BWW Reviews: GASLIGHT at Spotlighters

If you're a fan of classic movies or just love Ingrid Bergman, chances are you've seen 1944 film Gaslight, based on the PatRick Hamilton play which gave rise to the term "gaslighting," defined by Wikipedia as "a form of intimidation or psychological abuse in which false information is presented to the victim, making them doubt their own memory and perception."

In both the film and the play, a husband takes pains to make his wife doubt her sanity by claiming she has removed a picture from a wall or misplaced such mundane items as a grocery list and a broach (which turns out to be anything but mundane), when in fact it is he who has been moving items about the home.

The question of course is, why? Why would a man want to drive his wife crazy...and not in a good way?

The answers are to be found in the Spotlighters Theatre's presentation of Hamilton's "Gaslight," now through Valentine's Sunday, Feb. 14^th.

Director Sherrionne Brown, a Spotlighters staple, does an exemplary job in encouraging top performances from the entire cast.

Michael Leicht's Jack Manningham reminds me of a line from Richard III - "Take heed of yonder dog! Look, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites, His venom tooth will rankle to the death." With a smile that sneers at the corners, he pretends to act from kindness as he speaks to his wife, Bella (Karina Ferry) with words that drip with patronizing disdain. During increasingly frequent moments when he reveals his true colors -- as an abuser, adulterer, and worse -- his façade of proper Victorian manners drops away to reveal...a cunning brute.

Ferry, as are all in this company, is very well cast as the innocent, loving Bella who wants nothing more than to "get out of herself" and see the world, bursting with excitement at the thought of seeing something as mundane as a play. To watch Leicht's Jack toy with her mind like a cat with a mouse is unsettling, as it is meant to be.

Modern audiences might find the dynamic depicted in Hamilton's work a bit dated (the modern, independent women I've known would have inflicted blunt trauma to Jack's family jewels, and not the ones he murdered an elderly relative to steal), but one must recall the time in which the play is set, an era when women were defined by their spouses whom they swore before God to love, honor, and obey. And by the play's end, in a scene somewhat reminiscent of the feminist play, "Extremities,"  Bella extracts some measure of revenge against Jack, bound to a chair, as the torturer becomes justly tormented.

If one performance deserves a nod above all, the nod goes to Phil Gallagher's Inspector Rough. Gallagher has more than 30 years of theatrical experience, and it shows, as Gallagher conjures a believable Scottish accent, a sharp sense of humor and a style of detective that one audience member whisperEd Loud enough for me to hear - "Columbo!" - which I'd say was fairly accurate.

Like actor Peter Falk's TV detective, Rough is somewhat self-deprecating, appears socially out of step, but like the famed rumpled sleuth, shows tremendous patience and brilliance as he works out the details of the crime--in this case, a 15-year-old murder. Gallagher is also blessed with some of the play's best lines, such as his comic description of a "med'cine" that smells of "ambrosia...and metallic spirits" (Scotch whiskey) and his disdain for breaking up a drawer: "I don't like these violent methods...makes me fee like a dentist."

Kate Volpe (Nancy) and Janise Whelan (Elizabeth) and Warren Smith (Constable) do quite well in their smaller roles, particularly Volpe's Nancy, a coquettish servant girl who seeks to rise well above her station at her mistress's expense. There's a sexual tension between Nancy and Jack from the moment the two appear together on stage (there's a scene involving the Bible that would make King James blush) that builds to the type of lustful pairing one might expect from two people so clearly ripped from the same piece of soiled cloth.

My play companion was especially taken with the Spotlighters' set, designed to imitate a 19^th century London sitting room, right down to the faux "gas lights," their brightening and dimming representing far more than a change of mood on the stage. Kudos also to costumer Victoria Halperin Kuhns who gave everyone all the right touches, from the Constable's English "bobby's" helmet to Inspector's Rough's "dandy" shirt.

At a brisk two hours and 20 minutes (the first act in particular flew by), "Gaslight" is a wonderful debut to the Spotlighters 2010 theatrical season. For times and ticket information, call 410-752-1225 or visit www.spotlighters.org.