husband, Jack (Toby Schmitz) who has social climbing ambitions of his own.

Director Lee Lewis has captured the freshness of this new adaptation by allowing her actors to have fun with the script’s humour. The Victorian setting should have been a licence to have fun with theatre tropes, yet, while the play captures the class constraints, it seems a bit coy about embracing the era’s gothic horror conventions, including sexual tension. In seeking to liberate the three women from the stereotypes of their time, the play hamstrings the male character and he is left with very little of the menace needed to create tension and fear – which was very much under-the-surface on opening night. It’s as if allowing Toby Schmitz to really embody Jack’s nasty side would be too triggering for today’s audience. And, while psychological manipulation doesn’t require physical strength, I hope as the play beds in that Toby will be allowed to reach into the madness that Jack has created to show his character’s threat a bit more.

Sets and costumes by Renée Mulder captured the era perfectly. The costumes superbly help Bella flit between being restrained by social convention and then free to be her own personality. And while the set design is picture perfect, which emits the household’s need for order, its decluttered state does not hint at the chaos just beneath the surface. The first act breezed by with hardly a whiff of suspense. However, the important gaslights (great lighting design by Paul Jackson, with fabulously eerie sound and music by Paul Charlier) did their job brilliantly to create the right atmosphere by the end of the act, and the second act was more in gothic thriller attuned. I’d like to see this production again later in the run and really feel the fear! Audiences can find out when Gaslight tours to Melbourne, Canberra, Perth, Newcastle, Parramatta and Sydney after the Brisbane premiere.

Beth Keehn

Find out more: gaslightplay.com.au

Read more on Stage Whispers: www.stagewhispers.com.au/news/modern-adaptation-classic-thriller-gaslight-tour

Photographer: Brett Boardman