Tag Archives: Rope

Rope – 4 Stars

Rialto

Rope

Rialto Theatre – Brighton Fringe

Reviewed – 11th May 2018

★★★★

“hysterically funny despite its morbid subject matter”

 

Fans of Alfred Hitchcock will immediately recognise Rope as the source material for his 1948 film of the same name. But though Patrick Hamilton’s piece is of a slightly different flavour, it isn’t a stretch to see why it appealed so much to the Master of Suspense.

Set in 1920s London, we spend an evening in the lives of Brandon and Granillo, two students who have killed a young man named Ronald Kentley. There is no reason for the murder except to prove that they can get away with it. Brandon, the ultra-vain mastermind, refers to the deed as “passionless, motiveless, faultless, and clueless”, that is to say, “perfect”. However, Granno (as he is affectionately referred to by Brandon) is less than convinced that they are going to get away with it. Brandon has decided to host a dinner for several guests, including Kentley’s father, but to add “piquancy” to the affair, he has hidden his victim’s remains within spitting distance of the diners, in a large wooden crate in the middle of the room.

Most unusually for a piece of this kind, we start the play knowing exactly who the murderers are and, in a perverse twist, find ourselves encouraged to root for them. Brandon’s enthusiasm for “living dangerously” is infectious, and it is hard not to feel sympathy for the nerve-frazzled Granno who one suspects was never that keen on the killing at all. In a traditional suspense play, for example a whodunnit, we may not know exactly “who has done it”, but we know the formula and we know roughly what the conclusion must be (or what must be done to subvert it). So unusual is Rope’s conceit of letting us in on the secret immediately, that we are genuinely left guessing as to its trajectory until the dying seconds. To reveal the path it does take would be to give away too many plot points, but suffice to say the second half is just as surprising as the first, not always an easy task to pull off.

Rope is also hysterically funny despite its morbid subject matter; it is a testament to the cast that they are able so effectively to tread the line between humour and suspense. The central characters themselves operate as the embodiments of these two aspects of the play. Watching Graeme Dalling’s performance as the deliciously cold Brandon is like a joyride, and just as he marvels at the craftsmanship of his murder, so the audience are undeniably impressed by drama’s deft construction. Meanwhile the anxious guilt of John Black’s Granno perfectly echoes the nail-biting tension from which we are never free.

The piece is exceptionally well suited to the small space we are in; the claustrophobia of the apartment setting spreads seamlessly into the audience. The size of the place – as well as the number of people squeezed in – means that you are likely to find your view of goings-on significantly obstructed, but such is the nature of the play that this turns out to be a minor issue. Indeed, it almost serves to create the impression that we are peeping through a keyhole, seeing things that we shouldn’t be in the room next door.

Though the characters routinely reference Nietzsche and discuss over dinner the ethics of murder and war, there is no “moral” to Rope per se. We are left to draw our own conclusions from the actions of Brandon and Granno and test our own consciences against their professed lack thereof. This is fitting as didactics would undoubtedly dampen the play’s sense of dread, as well as our ambiguous relationship with the protagonists. Ultimately, though, much like the motiveless murder itself, the play aims squarely to entertain, and on that count, it very much succeeds.

 

Reviewed by Harry True

 


Rope

Brighton Fringe

 

Related
Other productions of this play
★★★★ | Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch | February 2018

 

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Rope – 4 Stars

Rope

Rope

Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch

Reviewed – 17th February 2018

★★★★

“George Kemp is entrancing as the amoral, braggadocious Brendan”

 

Rope, written by Patrick Hamilton, debuted on the London stage in 1929 and this revival at The Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch transports the audience back to those hedonistic days with verve. It is based on the real-life case of Leopold and Loeb, two wealthy American students whose aspirations to prove their intellectual superiority executed what they hoped would be ‘the perfect murder’. Hamilton’s version transports the duo across the pond, becoming Brendan and Granillo, two Oxford undergraduate students driven by the same Nietzschean ideals to ‘live dangerously’. The arrogant swagger of privileged Oxford by-way-of public school boys portrayed here will be familiar to those who have seen Posh or it’s cinematic adaptation, The Riot Club, highlighting the enduring fascination of playwrights and audiences with this sect.

George Kemp is entrancing as the amoral, braggadocious Brendan, revelling in the feat he’s masterminded. His reluctant accomplice Granillo (played by James Sutton) is much less excited by it all, drinking to excess to calm the nerve he often comes close to losing. Rather than following the machinations leading to the murder, the audience instead meet the pair stuffing the body into a chest in Brandon’s Mayfair apartment as they discuss that night’s dinner party which will use the same chest as a buffet table. Guests include the murdered boy’s mother and aunt; two vacuous friends representing the average man and woman; and an artist friend, Rupert Cadell, played with gusto by Sam Jenkins-Shaw, who Brandon sees as his intellectual equal and therefore the most thrilling to evade.

The divide between what the audience and the guests know keeps tensions high and is enhanced by the clever lighting, designed by Mark Dymock, that’s opening red glow conveys the mood and enables just enough light to observe the murderous pair.

At times, some of the dialogue feels clumsy and lacking sophistication for contemporary audiences – particularly when Brandon tells the audience via Granillo the ‘facts’ of the murder they’ve just committed. There are also jokes which belabour the gag so as to feel like filler. However, this is all delivered with style by the cast and is a fault of Hamilton’s script, rather than this production. There was, however, an unfortunate technical issue which spoilt the final moments of the piece, resulting in ripples of laughter from the audience which can only be assumed not to have been the desired effect. Despite this damp squib, the skillful exploitation of dramatic irony and resulting macabre humour, makes for a thoroughly gripping night of theatre.

 

Reviewed by Amber Woodward

Photography by Mark Sepple

 


Rope

Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch until 3rd March

 

 

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