A THRILLER THAT OUTLASTS ITS TWIST

Even when we know what’s coming, the tension holds

Let’s talk about the cojones required to mount a production of Gaslight nowadays. Even if we assume — a tall order, that assumption — that most of the audience has not seen, or does not know, the plot of George Cukor’s terrific 1944 film adaptation (with a 17-year-old Angela Lansbury in her screen debut), we still have to reckon with the fact that the term “gaslighting,” derived from the play’s plot, entered the Oxford English Dictionary over 20 years ago. It has been bandied about with increasing frequency since the #MeToo movement, even earning the distinction of Merriam-Webster’s 2022 Word of the Year.

All of which is to say: if most playgoers don’t know the big reveal, they’ll likely suss it out minutes into the play.

Cheyenne Casebier, Lawrence Grimm

Northlight’s production begins with Collette Pollard’s gorgeous set, featuring a Victorian sitting room/study. All dark wood paneling and period-appropriate light fixtures (especially important here), the effect is so immediately transporting that one can almost smell the sooty London air — or in this case, the sooty air of late-19th-century New York City.

The play opens with a conversation between Jack and Bella Manningham about sticky buns versus oysters for tea. Soon Jack is gently but firmly haranguing Bella over a pair of missing cuff links, not letting up even as she becomes increasingly distressed. The cuff links are eventually found in her secretary. A portrait is also missing, and later located.

Kathy Scambiatterra, Cheyenne Casebier

Bella, we are informed, is not well. She has no recollection of the many instances in which household items, both mundane and valuable, go missing, and insists she has nothing to do with their disappearance. She isn’t sleeping well and is prone to near hysteria when confronted with these events, after which she is medicated to calm her down. Her family has stopped speaking to her.

When alone, Bella is convinced there are people walking about the locked rooms upstairs, and that the gas-lit lamps in the house inexplicably dim and brighten. Aside from the married couple, the household consists of an older, stolid housekeeper, Elizabeth, and a young parlor maid, Nancy, who is openly insolent and hostile to her mistress. Visitors are not permitted — until one evening, when an old, retired police officer, Sgt. Rough, demands an audience with Bella and refuses to leave until she meets with him.

Timothy Edward Kane, Cheyenne Casebier

This production uses not Patrick Hamilton’s original 1938 script of Gas Light (now known as Gaslight), but an adaptation by Steven Dietz. Dietz — I’m not sure why — shifts the setting from London to New York. The play gains little from this relocation beyond some unintentional laughter prompted by a throwaway line about servants’ wages and a John Wilkes Booth / Edwin Booth joke that mostly falls flat.

What Dietz has changed is the structure of the acts — an improvement, to be sure — and, more crucially, the tone of a good portion of the play. This Gaslight is not merely a thriller, but a comedy-thriller, or a thriller with comic elements, if you prefer.

Cheyenne Casebier, Timothy Edward Kane, Kathy Scambiatterra

That tonal shift is accomplished largely through Sgt. Rough. Fresh off the best stage performance of 2025 — a role for which he deservedly won a Jeff Award last month — Timothy Edward Kane’s portrayal of the sergeant is an unalloyed delight. From the moment he steps into the sitting room, he dominates the frame, and his chemistry with Cheyenne Casebier’s Bella and Kathy Scambiatterra’s Elizabeth is terrific.

Another change involves the ages of the central couple. In the original play, the actors playing the spouses are about ten years apart (they’re closer in age in the film). Whether by design or inadvertently, Lawrence Grimm’s Jack Manningham comes across as significantly older than Bella. This works to his benefit, making him seem even more predatory and controlling, and adding considerable cringe to his flirtations with the teenage Nancy — a grating, blunt performance by Janyce Caraballo, complete with an unfortunate Bronx accent.

It also places Jack on more equal footing when he clashes with the housekeeper, with Scambiatterra doing fine work in what is largely a thankless role.

Lawrence Grimm, Janyce Caraballo

Grimm is excellent as the preternaturally poised, smooth-tongued Jack. His height — he looms over Casebier — and self-possession add menace to his performance. Casebier is equally strong, and I particularly admired how her performance shifts depending on her scene partner. Bella has been dominated so thoroughly by Jack that she exists almost entirely in reaction mode, making her easy to manipulate — yes, even by the charming Sgt. Rough, though in her case it’s to her benefit.

That dynamic is precisely what makes her final scene so effective: it’s the first time Bella seizes control of the narrative.

Lawrence Grimm, Cheyenne Casebier

All of these contrasting tones and strong performances converge in a marvelous scene just before the first-act curtain. Anticipating Jack’s imminent return, Sgt. Rough, Bella, and Elizabeth rush about the house putting things right. Director Jessica Thebus, clearly in command, puts the cast through their paces with an energy more suited to screwball comedy than thriller.

As Jack’s tall shadow darkens the glass of the front door — aided by some terrific lighting design from JR Lederle — the others retreat. Jack enters the now-empty room. Cue muffled gasps across the theatre as audience members simultaneously spot a problem. We are then treated to agonizingly long moments of Hitchcockian suspense, before a deft bit of silent physical comedy from Kane restores the status quo.

“Is nobody home?”
Blackout.

Grand fun, this.

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photos by Michael Brosilow

Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women
Northlight Theatre
9501 Skokie Boulevard in Skokie (Chicagoland)
ends on January 4, 2026
for tickets ($46-$98), call 847.673.6300 or visit Northlight

for more shows, visit Theatre in Chicago

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