![]() ![]() Is there not, I ask, also an issue with a man directing a cast of women in a play about emotional control and power imbalance? It’s something they’ve discussed. Beecham has merged the character with the figure of the drama therapist and has “pruned the text to remove some of the lazy sexism and the patronising attitudes”. ![]() In Kai Fischer’s production for Perth theatre, a woman – Meg Fraser – was cast in the role. The character of the police inspector Rough, who is Bella’s rescuer, can be problematic for a director today: he is another dominating male presence. This approach also means that, in the context of Beecham’s production, a survivor of abuse is also taking on the role of the abuser, which makes the scene in which Jack attacks Bella more emotionally complex. The cast are simultaneously playing the women in the refuge as well as Hamilton’s characters, so when Bella delivers an impassioned speech towards the end, it becomes “a sort of exorcism”. The cast created individual backstories for the modern women they are playing and they remained in character when a care worker took them through a workshop designed for survivors of abuse. To prepare, Beecham worked closely with a women’s refuge. His production has an all-female cast playing survivors of domestic abuse who are enacting Hamilton’s play as an exercise in drama therapy. ![]() There have already been revivals at Perth theatre and the Mill at Sonning a version starring Martin Shaw is touring the UK and another Gaslight is coming to the Playground theatre in London.īeecham was inspired by Safe at Last, a Channel 4 documentary that allowed cameras behind the doors of a women’s refuge. The Watford production is one of several Gaslights staged this year. The protagonist of the Gorse trilogy is a predator, a superficially charming swindler who takes advantage of women. His obsession with Soho sex worker Lily Connolly made its way into Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky. “He was a complicated man and, reading his biography, it seems he had some understanding of some of the behaviours he’s writing about.” Hamilton’s tendency to become infatuated with unsuitable women seeped into his fiction. “Patrick Hamilton the commercial playwright could never quite leave behind Hamilton the literary novelist,” says Beecham. All in all, despite being in the shadow of the 1944 'Gaslight' in popularity the earlier 1940 film doesn't deserve to be, because it is every bit as great.Watch Ingrid Bergman in a scene from the 1944 film Gaslight ![]() Robert Newton is a strong presence in an early role, and Cathleen Cordell is a hoot as Nancy. Frank Petingell looks more comfortable than Joseph Cotton, his performance is more even (though Cotton was hardly bad), the character is better written and he is more believable as a police officer (where Cotton's performance particularly fell down on). Diana Wynward demonstrates Bella's vulnerability incredibly movingly with no histrionics and she's hardly dull either (though the character has more range and depth to her in the 1944 version). Anton Walbrook, while not as subtle as Charles Boyer, is terrifying and a huge part as to why the film is as atmospheric as it is. Performances are great here and hardly inferior to those in the later film, despite being less familiar. Tighter-paced and more theatrical somewhat, the story never creaks and is leaden with tension and suspense with nothing obvious that came over as unnecessary or clumsy. The script is thought-provoking and tense, everything feels relevant to what's going on and nothing seemed padded. It's intelligently and suspensefully directed by then-famous-and-well-regarded, now-almost-forgotten (undeservedly) Thorald Dickinson. It's shot beautifully and menacingly, is hauntingly lit and has sets that are picturesque yet give off a great amount of dread while over-stating it. However, while not as glossy as the later film 'Gaslight' (1940) regardless is incredibly well-made. The secondary characters could have been better fleshed out, and while Richard Adinsell's music score is suitably ominous Bonislau Kaper's score for the later version has more atmosphere, subtlety and tension. Like the 1944 film (the only real drawback to that film was the uneven performance of Joseph Cotton), there is very little wrong here. To me, both 'Gaslight' films are great in their own way, and this reviewer ranks them equally, yet with one or two things in things that are done better in the other. It is inevitable that this 1940 film and the 1944 "remake" with Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman are going to be compared, and people will have different opinions as to which is the better version. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |