Angel Street (Gaslight)  By Patrick Hamilton, Classic Theatre Festival Directed by laurel Smith

PERTH, Ont. — The Perth Classic Theatre Festival has come up trumps with a sizzling revival of Patrick Hamilton’s renowned psychological thriller, Angel Street.

Director Laurel Smith and an excellent cast steadily crank up the tension in the production that opened on the weekend. But Smith never loses sight of the fact that Hamilton’s 1938 play about a vicious  husband who is steadily driving his wife towards madness is also an unsettling study in character. In fact, it was this latter aspect that was seized on by actress Ingrid Bergman for her Oscar-winning performance in the 1944 movie, released under the title of Gaslight. …

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There’s Always Juliet by John Van Druten. Classic Theatre Festival, directed by  Laurel Smith

Is instant attraction enough to last a lifetime or will the flame of being in love fizzle and die? Will the gap between two cultures be too wide to overcome? Is the spark of meeting someone different simply an antidote to a rich girl’s boredom?

These are just some of the questions that John Van Druten raises in his 1932 romantic comedy There’s Always Juliet, but, as quoted in the program note about the prolific playwright, his works “do not evoke lengthy critical ponderings.”  Instead, Van Druten, best known for such works as The Voice of the Turtle and Bell, Book and Candle, focuses on entertainment with a solid background of observation of human nature and social behaviour. …

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