Gas Light (play)
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
dramatist Patrick Hamilton
Patrick Hamilton (dramatist)
Patrick Hamilton was an English playwright and novelist.He was well regarded by Graham Greene and J. B. Priestley and study of his novels has been revived recently because of their distinctive style, deploying a Dickensian narrative voice to convey aspects of inter-war London street culture...
. The play (and its film adaptations) gave rise to the term gaslighting
Gaslighting
Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making a victim doubt his or her own memory and perception...
with the meaning "a form of psychological abuse in which false information is presented to the victim with the intent of making him/her doubt his/her own memory and perception".
Synopsis
The play is set in fogFog
Fog is a collection of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. While fog is a type of stratus cloud, the term "fog" is typically distinguished from the more generic term "cloud" in that fog is low-lying, and the moisture in the fog is often generated...
-bound London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1880 at the lower middle class
Lower middle class
In developed nations across the world, the lower middle class is a sub-division of the greater middle class. Universally the term refers to the group of middle class households or individuals who have not attained the status of the upper middle class associated with the higher realms of the middle...
home of Jack Manningham and his wife Bella. It is late afternoon, a time which Hamilton notes as being the time "before the feeble dawn of gaslight and tea".
At the opening of the drama Bella is clearly on edge, and the stern reproaches from her overbearing husband (who flirts with the servants) makes matters worse. What most perturbs Bella is Manningham's unexplained disappearances from the house: he will not tell her where he is going, and this increases her anxiety. As the drama unfolds, it becomes clear that Manningham is intent on convincing Bella that she is going mad, even to the point of assuring her she is 'imagining' the gas light in the house is dimming.
The appearance of a police detective called Rough soon leads Bella to realise that far from going mad, she is married to a psychopath. Rough explains that the apartment above was once occupied by one Alice Barlow, a wealthy woman who was murdered for her jewels but that the murderer never uncovered them.
It transpires that Manningham goes to the flat each night, searching for the jewels and causing the light in the house below to go down. Rough convinces Bella to assist him in exposing Manningham as the murderer, which she does, but not before she takes revenge on Manningham by pretending to help him escape. At the last minute she reminds him that, having gone 'mad', she is not accountable for her actions. The play closes with Manningham being led away by the police.
Critical reception
Gas Light was an immense hit on its release, and it remains one of the longest-running non-musicals in BroadwayBroadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
history. It remains a perennial favourite with both repertory
Repertory
Repertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...
and amateur theatre companies.
Film adaptations
The play Gas Light was adapted for film twice: the 1940 British film GaslightGaslight (1940 film)
Gaslight is a 1940 film directed by Thorold Dickinson, based on Patrick Hamilton's play Gas Light which stars Anton Walbrook, Diana Wynyard, and Frank Pettingell...
, directed by Thorold Dickinson
Thorold Dickinson
Thorold Barron Dickinson was a British film director, screenwriter, producer, and Britains's first university Professor of Film.-Early life and career:...
, and the 1944 American film of the same name
Gaslight (1944 film)
Gaslight is a 1944 mystery-thriller film adapted from Patrick Hamilton's play, Gas Light, performed as Angel Street on Broadway in 1941. It was the second version to be filmed; the first, released in the United Kingdom, had been made a mere four years earlier...
, directed by George Cukor
George Cukor
George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...
. When the British film version was released in America, it played as Angel Street, the New York title for the original British play, to avoid confusion with the American film.