ANGEL STREET   

Sending Up 'Gaslight' of '44 (With Emphasis on 'Gas')

Remember ''Gaslight''? Not the 1939 British film with Anton Walbrook and Diana Wynyard, which is superb. No. The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer version of 1944 with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. For years I've longed for someone to make that bag of bloat explode with just a pinprick of humor. Now the Pearl Theater Company does it. Its production of ''Angel Street'' -- the American title of Patrick Hamilton's play that inspired both films -- is a marvelous romp.

The Hamilton script about a sinister Victorian police case has everything needed in a well-made melodrama: an elusive killer with a false identity ready to strike again, bigamy, madness, treachery, lechery, captivity, hidden treasure, chases -- and not only bumps but flickers in the night.

A well-chosen, astute cast under the smart, subversive direction of Rob Urbinati makes the most of all of this without a hint of camp. This is restrained, seriously comic acting that holds you right at the edge of laughter for two hours.

Richmond Hoxie as Jack Manningham, trying to drive his wife mad, may not be as menacing as Vincent Price in the original Broadway production, but he makes the character chillingly cunning, and Carol Schultz as the wife makes you unsure, until she holds Jack's razor to his throat at the end, that she is not in fact crazy. Margot White and Kathleen Doyle as the maids are a perfect mix of malicious servility and lascivious impertinence.

And Dan Daily as the detective, Sergeant Rough, is so deliciously funny in every gesture (he can even make furniture dance with a tap of his toe), whisper and shout that when he concludes a summation of breathless speculation about the motives of a plot to kill, exclaiming, ''Dear God in heaven, am I not a wonderful man?,'' you half expect the audience to cry in unison, ''You are! You are!'' There is not a Victorian sleuth in the whole catalogue, including Sherlock Holmes, who will survive this superb embodiment of Rough as anything but a comic character.

ANGEL STREET
By Patrick Hamilton; directed by Rob Urbinati; stage manager, Lisa Ledwich; sets by David Gordon; costumes by Barbara A. Bell; technical director, Tony Rust; lighting by Stephen Petrilli; sound by Johnna Doty. Presented by the Pearl Theater Company. At 80 St. Marks Place, East Village.

WITH: Richmond Hoxie (Mr. Manningham), Carol Schultz (Mrs. Manningham), Margot White (Nancy), Kathleen Doyle (Elizabeth), Dan Daily (Rough) and Matthew Gray and Jon Prave (Gentlemen).

By D. J. R. Bruckner, New York Times
Published: April 30, 1999, Friday

Night Must Fall and Angel Street both began life on stage and later became golden oldie movie classics. Angel Street's movie version became Gaslight, a renaming inspired by the on-and-off flickering of the gas lit fixtures which figure so importantly in the spine tingling events. Variations of "are you trying to gaslight me?" have outlived both play and movie as a common expression for actions which seem destined to make someone feel deranged. This season, both these plays have been pulled out of the theatrical morgue by two very able directors, Night Must Fall (see link) by John Tillinger and Angel Street by Rob Urbinati.

Though without a cast of bankable box office names or a modish film noir style setting, the production of Angel Street currently at the Pearl Theatre Company's East Village space is the more satisfying of the two by far. That's not to say that Patrick Hamilton's story about a sensitive woman whose husband has just about convinced her that her sanity is disintegrating is the stuff of great dramatic literature. But its author had knack for pulling out every stop to keep audiences glued to the edge of their seats. Thus, even though melodramas were already considered passé in 1938 when Angel Street premiered, its multitude of suspense elements proved there was life in the well-made Victorian spine tingler after all. A diabolical killer and seducer, spousal abuse in the parlor and probably the bedroom as well, bigamy, lost rubies, mysterious footfalls and light shifts , locked drawers and rooms and an insistently persistent policeman -- that's a fairly complete list of the elements Hamilton managed to stuff into his three acts.

And now, more than sixty years later, Rob Urbinato has successfully resurrected this plot-heavy antique, adding a touch of sly, underlying humor without removing a single of its many twists and turns. Aided and abetted by six actors seemingly born to the mad doings of this Victorian townhouse, the new Angel Street proves itself alive and well. It achieves the near impossible feat of keeping you entertained, in suspense and amused all at once. A nice hat trick!

