Rope

Synopsis

Brandon is prepared to go to any lengths to inject some excitement into his life. When he and his impressionable friend Granillo murder a fellow student, they place the body in a wooden chest. In a macabre twist the pair invite some acquaintances, including the dead man's father, to a party where the chest and its gruesome contents serve as a supper table. As the horror and tension reaches a climax, will the two murderers' nerve hold out or will the suspicious Rupert Cadell discover their ghastly secret? Premiered in 1929, and later adapted as a film by Alfred Hitchcock.

Our Review:

12 April 2013

Can murder be a perfect intellectual exercise? In Patrick Hamilton's 1929 play Rope, student Ronald Kentley has been murdered by fellow students Wyndham Brandon (Joe Sowerbutts) and Charles Granillo (Christopher Walsh). They hide the body in a chest before hosting a party for the dead boy's friends and family, at which the chest plays the central role of buffet table.

Originally described as a "thriller", Director John Fricker pushes the piece towards dark comedy, with plenty of laughs from the horror of the situation. The opening sound of a voice on the radio declaiming something Nietzschean in German and other ominous sound effects are intended to set the scene but merely delay the action, as well as sounding pretentious rather than building tension. Once the scene-setting is out of the way, the play proceeds in real time, a loudly ticking clock on the drawing-room mantelpiece reminding the killers they have little time to make their escape.

Sowerbutt...

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