The Scotsman, February 17 1994, by Simon Berry
"*ROPE* - THEATRE ROYAL, GLASGOW"
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WHETHER or not the sleaze factor in public life is a help, 
we seem to be increasingly drawn to the murky fictional 
world of Patrick Hamilton, author of *Hangover Square* and 
*Gaslight*. 

A touring production of the play that made him a cause 
celebre in 1929 helps to explain why he appears so topical. 

Keith Baxter's stylish and painstaking production is strong 
on naturalistic touches that tend to counteract occasional 
passages of melodrama in the writing. 

The single set is a room in a Mayfair house. 

This unsettling room is dominated by a large wooden chest in 
which there lies the body of a 20-year-old man, strangled by 
two fellow students a few hours before. 

In a show of bravado they hold a supper party, using the 
chest as a table, to which the young man's parents and 
friends are invited. 

With an alibi established, they will dispose of the body. 

All goes well until Rupert Cadell, a lame poet beguilingly 
played here by Anthony Head, smells a rat, returns as the 
barefaced brace are about to make a getaway, and (with the 
aid of an overlooked clue - a theatre ticket!) winkles out 
the ghastly truth. 

It makes an extremely absorbing evening, with two well-paced 
performances from Tristan Gemmill and James Buller as the 
two murderers providing the counterbalance. 

*Rope* is on the whole written sparely. 

There is a strong satirical streak to it: characters betray 
their pretensions easily. 

But the fascination lies with the two frighteners who play 
desperately at young fogeys to escape suspicion. 

Will they crack under the strain? Can they get away with it? 
Not very moral questions for an audience to ask, but 
Hamilton clearly indicates that here is something outwith 
the grasp of comfortable nationalising. 

The pair have chosen to discard all social conventions - 
they killed by the rope and shall die by it. 

When Cadell asks them why they murdered they can only answer 
that it made them feel more alive. 

Sixty-five years ago that would have made a real impact.  


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