His plot, on the other hand, has started to reek a bit. Indeed, Hamilton’s play is a suspense story that’s been described both as a throwback to Victorian Gothic fiction and a forerunner of domestic-peril movies-of-the-week, rather than a mystery – so his title does not really spoil the story. “The story, for us, is: How will Bella get out of this mess?” adds Jamieson, a long-time Shaw Festival company member who is making her debut as playwright in collaboration with Wright. “We kind of feel like people who go to Gaslight will know that she’s being gaslighted,” notes Wright, a director and dramaturge who first met co-writer Jamieson when she directed the actor in a Saskatoon production of Little Women: The Musical in 2009. There’s not really any reason to be coy about it in 2022, say Johnna Wright and Patty Jamieson, the co-authors of the new version of Gaslight at the Shaw Festival. Is it another sign of Bella’s mental fragility – or a clue as to what’s really going on in the house? She can’t recall doing any of this.Īt night, when Jack is frequently out, the gas lights in the house dim at unexpected moments. Newlywed Bella Manningham is worried that she is losing her grasp on reality – as Jack, her husband, more in sadness than in anger, keeps asking her why she’s taken down pictures and is hiding objects around the house. The American Psychological Association defines “to gaslight” straightforwardly as “to manipulate another person into doubting his or her perceptions, experiences, or understanding of events” – and this is, indeed, what audiences find occurring in the upper middle-class house in Victorian London where Gaslight is set in the play’s opening scenes.

“Gaslighting,” which was on the shortlist for Oxford Dictionaries word of the year in 2018, appeared in The Globe and Mail only twice in the first 10 years of the 21st century – but has been seen in its pages at least eleven times in 2022 alone (not counting this article you are reading). Gaslight, a 1938 thriller by Hamilton now on stage in a fresh new adaptation at the Shaw Festival, is the origin of the term “gaslighting,” a once-arcane term for reality-denying-as-mental-abuse that you’ll now find cropping up almost daily in articles about the #MeToo or Black Lives Matters movements, or in discussions of politicians whose default response to inconvenient facts is to cry #FakeNews.

By contrast, the plays of English writer Patrick Hamilton can only be said to have introduced one word – a verbed noun that has been trending upwards exponentially in recent years. William Shakespeare is often said to have introduced over 1,700 new words into the English language through his plays. The Fall production 'Paradise Lost and Found,' directed by Bill Matthys, will be staged in November.Please log in to bookmark this story. Not pictured are Vickie and Cody Westergren (Directors), Janet Curie (Backstage Manager), Jason Conley (crew, understudy), Michael Silgero (crew, understudy) and Trinity Chilek (crew). Picture of cast and crew include (l to r) Mallory Volkmann (Mama Wheelis), Craig Hughes (Buford), Steve Liberti (Harmony), Sarah Liberti (Marlene), Emmalee Donovan (Sara Lee) also winner of the Sister Michelle Award, Hali Westergren (light crew), Raelynn Griffith (Evalita) winner of the Best Youth Debut, Justin Donovan (sound crew) winner of the Lamplighter Backstage Award, Clement Sofka (Orville) winner of the Best Adult Debut, Brianna Sofka (Lurlene), Grace Migl (crew, understudy) and Josh Kaspar (award presenter). Theatre awards were presented following the production.

Summer Production: The Gaslight Theatre production of 'Daddy's Dyin' Who's Got the Will' concluded its production run on Sunday, August 14th, to sellout crowds.

Gaslight play