Richmond Hoxie plays Mr. Manningham, the obvious villain of the piece, with a restrained ordinariness that in the final analysis makes him every bit as chilling as the hamm-y Vincent Price (in the original) or the debonair Charles Boyer (of the movie version). Carol Schultz is a lovely and effective wife in distress with just enough of a manic gleam in her eyes to put you in suspense as to just how she'll handle her grand finale. In an article in the company's always informative newsletter, Ms. Schultz herself wondered about how she'd bring it off and I'm happy to report that she has done it with great aplomb. She also mentioned the challenge of avoiding a nervous giggle when her stage husband is scaring her to death and to keep from laughing when Dan Daily as the intrepid policeman come to the rescue is so funny. Mr. Daily's Rough is indeed excrutiatingly funny -- someone ought to write a Masterpiece Mystery series around him! -- and Ms. Schultz manages to hide all but a very occasional twitch of the lip. The two maids -- Margot White as Nancy the nasty flirt and Katherine Doyle as the loyal Elizabeth -- also contribute to the overall excellence.

As already stated, Angel Street is hardly a drama of significant social or literary value. But the two hours and ten minutes (including intermission) that you'll spend with the Manningham's and police officer Rough will fly by without a moment's boredom.

Elyse Sommer, Curtain Up Review

Emelin's Finest Moment, a riveting Angel Street

Patrick Hamilton's late Victorian melodrama, '' Angel Street, '' is at the Emelin Theatre through this Sunday, and it's just the thing for those looking for a classic thriller with all the trimmings. It runs as smoothly as an ancient, well-oiled Rolls-Royce. This is one of the most polished and elegant productions ever seen at the 274-seat Emelin, which will mark its 28th birthday this year. It is the touring production from Queens Theatre in the Park, which will play five venues and wind up at The Egg in Albany. The director is Rob Urbinati, who staged a well-received "Angel Street" late last year at Manhattan's Pearl Theatre...
At the heart of the play is a Victorian couple, the Manninghams, who live in a recently acquired, elegant townhouse in London. Susuanna Frazer, recently seen as Bessie in "Marvin's Room" at the Helen Hayes Performing Arts Center, is the perfect, ivory-skinned wife who lives in increasing fear of her husband, also excellently played by John Little.
Odd things - a letter, a painting, a piece of jewelry, and Mr. Manningham is quick to accuse. Mrs. Manningham of losing her marbles.
The servants, a sluttish soubrette superbly played by Adrianna Dufay and a poker-faced older maid, Patricia Guinan, are of little help.
The first act brilliantly evokes the wife's claustrophobia and solitude, facing the husband's growing evil...The three acts proceed with the sureness of a well-made piece of machinery that magically never creaks...
Urbinati has forged a strong ensemble from his small cast, and he takes his time to tell his story exquisitely well. David P.Gordon's richly detailed, lush scenery transports us to Victorian London, and Scott Clyve's sophisticated lighting adds much to the atmosphere. Ambience is almost all here, and David C. Robinson's beautiful costumes add to it. They create the feeling of opulence where fear can hide, just under the surface.

Jacques LeSourd, The Journal News
January 2000

ANGEL STREET. A play by Patrick Hamilton on which the film "Gaslight" was based. With Susanna Frazer, John Little, Vernon Morris, Patricia Guinan, Adrianna Dufay and others. Directed by Rob Urbinati; set, David Gordon; lighting, Scott Clyve; costumes, David Robinson; sound, David Arnold. At Queens Theater in the Park, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, today, Saturday and Sunday; Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center, Feb. 3-6. Seen at Saturday's matinee opening.

WHILE "GASLIGHT," the 1944 film starring In-grid Bergman and Charles Boyer, remains relevant to film buffs for its cinematic attributes not the least of which is Bergman’s Academy Award-winning portrayal of the victim-wife we may rightfully wonder what this Victorian melodrama has to do with us today. Patrick Hamilton wrote "Gas light" in 1938 renamed "Angel Street" when it moved to
Broadway for a three-year run—long past the Victorian era. Both the play and the sub sequent movie
version enjoyed popular as well as critical success.

