'Angel Street' brings people to Nasvhille, Ind.

"Angel Street," written by Patrick Hamilton with its debut at the John Golden Theatre in New York City, comes to the Brown County Playhouse as part of its 55th season at 8 p.m. Thursday and runs until Aug. 30.\n"Angel Street" is a thriller that takes place in London, set in the day when Victoria reigned and the British Empire was at its highest pinnacle of colonial richness. Mr. Manningham attempts to drive his wife insane. Hidden under a veil of insidious kindness, the family patriarch torments the matriarch with little domestic mysteries leaving the audience to wonder what he's hiding. Suspense is built through the partnership of Mrs. Manningham and a stranger named Rough, who try to unravel the tangled web of the question, "What is he hiding?" And they have to do it before Mr. Manningham knows he's suspected -- of something.\nPlaying Mr. Manningham is Jonathan Molitor, a third-year IU MFA student who is a veteran performer at the Brown County Playhouse. Molitor appeared earlier this summer in "My Three Angels," and most notably as Freddy in "Picasso at the Lapin Agile." \nPlaying the distressed lady-of-the-house is Allison Batty, who recently played Emilie Ducotel in "My Three Angels," and was Stella in the recent production of Tennessee Williams' "Streetcar Named Desire" at IU. Batty, a second-year MFA student at IU has also trained at the Portland Actors Conservatory in Portland, Ore. \n"She married Jack Manningham despite the fact that her family disapproved and disowned her," said Batty of her character's mindset. "She longs to see her family and is very isolated in her current surroundings. Except for her maid Elizabeth, she has no friends. Her husband tells Bella she might be going mad because items around the house go missing. She insists she has not taken them but this makes her husband angry, he leaves her alone after fights regarding such issues."\nTaking hold of the directorial reins of the show The New Yorker magazine called "a masterpiece of modern suspense" is Bill Kincaid, an associate professor and head of acting at Western Illinois University, who is returning to the BCP after also having directed "I Hate Hamlet," as well as several other shows. \nThe script itself was written in 1938 and blends traditions of popular theater from the Victorian era because of the setting, but the author's time period is evident by bits and pieces of naturalism. \n"It was a unique theatrical offering for its time, resulting in a hugely successful Broadway run and its subsequent making in the award-winning movie "Gaslight," said Gregg W. Brevoort, who directed the show at a recent production at the Penobscot Theatre Company in Bangor, Maine, on his Web site. "Angel Street spawned a whole new generation of stage thrillers that re-invigorated the old form and injected it with a psychologically fuelled adrenaline. The next generation of stage thrillers included such intense classics as "Dial M For Murder," "Wait Until Dark," "The Bad Seed" and even more recent offerings like "Deathtrap" and "Voices In The Dark," he said.\nThe show opens at 8 p.m. tonight and continues Wednesday through Sunday until Aug. 30. All Sunday performances are at 2 p.m. with evening performances at 8 p.m. on all other nights. Prices are $17 on Friday and Saturday, $15 on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday. \nCall the BCP Box Officer at (812) 988-2123 or the IU Auditorium at 855-1103 for tickets. For more information, visit www.indiana.edu/~thtr/bcplay.html.