The favorite flap-lipped fear monger of cine-philes worldwide is famously credited with saying, “Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.”
Who knows if that’s some elaborate, cadaverous pun, but it certainly rings true for each and every one of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterful, almost tortuous, onscreen lessons in anxiety. To Hitchcock, it wasn’t a euphemism — it was an eloquent formula for fright.
And luckily for metro-areans, Director Bernie Cardell and his team at Spotlight Theatre Co. follow precedent when it comes to inducing those eeky, creepy heebie-jeebies.
Cardell’s 99th production in 13 years, “Rope” at the John Hand Theater in Denver’s eerie, Truman Show-esque Lowry neighborhood is a palatial, albeit inverted, dash into collar-loosening suspense. After a handful of sold-out shows on opening weekend, it’s guaranteed that someplace, somewhere “the master of suspense” is giving a frowny, macabre shrug of approval.
That’s saying something for a guy who always seemed as if he were keeping a cache of ball bearings under his tongue.
For those unenthused by the whole nail-biting-for-fun schtick, the show is the 1929 work of playwright Patrick Hamilton, thrust into the cult-o-sphere following a 1948 Alfred Hitchcock film. Over two acts, the show tears into the unraveling of two young, sadistic patricians who snuff a classmate for sport and hold a dinner party with the body still stored neatly in their posh apartment. The maddening pressure that bubbles throughout is depraved, exquisite and oh so Hitchcockian.
Rope
Runs through June 13
7:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays or 2 p.m. on Sundays
The John Hand Theater, 7653 E. 1st Pl., Denver
Tickets are $21
More information at ThisIsSpotlight.com or 720-880-8727
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The eight-member cast featured in the Spotlight rendition is enjoyable from the opening, morose wail of the victim to the ultimate, incendiary blast. Each actor commands their respective persona with twisted, pretense-filled gumption, which is what carries, no, manhandles, the some two-hour performance.
Drew Hirschboek acts as the production’s nefarious puppeteer, who systematically sculpts the emotions of his onstage cohabitants. Last seen as the warm, olive branch-offering Dieter in the Aurora Fox Arts Center’s production of “Beets,” Hirschboek’s portrayal of protagonist Brandon Shaw is a 180 from his former role, and one he plays with icy nerve. A couple of his more drawn-out blinks with a propped up chin are a solid nod to Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter. And, in this case, that’s a chest-thumping good thing.
Behind Hirschboek, supporting cast members Jaclyn Walsh, Claude Diener and Todd Black each provide sublime spirits to their diverting personages, all of whom reside in the opposite moral pole as the ruthless stars. Walsh — who could undoubtedly bring home a blue ribbon in a Kate Hudson lookalike contest — is an appropriately bouncy blonde, the kind “The Master” was so fond of. As Mr. Kentley — the bookish father of the deceased — Diener harkens back to Gregory Peck in the cinematic “To Kill A Mocking Bird,” with nostalgically stern logic (Spotlight would be foolish not to bring him back as a certain Alabama lawyer for an upcoming production of their own). And Todd Black dishes some varied humor as the wry, irreverent Rupert Cadell. His academic arc and final, virtuous eruption stand particularly tall.
But even given the brawny performances elsewhere, the show belongs to Brandon Palmer as Phillip Morgan. From teetering just on this side of sanity, Morgan chooses pristine places to flare with neuroses and unhinges in an almost-beautiful ball of lunacy. His squirrelly demeanor is at first off-putting, but he rounds it out with screaming cracks to his facade. Each request and manipulation at the hands of Hirschboek is absorbed and spun expertly into bumbling fear — which is exactly what the character demands.
While the acting leaves nothing to be desired, a tad more of a soundscape — and accompanying pauses — could have aided in the hair-raising. Although, Palmer’s reoccurring reprise on the piano is an appetizing peppering, and his scene with the throwback metronome proves attention to pacing has not been totally abandoned.
A few sound and light cues aside, Spotlight’s “Rope” is two fistfuls of white-knuckled delight. Palmer’s manic quivering buoys the rest of the crew to a thoroughly barbarous, yet highly satisfying performance that is visceral, vindictive and spewing with talent. The show’s brief glance into the grotesque underbelly of the frontal lobe acts both as gripping theater as well as an emotional gut check. And it’s not that we need a reminder that Mr. Hitchcock still has our psyche in a manipulative vice grip, but, hey, somebody’s gotta keep us honest.