Then there is the lamplight, which mysteriously dims each night when Bella is left alone, to the accompaniment of odd sounds emanating from the attic. (Paul Jackson’s lighting design practically brings the set alive with menace.)

Does Bella have bats in her belfry? Or is something more insidious going on?

Audiences in 1938 might have suspected ghosts, or a Strindbergian touch of madness, but given the play’s title it’s probably no spoiler to say that Jack – Toby Schmitz’s sterling performance seems to be channelling King Charles – is not quite the perfect husband Bella believes him to be.

Hakewill (TV’s Wanted and Wakefield) is a brittle yet gutsy heroine – utterly in thrall to what her husband and her society expect from her, until extremities push her to find inner strength.

Theatre legend Kate Fitzpatrick plays Elizabeth, the stern Scottish housekeeper, with deadpan restraint, gradually revealing layers of guilt and insight. Courtney Cavallaro (QT’s As You Like It) is the saucy young maid Nancy. Angela Lansbury famously played this role in the 1944 George Cukor film and damn near stole the show; Cavallaro brings a surreal sense of devil-may-care to her portrayal that exacerbates Bella’s sense of losing her grip on the household.

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Fans of that film, which starred Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, may be wondering what has happened to the Joseph Cotten character – the white-knight cop who sees what’s going on and determines to help the bedevilled heroine.

The retooled script excises him altogether, and you can see why: if a woman needs a man to save her from a man, then what is the point? It would simply be trading one kind of gaslighting for another.

Gaslight is playing at the Playhouse, QPAC, until March 3; the Comedy Theatre, Melbourne, March 6-24; Canberra Theatre Centre, May 15-19; Regal Theatre Perth, May 28-June 9; Civic Theatre Newcastle, June 19-23; Riverside Theatres Parramatta, June 26-30; and Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney, August 21-September 15.