GASLIGHT. To 5 November.
Keswick
GASLIGHT
by Patrick Hamilton
Theatre By The Lake In rep to 5 November 2005
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat 14 Sept, 5, 26 Oct, 5 Nov 2pm
Audio-described 3 Sept
Run s 2hr 30min One interval
TICKETS: 017687 74411
Review: Timothy Ramsden 23 August
An illuminating revival showing this play's deeper qualities.Gaslight may have been a frequent old rep standby, an evocatively-titled look back from 1939 to the Victorian sensation shocker, but it's more than that, being built on the abasement, humiliation and loathing which run through Patrick Hamilton's novels.
It has a happy ending. But everything organic to the play and the marriage at its centre impels it towards disaster. The mechanisms which bring light are all coincidences.
Stefan Escreet's production makes clear the Manninghams' miserable marriage. Vivienne Rowdon's Bella is near-destroyed when the play opens. Her mother went mad, which in Victorian terms, if not still for 1939 audiences, meant a sense of shame . (In 1939 the Victorian setting itself would have suggested a mental dark age far more than it does today.)
Needing a wife to claw his way into respectability after a dubious past and an unexplained time in the Antipodes, Manningham chose a woman he could dominate and destroy.
From the start Martin Fisher's Bellingham stands firm as his wife crumples before him. His voice flicks between moments of encouragement and critical disappointment, building Bella's confidence to make it easier to knock her down.
Rowdon's wife is a striking figure, tall and dignified, yet eating from her husband's hand with never a thought of biting it. She feeds off his momentary approval, parading her brief confidence in front of Nancy, the maid she fears and who she knows despises her. His heavy-handed, dark voiced criticisms and threats are calculated with instinctive expertise to lead her further down the black tunnel of a destroyed personality.
It's only the unexpected eruption of the detective Rough into her life that saves her. In Stephen Ley's performance, he's a lively, almost boyish character. No wonder, when he's away, she doubts his existence.
Ley's energetically playful manner is full of barely-suppressed excitement inspired by the sudden prospect of solving an old crime, the consequences of which are being played out all around the unhappy Bella.
It completes a trio of well-defined performances fleshed out by Janet Jefferies' doggedly faithful servant (Hamilton's only lapse is failing to explain why Manningham hadn't already got rid of this support for Bella), Pamela Buchner's silent role as an earlier victim and Anna Stranack's servant, insolence showing as she leaves the room, sexual provocation oozing naturally from her when the chance allows.
On Martin Johns' set, reducing the usually spacious-seeming Keswick main-stage to a cramped, imprisoning triangle, this is a highly recommendable revival.
Alice Barlow: Pamela Buchner
Mr Manningham: Martin Fisher
Elizabeth: Janet Jefferies
Rough: Stephen Ley
Mrs Manningham: Vivienne Rowdon
Nancy: Anna Stranack
Director: Stefan Escreet
Designer: Martin Johns
Lighting: Nick Beadle
Sound: Andy Bolton
2005-09-01 17:15:10