GASLIGHT: WEAPONS SHEATHED IN THE FLICKERING LIGHT

Once upon a time there was a movie called Gaslight. I remember watching it when I was quite young and being bored because there were no cowboys in it

I caught it again, years later, in my early teens because I realized it had Ingrid Birgman in it. Yes, I had grown away just a bit from cowboys. This is a 1944 film also starring Charles Boyer and directed by George Cukor. I remember watching the film, I remember enjoying it but aside from the bare bones of the plot, I don't remember much else. After all, there were no space ships in it

There is an earlier version of Gaslight, from 1940, which I've never seen.

I recently learned that both movies were based upon a play, from 1938, written by Patrick Hamilton. I can now say that I've seen that play ... well yes I can, actually. Because there is a new production of Gaslight running at the Ed Mirvish Theatre

The Mirvish Theatres love to run big productions: Kinky Boots, Titanic, Cinderella (yes, Cinderella, it was great so shut the fuck up) but it's nice every now and then to see a smaller more intimate production. Gaslight qualifies as such. The entire play enfolds in one setting, the living room of a Victorian house in 1800's London. There are seven characters in the play and two of those are essentially walk ons

The plot, as well, could be typified as "small" A psychological drama, really, about a young wife and her powerful husband and her very delicate state of mind. The Victorian setting is perfect in many ways. The temporal atmosphere; a foggy London night, creepy old houses, the flickering gaslights that give the story its name

Also perfect are the social conventions of the Victorian era, where women were expected to defer to their husbands and that the questioning of that authority could be seen as hysteria, and madness

Mrs Manningham is just such a woman and here husband is the kind of man who make any woman begin questioning ... things. Mrs Manningham begins to question her own sanity. Is she forgetting things, is she misplacing things, is she taking a picture down from the wall and if so why and if so why can't she remember These are questions of some import, her own mother died in the madhouse and Mr Manningham is quite afraid that he may have to send his wife there, for her own good

Yeh, right. That doesn't stink at all, does it

It stinks so much that shortly into the play a detective, or former detective shows up. There is history here, and suspicion and like all good Victorian stories, something nefarious going on behind locked doors in the attic

The storyline veers between mystery and psychological thriller. When Gaslight adheres to the latter, it gains it's greatest strength. The interplay between the married couple provides the play with its most powerful moments

Power comes from the performances. The wife is portrayed by Flora Montgomery and she has a heady task ahead of her; she has to keep her Victorian housewife authentic but we need to see her as a fully capable woman, both victim and hero, at the same. Montgomery is more than up to the task. She gives us a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, a young wife clinging to her husband for strength, a woman who realizes that her strength must come from within and a woman who finds her voice all combined together. It is a credit to her performance that we never

Power also comes from the performance Owen Teale as the husband. If you watch Game of Thrones you will know, and despise, Teale from his portrayal of Ser Alliser Thorne, the lovely gent who is responsible for the death of John Snow

Take a breath. I'll give you a minute

So, another villainous turn for Thorne in this play. And damn, the man is good. He exudes a slow, smoldering rage that threatens to erupt at any minute. His sense with Montgomery, when he is attempting to impose his will upon here provides the production with some actual goose pimply moments

Another Game of Thrones alum graces the stage here. Ian McElhinney plays Ser Barristan on GOT, recently slain in his service to the Khaleesi. He plays Inspector Rough here and strikes the only off key notes in the play. He wants his detective to be more Columbo than Holmes; a doting old man disguising a steel trap mind. Problem is, occasionally, he is just a bit too jaunty and humbly. He had a little issue with his lines but being a professional was able to sail past it, with aid of his cast mates

The plot of the story is not exactly complex but it doesn't need to be. The meat of this play is in the interplay between husband and wife, a kind of battle where the psychological knives are sheathed for most of the duel and only bared at the end; but a deadly battle at the end. Montgomery and Teale are more than up to the task and when they are locked in they battle of words, you can't take away your eyes

I could have used much much more of that duel but I'll take what I was given and be happy about it. And every time the lights flicker, I'll be looking up at the ceiling (Now you have to find the movie to know what the hell I'm talking about)