‘Gaslight’ gives good noir – and lends a muchly used verb to the modern vernacular

The term ‘gaslighting’ – meaning to manipulate another person into doubting their own perceptions – has only been in popular use for a few years, making it into the Mirriam-Webster dictionary as 2022’s ‘word of the year’. The concept of gaslighting, on the other had, has been going on for eons.

In fact, it is the play called ‘Gaslight’ – currently being toured by Queensland Theatre – that lends the trending verb to our conversations. The play’s setting is pretty simple: In 1880s London, Jack Manningham and his wife Bella are making a life for themselves in their upper middle class home but as each day passes, things get strenuous.

Objects begin to go missing and while Bella insists she’s not the one klepto-ing the house’s contents, her husband and their help would have you believe she is indeed the culprit and that she is losing her mind.

Above their home is an empty apartment which was once leased by a wealthy woman who was murdered for her jewels. Word has it the jewels are still in the abandoned property, so Jack regularly treks upstairs to break, enter and look for the treasure (telling his wife each time that he’s tending to ‘business’). The footsteps and dragging of furniture upstairs leads to Bella ‘hearing things’ – another reason she’s suspected of going mad.

Is all this extra movement being carried out on purpose to stress Bella out – and why might he want her out of the picture, anyway? When Bella discovers a row of pearls that everybody had suspected she’d purposely hidden – in Jack’s desk drawer, no less – her angst and anxiety turn to fear and dread.

Helpmann Award nominee Toby Schmitz does a dandy good job in playing the upper middle class sophisticate, while WAAPA graduate Geraldine Hakewell carries her emotionally-laden role very well. Even when the pair are playing to the back of the room – sometimes with overly-extended gestures – they are still both very, very good.

At two-and-a-half hours long, including intermission, I do think some of those gestures went on for a little longer than need be, and that a bit of editing out of pauses between some of the character conversation could have done the performance better justice. But this doesn’t strike me as an actor issue, probably a cue given to them by the director.

The scenic design is stunning and I wish I could have a living room as beautifully furnished as the one on stage (let alone something even close to half of its size). The drawing room – as it would have been called in the 1800s – actually looks like an architectural extension of the Regal Theatre itself. Like the theatre’s art deco is segueing nicely into the 1880s gilded aged (gold-gilded, that is, given the many gold-framed works hung on the set wall).

Gaslight has pretty much everything: drama, noir, pretty mis-en-scene and dark, dark undertones. Heck, there’s even a wisecrack or three that had me snicker out loud. Considering the play was written eight-and-a-half decades ago, it was very much ahead of its time in genre-hopping. And who in the original production would ever have thought it would lend its title to something we’re regularly using in conversation today. Iconic.

Antonino Tati

Gaslight is on at The Regal Theatre in Subiaco from now until June 9, 2024.

Tickets are available on the Regal Theatre website or at gaslightplay.com.au.

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