'Rope' Off-Broadway review — how to hide a body and other secrets

Read our review of Rope off Broadway, a new adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's thriller by Gordon Greenberg, presented by The New Group through December 6.

Summary

• Rope is a thriller about two Princeton students who commit a murder and then host a dinner party to see if anyone will catch on
• Gordon Greenberg newly adapted Patrick Hamilton's play, which was made into an Alfred Hitchcock film
• The show features a marvelously twisted performance from Cameron Monaghan and blends drawing-room comedy and suspenseful thriller elements
• The show is recommended for fans of the Hitchcock film and true crime, including the real-life case that inspired Rope

The covert acknowledgment of what’s hidden — within oneself or, say, a wooden chest — is on the mind of the characters of Rope. Can Garrett (Cameron Monaghan) and Nate (Corey Fogelmanis) throw an entertaining party while also getting away with murder, the body of their victim beneath the bohemian table at which their guests eat? Can the two perform the role of “just roommates” while keeping their gayness behind closed doors? Can Garrett, who comes from modest means, charm his Princeton peers so they never question his background? Can silver spoon-sucking Nate disabuse suspicions of his Jewishness? And can playwright Gordon Greenberg and director Scott Elliott make you forget Alfred Hitchcock’s Jimmy Stewart-led 1948 film of the same name?

A loose adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's play Rope, which served as the same source material for Hitchcock, Greenberg’s late '50s-set version addresses the connection early. Garrett throws on a record to soundtrack the couple’s party preparation (and set assembly), and we hear the tense Bernard Hermann strings that open Hitchcock's 1960 slasher Psycho. It's a “let’s get this out of the way” wink to audiences in the know.

Nate is all anxiety, and Garrett is there less as a comforting balm and more as a demanding dom. When Nate finally takes a breather to ready himself for their guests, Garrett calls him “good boy.” Monaghan’s command — of his midcentury affect and of his audience (be it Nate, the guests, or the viewers) — is sexy, especially in the privacy before the others arrive.

Garrett deploys innuendo and eminently watchable narcissism as a host, which works to a point. But it’s more difficult to sustain the tension when Fogelmanis’s Nate spends the entire show in obvious distress. If part of Rope implies a performance, Nate’s is too transparent for their guests, particularly father of the victim Judge Kentley (James Waterston) and professor Rupert Caddell (Jason Butler Harner in the Jimmy Stewart role), to believe the charade. Nate's attribution of his nerves to studying isn't buyable, and it too readily reads as guilt.

In flashbacks, we get Garrett, Nate, and Rupert’s backstories, making their gayness explicit while setting up the context for various entendres throughout the play. Though the cast delivers these with wit (the show is more compelling as a drawing-room comedy of manners than a suspense thriller), these references threaten to dissipate the tautness of the very game they’ve set up. And while the play gestures towards Hitchcock’s fascinations with power, law, and crime (folding them into the show’s attitude toward criminal sexuality), these element are sometimes drawn with less focus.

More compelling and sturdily articulated is Rope’s interest in the dinner party as a kind of shambolic theatre. The boundaries for good taste — in conversation, music, and decor — are sparklingly realized as the play asks which parts of ourselves we reveal to acquaintances and when. The characters' intriguing transgressions, particularly when it comes to their furtive ability to mask their sexuality, class, or ethnicity in social spaces, offer more dramatic stakes than the body in the trunk.

Rope summary

Secret gay lovers Garrett and Nate are ready to throw a dinner party. Well, at least Garrett is. Nate is torn up about the Princeton peer they’ve just murdered and hidden in their living-room chest, while Garrett is ecstatic about the fact that the body will be hidden in plain sight. As the guests arrive, the question of whether anyone will be onto their scheme lingers in the air.

Rope was originally written by Patrick Hamilton in 1929 and is newly adapted by Gordon Greenberg. The story is inspired by the real-life Leopold and Loeb murder case from 1924.

What to expect at Rope

Scenic designer Derek McLane presents a simple yet effective set that superbly captures the sensibility of two queens with a city apartment, with then-novel mid-century furniture, Romantic-era standing paintings, and a lush library. Jeff Croiter’s lighting design is wonderfully atmospheric, giving some scenes a lived-in, naturalistic feel (in the dark, only the illumination pouring in from street lights gives the room a gleam) and others a moody noir aesthetic (such as in an anxiety-ridden scene between Garrett and Rupert). Best of all is that the show features many cartons’ worth of smoking — it is nostalgic, sophisticated, and very alluring.

Rope runs approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.

What audiences are saying about Rope

As of writing, Rope has an 86% audience approval rating on Show-Score, averaged from 67 reviews from theatregoers who shared mostly mixed-to-positive responses to the revised story, the feeling of suspense, and the performances.

• “Cleverly-presented thriller with good acting, gripping story, and plot twists keep you engaged.” – Show-Score user Moose Murders
• “Great banter. Great acting especially by Cameron Monaghan. A great set.” – Show-Score user BRUCE F 7160
• “I love the movie "Rope"—I’ve never seen the original play—and I think this new script works very well to tell a great story in a fun, different way!” – Show-Score user Robert L

Read more audience reviews of Rope on Show-Score.

Who should see Rope

• Fans of Cameron Monaghan’s roles on Showtime’s Shameless or the video game Star Wars: Jedi – Fallen Order should see the actor, who’s exceptionally adept at playing a 1950s-era psychopath.
• Fans of Elizabeth Gillies from Victorious or her most recent Off-Broadway stint in Little Shop of Horrors will adore her sardonic and witty performance as Nate’s friend Leila.
• Hitchcock lovers, and those fascinated with the real Leopold and Loeb case, will want to see how this new play reworks such indelible material.

Learn more about Rope off Broadway

Anchored by a marvelously twisted performance from Cameron Monaghan, Gordon Greenberg’s new take on Rope is a compelling, though sometimes uneven, study of people who at once have something to hide but get a thrill at dangling it in front of an audience.

Learn more and get Rope tickets on New York Theatre Guide. Rope is at the Theatre at St. Clement's through December 6.

Photo credit: Rope off Broadway. (Photos by Monique Carboni)