Guest Blog: Tricia Kelly On GASLIGHT at Watford Palace Theatre

In the light of Harvey Weinstein and the #MeToo movement, the term 'gaslighting' has become part of the discourse around abusive behaviour.

Many may not realise that it originates from Patrick Hamilton's thriller Gaslight, written in 1938, in which - for reasons later discovered - the dastardly Mr Manningham tries to trick his wife Bella into thinking she is losing her mind. It's part of a pattern of what we would now recognise as coercive control.

When I was approached by Watford Palace Theatre to play ex-Detective Inspector Rough in an all-female version of Gaslight, conceived and directed by Richard Beecham, I was intrigued.

In the past few years, in response to campaigns to redress the gender imbalance of work for female actors, there have been a number of theatre productions which have reimagined or reframed what traditionally have been male parts so that women can play them.

It's a welcome development. Particularly for actresses of a certain age, there can be a dearth of meaty parts to get our teeth into, and many of us are still hungry for that challenge.

Earlier this year, I spent a wonderfully satisfying three months touring the USA playing the title role in King Lear, so personally I am getting used to portraying wily old men - though Rough is considerably more benign and less troubled than Lear!

However, this production of Gaslight has presented all of our cast with different sorts of challenges and added meaning.

The show is set in a women's refuge, and the idea is that the play is being acted out by women who have escaped domestic violence. So, we are not only playing our characters in Gaslight, we are also the inhabitants of the refuge, who are acting out the play as part of their path to recovery.

In our first week of rehearsal, we spent time researching, developing and devising backstories for the women in our refuge.

The theatre has been working closely with Watford Women's Centre on this production, and through their Domestic Abuse programme, the other four cast members experienced a workshop session in role while I shadowed Alison, the workshop leader who ran it. We then met with survivors who generously shared their stories with us - many of them horrendous.

All of this groundwork in understanding our backstories meant that when we started rehearsing Gaslight as a play, we were approaching the material with completely fresh eyes.

Far from being an old 'potboiler thriller', which is how the play has sometimes been perceived and indeed performed, the play suddenly takes on a new urgency and rawness. The women we play are acting out scenes in Gaslight that may mirror their own experiences of abuse, or, in the case of the actress playing the husband, Manningham, portraying her coercive ex-partner.

It is intense, complex and sometimes upsetting stuff, and there have been tearful moments both in and out of character as we try to honour the women we met and portray through their personal experience what is being done to Bella Manningham and indeed all the women in the play.

In many ways, I have an easier emotional journey than my fellow cast members - my 'outer' character, Charlie, is the workshop leader of the Gaslight 'project' and her whole idea is to help these women begin to heal.

So when as ex-Detective Inspector Rough she rides in to the rescue of Bella Manningham and ensures that crimes are avenged and right triumphs, she is doing it for survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence everywhere. Rough says: "Justice has waited too. And here she is - in my person - to exact her due."

At that moment, the play and our concept merge.

Gaslight is a cracking good thriller, however you engage with it, but we hope this production helps to reframe it in a new and resonant way for our time. Hopefully, the audiences of Watford will agree.

Gaslight at Watford Palace Theatre 2-26 October

Photo credit: The Other Richard

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