Rope

In 1929, Patrick Hamilton wrote Rope, in which two undergraduates plot and execute the murder of an innocent classmate as an exercise in intellectual superiority. The killers place the body in a chest and then host a cocktail party, serving food and drink from the make-shift coffin to guests, including the boy’s family. As the evening progresses and liquor is poured, the young killers become increasingly bold until the action spirals out of control toward its unsettling yet satisfying finale. This highly physical, energetic production transplants the play from London to New York, just before the crash of ’29, providing a Jazz Age backdrop for Hamilton’s gripping thriller.