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

Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse that makes victims question their sanity.
The term was adopted after Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play Gaslight, set in Victorian England in 1880, became an enduring hit after premiering in London.

Two years later, it played in New York as Angel Street (and launched Vincent Price, who played the villain, towards stardom). Then came two movie versions with both titles in use. (The 1940 British movie was called Angel Street, while the 1944 Hollywood version, starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer and introducing a young Angela Lansbury was Gaslight.) …

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John Van Druten’s There’s Always Juliet is a trifle of a comedy about a fun-loving London socialite whose attitude towards romantic love is turned upside down when she meets a young American visitor at a tea party.

It’s a rather peculiar choice for Perth’s Classic Theatre Festival, which is unabashedly populist but also dedicated to quality entertainment from the so-called Golden Age of Broadway and London theatre. But There’s Always Juliet, a failure in New York when it premiered there in 1932, is so slight, insubstantial and forgettable that it scarcely seems worth doing. …

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