![\"Johnna](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/sut-l-stage-deceived-wright.jpg\")
Johnna Wright is the co-writer of \u201cDeceived, Based on the Play Gaslight\u201d at the Old Globe. (the Old Globe)<\/p>\nIf you\u2019ve ever wondered about the origin of the term \u201cgaslighting,\u201d just brush up on your theater history.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll find that \u201cgaslight\u201d comes from a 1938 thriller by British playwright Patrick Hamilton called \u201cGas Light\u201d and later, \u201cAngel Street.\u201d In that play, a husband in Victorian London tries to convince his wife that she is mad so he can steal from her.<\/p>\n
The play was later adapted into a screenplay for the 1944 film \u201cGaslight\u201d that starred Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer.<\/p>\n
In both tales, a male figure emerges to convince the wife that she\u2019s being psychologically manipulated, or gaslighted. But in \u201cDeceived,\u201d a new stage adaptation by Canadian writers Johnna Wright and Patty Jamieson that begins performances Saturday in the Old Globe\u2019s Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, wife Bella Manningham is no dupe, and she\u2019s not weak.<\/p>\n
Johnna Wright is the co-writer of \u201cDeceived, Based on the Play Gaslight\u201d at the Old Globe. (the Old Globe)<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to concentrate on how she got to the place she is when the audience sees her,\u201d said Brittany Bellizeare, who\u2019s portraying Bella at the Globe. \u201cStrong is one of her characteristics and she has a lot more to offer. She\u2019s not a victim. You get to see her discover her conviction, and it\u2019s a beautiful thing to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDeceived\u201d made its premiere in 2022 in Ontario, Canada, under the name \u201cGaslight.\u201d Now making it\u2019s West Coast premiere at the Globe, it\u2019s being presented under the title \u201cDeceived, Based on the Play Gaslight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Globe production is being directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg, who calls this version of the story a \u201cmore rewarding\u201d telling from a woman\u2019s perspective. She recalled then-presidential candidate Donald Trump promising on his 2024 campaign trail that he would \u201cprotect\u201d women.<\/p>\n
![\"Patty](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/sut-l-stage-deceived-jamieson.jpg\")
Patty Jamieson is the co-writer of \u201cDeceived, Based on the Play Gaslight\u201d at the Old Globe. (the Old Globe)<\/p>\n
\u201cThis idea that I even need protection, whether I ask for it or not, is one of the things that drew me to the play,\u201d Turner Sonnenberg said. \u201cThis idea that women need protecting.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDeceived,\u201d like playwright Hamilton\u2019s \u201cGas Light,\u201d is set in the Victorian period, though in 1901 instead of 1880.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy main job is to make it relevant to the audience that will see it here,\u201d said Turner Sonnenberg. \u201cI did a lot of research about that time. The production will feel Victorian but because this is an adaptation I\u2019m trying to draw parallels between then and now, parallels that are timeless regardless of the time period. Like finding your own agency is universal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bellizeare is joined in the \u201cDeceived\u201d cast by Travis Van Winkle as Jack Manningham, and by Maggie Carney (Backyard Renaissance\u2019s \u201cMisery\u201d last year) and Kennedy Tolson, recently in the ensemble of La Jolla Playhouse\u2019s world premiere play \u201cIndian Princesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Bellizeare and her director are looking forward to staging \u201cDeceived\u201d in the round.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very interesting to do a play when there are audience members 360 around you,\u201d Bellizeare said. \u201cThey\u2019re immersed in our world, almost part of our home.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Stage](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/sut-l-stage-sonnenberg-01.jpg\")
Stage director Delicia Turner Sonnenberg. (The Old Globe)<\/p>\n
Turner Sonnenberg said the theater space will enhance the audience\u2019s sense of isolation in the Manningham house. \u201cWith the audience all around,\u201d she said, \u201cwe can get a feel for the pressure that these characters are under.\u201d<\/p>\n
From a technical standpoint, \u201cThe round is very different than the Globe Theatre, which is a proscenium,\u201d said Turner Sonnenberg, who previously directed Dominique Morisseau\u2019s \u201cSkeleton Crew\u201d in the White in 2017. (She directed Alice Childress\u2019 \u201cTrouble in Mind\u201d in the Globe Theatre in 2022.) \u201cSo I\u2019m thinking about movement and how the costumes function and the way that time changes affect costume changes.\u201d<\/p>\n
While \u201cDeceived\u201d is Turner Sonnenberg\u2019s third directorial project at the Old Globe, Bellizeare is making her debut there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI worked with (Globe artistic director) Barry Edelstein when he was at the Public Theater in New York years ago,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s cool to come to the Old Globe and see him now. It\u2019s a full-circle moment for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bellizeare has been piling up the memorable moments the past couple of years, having played a high school basketball player at Lincoln Center Theater in a production of Candrice Jones\u2019 \u201cFlex\u201d in 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a fun, exhilarating and anxiety-ridden performance because we were actually playing basketball and shooting baskets onstage; there were alternate lines for when we made the basket and when we didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also made her Broadway debut last year in playwright Ayad Akhtar\u2019s \u201cMcNeal\u201d starring Robert Downey Jr.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was working with a movie star,\u201d said Bellizeare, who played a journalist who interviews Downey\u2019s Nobel Prize-winning writer, \u201cthe cr\u00e8me de la cr\u00e8me of the industry. My jaw dropped every single time. I loved my character. It was such a blessing to work with the talent that I got to work with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her roles in these productions make her well-suited to play Bella in \u201cDeceived.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m intrigued,\u201d she said, \u201cby female characters who exude strength. Oftentimes Black women get characterized stereotypically, and I love playing roles that smash those stereotypes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turner Sonnenberg, who is working with Bellizeare for the first time, praised the actor\u2019s \u201cability to be both vulnerable and strong. She\u2019s tremendous. It\u2019s a great cast, all four of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is also the first time Turner Sonnenberg can recall directing a psychological thriller, though she just directed her first murder mystery, Rachel Wagstaff\u2019s adaptation of Agatha Christie\u2019s Miss Marple tale \u201cThe Mirror Crack\u2019d,\u201d at the Alley Theatre in Houston. That production opened the day after she began rehearsals for \u201cDeceived\u201d in Balboa Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my summer of mysteries,\u201d Turner Sonnenberg said. \u201cFirst a whodunit, now a psychological thriller. I\u2019m having a great time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Deceived\u2019<\/p>\n
When:<\/strong> Previews, Aug. 9 through 13. Opens Aug. 14 and runs through Sept. 7. 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays<\/p>\n