Although the now-outdated manners and social stratifications so stiffly observed in London in the 1880s are rigorously represented in "Angel Street" — not to mention lordship status accorded male heads-of-household in Victorian times — Hamilton's play is not yet irrelevant in offstage or off-screen terms.

This is both a theatrical blessing and a social curse. Rob Urbinati, who directed the searing lynching drama "Minstrel Show" at Queens Theatre in the Park and Off-Broadway, has craft-ed an antique "Angel Street" that, despite its genteel language, eerily speaks to us in the vernacular of domestic brutes of any era who might batter their wives.

The villain, Jack Manningham, never once strikes his wife, at least in our view. But he has battered her in a far more brutal, if subtle, manner. He has robbed her of her dignity and is about to rob her of her sanity. The Victorian strictures of the time help us understand how an intelligent young woman, however naive, might fall so willingly under the sway of such a monster. But there could be other excuses today, ranging from drug abuse to the en-trapments of power and glamour.

John Little as Jack Manningham, a murderous pseudonym as we are about to learn, well-earns the boos he accrues at curtain call. (This is, after all, an old-fashioned melodrama. So we should not expect much depth in character.) He is the definition of diabolical evil as he endeavors to drive his wife mad by stealing things from her, then accusing her of misplacing them.

But "Angel Street" is not so shallow as to leave us with nothing to say of the victim but "poor Mrs. Manningham." As played by Susanna Frazer, we glimpse a hostage at the end of a long ordeal. Frazer teases us with hints of the vibrant young woman who fell in love with Jack. She makes us care and gives us cause to fear for her.

Vernon Morris as Rough, the retired detective who takes an interest in Mrs. Manningham's plight be-
cause of a murder case he never solved, adds both comic relief and Hitchcockian suspense to the proceedings. Meanwhile, Patricia Guinan and Adrianna Dufay, as servants of the house, represent competing loyalties to the Mr. and Mrs. If you hadn't guessed the Victorian time and place from the frumpy manners and formal tea, David Gordon's exquisitely detailed, diaphanous set stands as a constantly imposing reminder, while David Arnold's costumes deliver the characters to just the right period.

But "Angel Street." as produced by Queens Theater in the Park, is more than a museum piece. It speaks to the domestic violence issues past and present, though today they are too often expressed in a rather more direct manner.

Steve Parks, Newsday

'Angel' ascends on strength of performances

On its surface, Theatreworks' production of "Angel Street" is melodrama, with villains, heroes and missing fortune.

But we're drawn into this nightmare world by the wonderful acting of its leads, Jane Fromme and Tom Paradise, and by the psychological intensity and atmosphere of voyeurism that director Rob Urbinati brings to this 1938 thriller.

The central symbol in "Angel Street" - from which the 1944 movie "Gaslight" was adapted - is the gaslight that dims every evening a few minutes after John Manningham leaves his home and regains its intensity a few minutes before he returns.

It hints at dark motives and secret activities. Although there's very little actual physical violence, the play is a cauldron of other kinds of violence - emotional, verbal, threatened, anticipated, recollected.

"Angel Street" turns viewers into voyeurs as we listen, spellbound, to descriptions of events that occurred before the curtain rises on John and Bella Manningham's well-to- do household in Victorian London.

Years before the term "abusive relationship" had been coined, playwright Patrick Hamilton gave us a remarkably vivid portrait of one. John Manningham alternately lifts up and dashes down his wife Bella's hopes, trains her to think of herself as helpless (not even allowing her to put coal on the fire), and isolates her from her family.

And if psychological intimidation isn't enough, there's always force. Why he does this - besides being a control freak - is somehow connected with the brutal murder of wealthy Alice Barlow 15 years earlier.

As John Manningham, Tom Paradise sweeps across the stage like an evil spirit in top hat and cape. The character is himself an actor, hiding his feelings and motives beneath a veil of sarcasm, and Paradise masterfully reveals Manningham's inner nature through the disguises, and his true feelings as violent outbursts.

