In the program for The Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival's production of Gaslight/Angel Street, director Dennis Razze says, "Unlike the movie Gaslight, the play is much tauter, much more Œon the edge of your seat.'" I'm not sure which of the two film treatments of Gaslight he may have been referring to, but either way, this utterly limp and listless production of Gaslight/Angel Street siphoned off any "taut" that may have once existed in Patrick Hamilton's oft-produced script.

Certainly, Hamilton's script (written in 1938, premiered on Broadway in 1941 and adapted to film as Gaslight in 1940 and 1944) is a tricky one to work with, which hasn't stopped numerous colleges and community theaters from producing it. It's tempting to put on this melodramatic psychological thriller. From a purely financial standpoint, Angel Street boasts a fairly small cast, utilizes the standard imagination-free Victorian parlor set and features women squished into corsets and ill-fitting bustles. Really, what more could the bean counters and production teams from any theater company ask for? While they're busy rejoicing over the artistic director's fine choice, any marketing director worth his or her salt is already tossing out fun words and phrases like "taut," "intrigue," "hair-raising," "chills," "Hitchcockian," "suspense" surely you get the picture. Good fun for the whole family, right?

Well, no, not really. The play is set, appropriately, in the moody parlor of a moody home in moody Victorian England. In a nutshell, murderer Jack Manningham seeks to slowly and systematically drive his wife, Bella, insane, so that he can search unimpeded for the long-lost jewels he believes are hidden in the house. Fortunately, the goodly Inspector Rough appears in the nick of time to provide comic relief and a bit of reality for poor, befuddled Bella.

Hamilton makes it tricky on his directors and his cast by giving away a little too much a little too soon. By the end of the first act, we already know whodunit and why. How directors handle this flaw is what separates first-rate productions from, well, productions that aren't. Good psychological thrillers (even those where we already know the endings) keep us on the edges of our seats because we wonder what makes the freaks tick.

Richard B. Watson, unfortunately, is wholly artless as Jack Manningham. In fact, he's just about as subtle as the neighborhood drunk on a three-day bender -- not that this is necessarily his fault. The entire production is directed with a heavy hand, lacking in the promised "taut and intense" psychological drama. We know what's making this freak tick: From his first breath, we know that he's a bad, bad man. And, in typical college-theater fashion, Watson is forced to wear a ridiculous hairpiece and beard and play the part of a man at least 15 years older than himself. At any rate, he plays Jack at a constant rolling boil, which doesn't allow for a drop of imposing menace to seep through; it strips all drama from the script and leaves only the melo.

Marni Penning, who was a delight in PSF's Comedy of Errors, disappoints with an all-hysterical-all-the-time, weepy, quivery-voiced Bella who has lost all ability to discern reality from her husband's skewed re-interpretations. She's at her strongest in the last few minutes of the play, when she's able to stand up and unleash years (and believe me, after over two and a half hours, it certainly does feel like years) of pent-up anguish and pain upon that no-good husband of hers.

The only folks who might save this production from itself are H. Michael Walls as the dedicated Inspector Rough, determined to take Jack down, and Pamela Vogel as the intuitive cook able to see through Jack's façade to help save her poor mistress. Sadly, though, their combined presence is not enough to rescue Gaslight/Angel Street.

At one point Bella whimpers, "Are you here now? Is this a dream, too?" Sadly, Bella, yes and no.

Through Aug. 2, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Labuda Center for the Performing Arts, DeSales University, 2755 Station Ave., Center Valley, 610-282-3192.