A Female-Centric Story: Arizona Theatre Company presents psychological thriller ‘Deceived’

By Laura Latzko. Originally published in Tucson Weekly.

Based on Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 psychological thriller Gaslight, the newest adaptation, Deceived tells the story of Bella, a woman who is trying to make sense of strange occurrences in her home. She is trying to discover the truth as she fights against paranoia, distrust and manipulation. 

Arizona Theatre Company (ATC) will present the show in Tucson from Sunday, Sept. 28, to Saturday, Oct. 18, at the Temple of Music and Art and from Saturday, Oct. 25, to Sunday, Nov. 9, at the Tempe Center for the Arts. 

The original work Gaslight has been made into different adaptations, including a 1940 British film and a 1944 American film starring Ingrid Bergman, Angela Lansbury and Charles Boyer. There was also a Broadway version of the play called Angel Street. 

The ATC version is being directed by Jenn Thompson. She has been working closely with a design team that includes scenic designer Alexander Dodge and costume designer Patrick Holt, who appeared on RuPaul’s Drag Race as his drag alter-ego Tempest DuJour. 

The play takes place in 1904 in London, during the transition period between the Victorian and Edwardian eras. 

Thompson said within the show, many of the characters are performing as part of daily tasks. 

“It’s a very performative time. There’s a lot of ritual. There’s a lot of demonstration of domesticity. There’s a lot of rules. Everybody is performing anyway, and in this particular story, there’s a lot of lying and obscuring who you really are and what your real agenda is,” Thompson said. 

The actors are tasked with handling different props throughout the show. 

“There’s a lot of food. There’s a lot of tea service things. They have to clear it, set it and consume it. … I’m not expecting that the average audience member is going to know whether they’re using the proper silverware or not. We know. … One of the things I insisted on early on was that all the actresses be in corsets, footwear and skirts from day one. It gives them information about what they can and cannot do onstage and how they sit. It also really informs everything that they’re doing, how they move, how they breathe. That’s not something that you want to add late in the process. It’s part of the building blocks of creating those characters,” Thompson said. 

In the show, the creative team is tasked with bringing a supernatural feel with lighting and sound effects. The set also plays a major role in bringing this eerie atmosphere to life. 

“I start it off in haunted-house mode. There’s been a very violent murder of the previous owner of the home, and I definitely think that vibe is hanging around. Our heroine is struggling with some perceived mental illness on her part. … I do think there’s cross contamination of, ‘Is what I’m hearing even real? Am I going crazy? Is it a ghost? What’s happening?’” Thompson said. 

Thompson said that whenever she starts reading a script, she imagines the environment in which the show will take place. She has worked with Dodge in the past on several occasions, and they began collaborating on the set design early in the process. 

“We just jumped off with, ‘Let’s build a really cool haunted house. Let’s build something that is detailed, period-specific and also theatrical,’ which is what I think this play is,” Thompson said. 

Holt said that hearing about the set got him excited about the show. 

“The set is almost a character of its own in the play. It’s so fabulous. I had never worked with Jenn before, but I knew I loved her when she said, ‘It’s a haunted house.’ I said,’ You got me at ‘haunted house.’ I’m in, 100%,’” Holt said. 

The most recent adaptation was developed by two female playwrights: Johnna Wright and Patty Jamieson. Thompson said they reimagined the show, giving more agency to female characters. 

“In this particular version, the biggest change is that the police inspector who comes in and solves it has been cut entirely, so our heroine is more at the center of figuring out this particular mystery,” Thompson said. 

In the show, there are three central female characters and one male character, Bella’s husband Jack. Thompson said this has brought a special dynamic to the rehearsal room. 

“It’s three good parts for women of a certain age, which is something that I’m in favor of,” Thompson said. 

Thompson, who also has a background in acting, recently directed an ATC production of True West and a national tour of Annie starring Whoopi Goldberg. She also has recently worked on Little Shop of Horrors and Steel Magnolias. 

Thompson said although she has done a lot of musicals in the last few years, during the first 10 years of her directing career, she directed more plays. 

“This is what my directorial roots were. And I’ve done this play before, not this version of this play, but I directed Angel Street in 2015 in St. Louis. I feel very at home in this genre,” Thompson said. 

In the show, the actors will speak in class-specific accents. Thompson said the performers all have experience doing British accents, but they worked with a dialect coach to make the accents as authentic as possible. 

This is Holt’s third production with ATC. He was also costume designer for their productions of The Legend of Georgia McBride and Dial M for Murder. 

Holt said he often does big musicals, so working on a play has been a nice change of pace for him. 

He said he really gets to really home in on smaller details of the costuming that help to define a character. 

“The meat of a play like this is something I crave, dark and heavy. These smaller casts are where you get to really focus on little details that maybe the audience will never know but the actors are aware of. I was talking in designer presentations about how much I love this character of the husband in this play, who’s just this sinister human being. You don’t get to play with those characters very often, but it’s fun. We always love the villain or love to hate the villain,” Holt said. “The audience may never notice this, but with Jack, his costumes get darker and slicker as the play progresses. … Even the colors that Bella, the lead, wears evolve as the play evolves.” 

Holt has done costuming for shows that take place in different time periods, including more modern shows such as Dear Evan Hansen and productions set in the 1800s such as Little Women.  

Holt said he loves doing pieces from the early 20th century. 

“The silhouette of women in this period is stunning and beautiful. There’s a formality to it that doesn’t exist anymore that poses its own set of challenges for these characters,” Holt said. “It’s layers for women, layers of corsetry and things that are restricting. Even in menswear, it’s starched high collars. It’s the opposite of the leisure style that we’re into nowadays.” 

Holt is also an associate professor at the University of Arizona. He said in costuming this show, he has created new pieces and drew from different sources. 

“Between the stock at ATC and the stock of costumes at the university that I can pull from, we find items that work. Everything gets altered to a certain extent, whether it’s just the fit of the waist or adding trims or hems. It’s a real mix of building new things and pulling things and recycling,” Holt said. 

Photos by Tim Fuller.