‘Rope’, Dudley Little Theatre

Rope, a play by Patrick Hamilton, Dudley Little Theatre, 27th September 2025

As with reading books, I do my research after, not before, the encounter. That’s because I rarely prep things in general, relying instead on the energy gained from the rebuff of the new and unfamiliar. And because performance should communicate itself directly, without need for preamble. As for ‘winging it’, going blind into work or social situations, that has caused me occasional problems, I admit.

The church hall, where Dudley Little Theatre traditionally have performed, is partly full, the expectation directed towards the set, a low-lit depiction – by the staid furnishing this is early twentieth century. The significant props are the books, clearly in use but scattered randomly; the voluminous table-lamp, simply and effectively used later to suggest mood; the well-loaded drinks cabinet. The play’s title may have indicated a murder, but this isn’t a Miss Marple country house scene. There’s a suggestion of something dissolute and disordered, the centrepiece an inexplicable decorative chest.

The items of furniture become our focus as the house lights dim. In the semi-darkness we are unsettled by the sudden sounds of screaming and strangulation. More so by the struggle of a body being carried and the thump of it being deposited – in the chest.

The full light reveals two young men, one of them powerfully built. He is now the Lady Macbeth of this post-murder sequence, shaking the shorter man from his collapsed horror at the deed the two have done. This is the first indication of the bullying coercive relationship between the two males, one of them a cold rationalist, obsessed with committing a murder that is unsolvable because of its sheer purposelessness, the other weak and warm-hearted, craving the approval of men and women alike.

The absurdism of the murder is furthered by the bizarre occasion that is to take place next. This is a planned supper, where the chest is to be used as a table for the buffet. One of the guests is the father of the murder-victim, who attends the dinner with his sister. The pathos of this frail elderly man, whose life is centred on the murder-victim, is built through the narrative. Otherwise the guests are a flapper-type socialite, whose initial levity is uncovered to reveal a sharp deductive intelligence – and a good-timing male counterpart, a simple friend from schooldays, carrying none of the woman’s artful suspicion.

The character most decisive in the plot enters finally. From earliest moments we know for certain that events will come to a crisis as he pickpockets key evidence – a theatre-ticket issued in the name of the deceased, his would-be destination after visiting his assailant’s Mayfair flat. This character, with his unpleasant brutal logic, may have the final say as to whether the killers are brought to justice.

He is in other ways a flawed character, his wounds (this is post-First World War) and his self-disgust at the slaughter to which he has been party, leading him to conflate war with murder, so removing the opprobrium from the crime that has taken place. He is a professor as well as a poet, and later realises how his nihilist views have influenced these younger men.

But no spoilers. Enough that his views do have a grain of truth. What is happening now in Gaza and Ukraine cannot be called ‘warfare’ in the traditional sense. In the deliberate targeting of civilians, ‘murder’ does come to mind. But the play acts on us in other ways. There are too many examples, in this play, of manipulative behaviour for us to feel the goodness of human nature, as is presented here. It is not a benign view.

We watch it though, not primarily to be informed, but for the tension of the horror that unfolds, which this ensemble group of actors so ably maintains. They are Connor McGee, Reece Hutchinson, David Field, Ellis Dakar, Debra Attwood, Andy Parkes, Jane Fisher and Helen Brown. Afterwards, reading up on the playwright, Patrick Hamilton (I had no idea of him other than as a novelist), it seems his personal life tended towards dissolution, and he would have been familiar with the theorised amorality presented here. And as much with their refutation, which this play presents so clearly.

The cast have done a fine job bringing into total life this compelling psychodrama, its pace never slackening. Credit for interpreting this piece, with its dark humour as well as horror, with its underlay of violence and inhumanity, must go to Director and Producer Nic Lawton. Nic, salaried regular performer herself, who has separately appeared in Dudley Little Theatre’s productions, diverse as Teachers, Hound of the Baskervilles and The Dresser is also a novelist who weaves steam-punk conventions into thumping page-turning old-fashioned narrative. If you admire Saturday Books’ Instagram posts and links, then it is she that deserves your praise. It is for her clear talent for theatre that she must be most-valued though, and we of Dudley must push her forward, even beyond the most-challenging Rope. Nothing, it would seem, is beyond her compass.

Nic Lawton