As Inspector Rough, Christopher Lowell is the opposite of Manningham: a sunny, matter-of-fact man whose feelings are all on the surface.

He bucks up the near-hysterical Bella by hauling out a flask of Scotch whiskey, which he prescribes for the "instantaneous removal of dark fears and doubts."

As the maid Elizabeth, Doris McCraw has one of the play's best moments - simultaneously funny and suspenseful -hyperventilating after Mr. Manningham's unexpected return. (Although director Urbinati has avoided any signs of camp, he hasn't squelched the play's welcome moments of humor.) Natalie Palan is attractively available and repulsively conniving as Nancy, the saucy maid with her eye on her boss.

But the evening belongs to Fromme, whose performance turns what could easily be trash into treasure. At the beginning of the play, she's already near the breaking point, simultaneously rejoicing and backing away in disbelief as John dangles the possibility of going to the theater in front of her.
Later, her emotion at finding a letter from her cousin had me almost in tears.
The production looks great, from Betty Ross' and Kristy Kuehler's elaborate period costumes to Scott Clyve's sumptuous but not overwhelming mauve set.

Clyve's lighting highlights the nightmarish atmosphere, as does the music Urbinati chose - mostly by Philip Glass

By Mark Arnest, The Gazette
December 11, 2000

Symphony of Suspense
TheatreWorks lights the lamps with Angel Street

I'm not sure I have any idea what it means for a day to be so yellow that it is advisable to stay indoors. I think it's a London fog kind of thing. But after seeing Angel Street's opening scene, with a Victorian-era woman standing pensive and concerned in a dark room, bathed in the yellow light gathering at the curtains she holds back from the window, I begin to form a definition that works wonderfully over the course of this taut suspense thriller.

From that opening scene, which foreshadows the essential quality of lighting in the Manningham home and mixes in an overpowering score with a finely tuned performance from Jane Fromme, the audience is tangled in an aura of suspense as thick as the London fog that distorts perceptions and clouds our vision of the world before us.

Angel Street is an old-fashioned thriller, psychological at its core. It was originally written for the stage in the '30s and is familiar to some as the basis for the movie Gaslight. It's hard to imagine a playwright taking such a conventional approach to laying out a mystery for an audience these days, but the play need not be seen as a relic. The further the theater goes in pushing its boundaries, exploding its form and structure, the more aware we become that the best stories are still those that immerse themselves in the unexplored terrain of the human psyche.

The play's atmosphere of tension is established as Mrs. Manningham moves about her 1880s sitting room, interacting with one of the house's two servants, trying not to disturb her husband. When he awakes, the sense of worrisome expectation is heightened throughout a long interchange in which the characters speak without ever looking at each other, revealing volumes in the averted glances. We are alternatively brought through sickeningly sweet moments of release juxtaposed against tight-wire tension that leaves the characters and audience at the point of snapping.

Throughout the first third of the play, we are limited to the Manninghams and their servants as the source of our understanding of the reality of this home on Angel Street. The production's biggest flaw is the heavy-handed approach that this crucial opening scene takes to establish the two principal characters. Though Fromme is exquisitely conflicted and can easily lead the audience to question her sanity, her husband comes across as too easily pigeon-holed.

Tom Paradise's Mr. Manningham is a wonderful villain in his capacity as a patronizing, manipulative and insensitive husband.

The wonder of Angel Street is its ability to keep the audience in an unrelieved state of apprehension, even when the plot seems predictable. Urbinati shows his mastery at orchestrating the tension, making it as real as any character, palpable and overwhelming in its persistence.

But just as effective as the original treatment of a textbook suspense story is the subtext of the relationship between the married couple. While there is an element of honest-to-goodness murderous treachery played out over the course of the play, it isn't hard to see the psychological torture as a metaphorical manifestation of the struggle two characters endure as they try to determine their identities in the relationship. There is something archaic about the structure and style of the story, but that merely underscores the potential for resonance in a horrifying view of domestic imbalance.

Owen Perkins, CSIndy.Com
November 9, 2000