Guardian, 15 April 1994, by Michael Billington
THEATRE: ROPE, WYNDHAM'S, LONDON 
-----------------------------------------------------------

Patrick Hamilton always denied that *Rope* (1929) was 
anything more than a "De Quinceyish essay into the 
macabre." But Keith Baxter's fascinating revival--a 
transfer from the Minerva Chichester to Wyndham's--both 
brings out the play's homosexual sub-text and, by nudging 
the action forwards to 1931, implies that the Nietzschean 
arrogance of its murderous heroes finds it political echo 
in international Fascism.

Baxter's production certainly begins with a stylistic 
flourish. A penumbral image of three naked male bodies. A 
total blackout illumined by two glowing cigarettes. A 
cluster of ominous piano chords. Gradually we realise that 
two young men, Wyndham Brandon and Charles Granillo, have 
murdered a third, stuffed him into a capacious chest and 
intend to hold a Mayfair evening-party around the strong-
box before heading back to Oxford. What they don't reckon 
for is the deductive intelligence of a visiting poet, 
Rupert Cadell, who is rather like Lord Peter with even more 
whimsy.

As a thriller, it is highly effective in that it starts 
with the crime and then focuses on the vanity, bravado and 
panic of the killers. Hamilton also creates a mesmerising 
figure in Cadell who--unlike the tweedy interloper played 
by James Stewart in the Hitchcock movie--is an affected 
war-damaged Wildean melancholic with a residual moral 
sense: Bunthorne with a social conscience. My only 
reservation is that since Hamilton, a lifelong Marxist, 
already shows the killers to be embodiments of moral 
decadence and class brutality, it is a touch gratuitous to 
imply, through inserted radio news bulletins, that they are 
also harbingers of National Socialism.

But it's interesting to be reminded of a period when stage 
thrillers were not just devices for creating suspense but 
were actually about something. And Baxter's production is 
very strong on mood and atmosphere.

Anthony Head as the languorous Rupert is all pear shaped 
vowels and wistful condescension: a compelling study of 
world-weariness battling with civic duty.

Tristan Gemmill's dominant Brandon and James Buller's 
excitable Granillo expose the contrast between the two 
killers. And Simon Higlett's design, with its sloping walls 
destined to converge, and Bill Bray's lighting, casting 
shadowy reflections on the floor, add to the sense of doom. 
"Nothing but a thriller," Hamilton dismissively said of the 
play; but one, I'd have thought, with a welcome touch of 
angostura and venom.

At Wyndham's Theatre, Charing Cross Road, London WC2 
(071-867 1116/867 1111). 



-----------------------------------------------------------
                     Bentley's Bedlam
            http://www.BetsyDa.com/bedlam.html

This website is for information and entertainment purposes only 
and is not intended to infringe on copyrights held by others.