A 1929 story about a rather twisted murder, penned by Brit playwright Patrick Hamilton, is being brought to the stage at Langham Court Theatre in November.
Langham production chair Alan Penty takes over the director’s chair Nov. 6-23 for Rope, a tale of two university students, Brandon and Grant, who commit what they believe to be the perfect murder, then host a macabre dinner party for the victim’s friends and family.
The killers believe themselves to be intellectually superior and set out to prove it by planning and carrying out a murder. The conversations that happen at the dinner party, with only the killers aware that the victim’s body lie in a chest being used to serve a buffet, are intriguing and shocking and make for great theatre.
Hamilton’s original story for Rope was loosely based on the real life Leopold and Loeb murder case, in which two academically gifted young men from affluent Chicago families sought to plan the perfect murder and get away with it. They carried out the murder of a teenage boy but ultimately were caught and sentenced to life in prison.
American filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock and Canadian actor Hume Cronyn adapted Hamilton’s script for a movie of the same name released in 1948.
Tickets for the Langham Court production are available online at langhamtheatre.ca or by calling the theatre box office at 250-384-2142.
editor@mondaymag.com
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