About the Play: “Deceived”
Memory is finicky, isn’t it? What I remember is not what you remember. Is it? I’m sure I remember what happened. My version is right. Not yours. Isn’t it?
If you’ve ever questioned your reality of a situation based off someone else’s account of it, guess what? You may have been “gaslit.” If that term strikes a nerve for you, you’re not alone. In 2022, Merriam-Webster crowned “gaslighting” as the Word of the Year based on the significant increase of lookups on their website. It is defined as “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage”. While the term has only recently entered common conversation, its origin reaches back over 80 years to a tense stage thriller: Gas Light, written in 1938 by British novelist and playwright Patrick Hamilton.
Set in a Victorian London home, the plot centers on a woman whose husband is subtly undermining her grasp on reality. He insists that the strange occurrences she notices – footsteps in the attic, missing items, the dimming of the gas lights – are all figments of her imagination. In truth, he is orchestrating them to conceal his ulterior motives. Thus, the term “gaslighting” was born out of the dimming of the home’s gas lights whenever the husband went out, and his insistence to his wife that it must be part of her imagination.
The play was an immediate success in London, and later, on Broadway. Its suspenseful structure and intimate psychological stakes lent themselves perfectly to film, first in a 1940 British version that closely followed the play’s plot and then followed by the more famous Hollywood blockbuster Gaslight in 1944. The latter starred Ingrid Bergman, who won her first Oscar for playing the lead role. This adaptation softened certain elements but preserved the essential dynamic of a charming manipulative husband methodically convincing his wife that she is losing her mind.
Fast forward to the 21st century where playwrights Johnna Wright and Patty Jamieson have revisited Hamilton’s classic with a modern lens. While faithful to the suspense and period setting, Deceived makes deliberate changes to reflect contemporary conversations about believing lived experiences, relationship manipulation, self-sufficiency and resilience. This adaptation focuses tightly on the psychological interplay. The protagonist’s journey is one of self-discovery and self-defense. She is no longer a passive victim awaiting salvation; she’s an active participant, navigating deception to reclaim her reality.
Deceived’s immediacy shows audiences both the insidious nature of psychological control and the possibility of breaking free from it. The play invites us to recognize the subtle tactics that manipulators use- denying observable facts, projecting blame, isolating their target, and creating a false reality where the victim questions their every thought. It’s in witnessing these tactics on stage that we begin to grasp just how fragile perception can be, and how quickly trust can erode when reality is under attack. Deceived challenges us to consider how easily one can turn against another, and how we reclaim our own perceptions. So, lean in, pay attention, and watch the gaslights. Are they dimming or are your eyes playing tricks on you?