Director Anna Safar puts an unexpected but not unwelcome comedic spin on Patrick Hamilton’s Rope, a Robo & Bash Production at NoHo’s Avery Schreiber Playhouse.

 Hamilton’s play first tantalized London audiences back in 1929 with its tale of 20something “roommates” Wyndham Brandon (Brendan Frost) and Charles “Granno” Granillo (Grant Fletcher Prewitt), who having just strangled a fellow underclassman to death, stash the young man’s body in a trunk, then invite the murder victim’s father, aunt, and friends over to dine on hors d’oeuvres served atop said trunk.

Though Safar’s production plays down any sexual relationship between Brandon and Granno, there’s no denying the cold-bloodedness of their crime, and part of Rope’s enduring allure is being torn between wanting a couple of killers to get caught and hoping they might just get away with murder.

Not that either possibility is anywhere near a given, since who in their right mind would suspect that the dinner laid out atop a tablecloth-covered trunk this dark and stormy night contains a corpse?

 Certainly not Ronald’s distinguished dad Sir Johnstone Kentley (John Mawson) or his dotty aunt Mrs. Debenham (Katie Zeiner) or the dapper Kenneth Raglan (Eddie Liu) or the ditzy Leila Arden (Shelly Snellman) or daffy French butler Sabot (Jay Akin) or even the killers’ one-time prof Rupert Cadell (Raul S. Julia), whose espousal of the Nietzschean Übermensch may have inspired the crime, and who just might be the one to bring two murderers to justice.

Safar starts things out quite literally in the dark in an opening scene illuminated only by a pair of burning cigarette ends, an extended sequence during which Brandon’s mix of elation and icy calm at feeling at long last “truly and wonderfully alive” proves positively chilling.

Still, with company on the way, lights must at last be turned on, a cowed and quivering Granno calmed down, a trunk set for supper, and guests welcomed.

Not that the diabolical duo’s hope of getting off scot-free is anywhere near a sure thing.

To begin with, there’s Granno’s suggestion that there may have been someone just up the street when Ronald and he arrived at the apartment by car. Then there’s Leila’s facetious remark that the padlocked chest might be filled with rotting bones. There’s also the matter of Ronald’s theater ticket, found on the floor post murder and given to Granno by Brandon for safe (or not so safe) keeping.

Unlike a recent Hollywood production that staged Rope as a relentless, edge-of-your-seat ninety-minute thriller, Safar envisions Brandon and Granno’s dinner party as a two-act Noel Coward-meets-Oscar Wilde-style comedy, and since the characters Hamilton has created would do either playwright proud, the approach ends up a valid one even if the added intermission seems an unnecessary choice given the play’s relatively short running time.

Liu’s effervescently beaming Kenneth proves positively irresistible opposite Snellman’s adorably airheaded Lelia, Mawson’s aristocratic Sir Johnstone has his own comic foil in Zeiner’s blissfully clueless Mrs. Debenham, and an over-the-top Akin scores laughs as well (though the door-in-face schtick he’s subjected to might better have been rethought).

It’s not until these supporting players have exited that this Rope once again takes a dramatic turn, but as soon as Rupert’s cat-and-mouse game has gone into high gear, so does the show (even when a single front-row audience member thinks a laugh track is still in order) all the way up to one lallapaloosa of a climax.

Frost makes a particularly strong impression in the demanding role of a young man who finds his confidence and calm gradually slipping away, and Prewitt is quite good too as someone almost as much a victim as the corpse lying right under everyone’s noses.

Still, if there’s any performance likely to remain implanted in an audience’s consciousness long after Rope’s fade to black, it is Julia’s tour-de-force Rupert, the compellingly queer love child of Oscar Wilde and Boris Karloff that is simply delish.

 Scenic designer R. Benjamin Warren’s London flat features some nifty rope accouterments, Kyle Schriver and Cara Vilencia’s lighting design is effective throughout but particularly at beginning and end, and sound designer Mark Holden stirs in some mood-establishing effects. Uncredited costumes are winners too, though when designing a gown for a 1929 debutante, it would make historic sense to not have it reveal 21st-century tats.

Live pre-show musical entertainment is provided by One Eyed Jacques. Akin is fight choreographer.

Patrick Hamilton’s Rope may be turning ninety next year, but you’d hardly know it at the Avery Schreiber. Whether played for thrills or laughs or a combination of both, Rope ropes you in and holds you tight for the duration.

Avery Schreiber Playhouse, 4934 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood.
www.roboandbash.com

–Steven Stanley
December 16, 2018

Tags: Avery Schreiber Playhouse, Los Angeles Theater Review, Patrick Hamilton, Robo & Bash Productions