ATC opens season with suspenseful ride of ‘Deceived’
By Cathalena E. Burch. Originally published on Tucson.com.
Merriam-Webster defines “gaslighting” as the psychological manipulation of a person over time until the person starts to question the validity of their memories, thoughts and perceptions of reality.
In a footnote, Webster says the term originated from the title of Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 novel and play Gas Light, a dark tale of a marriage based on deceit and trickery.
Arizona Theatre Company opens its 2025-26 season this weekend with Deceived, the 2022 adaptation of Hamilton’s play by Canadian playwrights Johanna Wright and Patty Jamieson.
“It’s a psychological thriller,” said Director Jenn Thompson of the play about a woman who tries to uncover the truth behind unexplained occurrences in her home that have her questioning her sanity. “It’s just a suspenseful psychological drama.”
This is Thompson’s first time directing Deceived, although she has done Gas Light, which was made into the 1944 film Gaslight with Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten and Angela Lansbury.
“It was fun to read this version because I’m familiar with the other, which is also quite different from the film,” said Thompson, making her ATC return after directing the company’s 2024 production of “True West.”
The adaptation cuts the role of Inspector Rough and gives Bella (played by Laakan McHardy in her ATC debut) a bigger role in discovering who is behind all the weird stuff going on in the home she shares with her husband, Jack (Tony Roach).
When Bella starts hearing noises and noticing odd things happening in the couple’s Victorian London townhouse, like the home’s gas lights flickering, Jack tries to convince her it’s all in her head. As the mysterious events intensify, Bella starts questioning everyone and everything, including herself.
In the original play, Bella is saved by Inspector Rough, “who is that kind of classic English inspector that basically comes in and says, ‘You’re in trouble. Your husband isn’t who you think he is and this is what’s going on’,” Thompson said during a rehearsal break last week. “In this version, the inspector is gone … and It’s Bella who solves it.”
The play also aims for a more contemporary audience by empowering the female characters with a few twists and turns along the way. The other female roles also get a little boost in the adaptation, including the housekeeper Elizabeth (Amelia White, who was in ATC’s True West and The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley) and the younger maid Nancy (Sarah-Anne Martinez in her ATC debut).
“It’s definitely less sort of like damsel in distress and victim-y, which I think is to its benefit,” Thompson said. “It’s casting its gaze a little bit more for a modern audience. Understandably, our sensibilities sort of get snagged on some of these older notions and values, and this kind of gets it out of the way of that and allows you to just really sort of sink into a good suspenseful thriller.”
Scenic designer Alexander Dodge created what Thompson describes as a “big haunted house” from the Victorian-era London rowhouse, with most of the action taking place in the parlor. Characters are dressed in period costumes and speak with English accents; retired University of Arizona theater professor Harold Dixon is the dialect coach.
Deceived has been performed a number of times since its premiere at Canada’s Shaw Festival in Niagara-On-the-Lake, Ontario, including at The Old Globe theater in San Diego this summer. Thompson said audiences and theater companies are interested in the play because it resonates with what’s happening in the world today.
“I think that’s why it’s kind of having this renaissance, you know,” she said. “It’s so cool to come back to these stories and see how they speak to us in the present. … We’re in this phase where we are … sort of shaking a little bit of the dust off to really give it that lens.”
Thompson said, though, that she hopes “people are going on the ride and talking about it at dinner afterwards, or, you know, basically entertained and gripped by the story.”
“It’s a good story,” she said.