Directed by Matthew Friett
Auditions
Sunday 29th May 1pm
Eynsford Village Hall – Darenth Room
Readthrough
Friday 27th May 8pm
Eynsford Village Hall – Darenth Room
Audition Pieces Here
Rope is a play which has been produced as the world’s tensest thriller and as the world’s darkest comedy. This production will have plenty of both. Paying homage to its Hitchcockian history on film and the farcical nonsense it subverts, I will be taking significant plagiarism influence from the very successful West End production of the 39 Steps to create a slick, fast-moving, laugh-out-loud production. The only way this will work is with an amazingly talented and dedicated cast… That is where you come in!
The only requirement for the cast of Rope is energy. As most actors will take on multiple roles for comedic and practical effect, everyone will read for everything at the auditions (though preferences will be considered), and roles cast based on comedic and acting potential. A young, strapping actor might get his ‘first choice’ part of a young handsome student, but he may also be playing a doddery old lady later on in the play. Appearance, age and gender are absolutely not barriers in auditioning and being cast for this production. The character info is only to inform your characterisation, not who you really are.
In addition to the on-screen parts, there are vital roles for non-speaking roles behind the scenes. Manipulating practical effects such as holding a watering can to make it rain, or banging dustbin lids together for thunder. The largest of these roles will be the ‘Sound Effects’, who will have their own table near the stage and provide all the sound effects akin to old Radio Dramas (or the Sound Effects game in Whose Line is it Anyway?) A stage-within-a-stage effect will ensure all suitably hilarious off stage antics are captured.
If you like to make people laugh and gasp in equal measure, and like the idea of messing around with established theatrical conventions, or just feel like being very, very silly for a few hours a night this October, please come along to the read through and auditions for Rope by Patrick Hamilton. Hope to see you all there!
The Characters
The Murderers
Wyndham Brandon –Male. Early 20s. Quietly and expensively dressed. Almost paternal with everyone he addresses, and this seems to arise from an instinctive knowledge of his own good health, good looks, success and natural calm. This, however, brings him at moments to an air of vague priggishness, and is the one reason why you cannot altogether like him.
Charles Granillo –Male. Early 20s. Expensively and rather ornately dressed. He wears a diamond ring. A Spaniard. He is enormously courteous – something between dancing-master and stage villain. He speaks English perfectly. To those who know him fairly well, and are not subject to Anglo-Saxon prejudices, he seems a thoroughly good sort.
The Victim
Ronald Kentley –Male. Very early 20s. Looks like Raglan. Or at least he looked like Raglan. When he was alive. No lines. Must be willing to stage fight and die horrifically and realistically of asphyxiation in the first couple of minutes.
The Guests
Sabot – The servant. Male. 30+. An alert, very dark little Frenchman, with a long nose and a blueness of cheek which no amount of shaving will eradicate. He is an almost perfect servant – intelligent, alert and obedient. He is married, quietly ambitious, industrious, and will have a restaurant of his own one of these days.
Kenneth Raglan – A friend from Uni. Male. Early 20s. Simple, good-looking, shy, foolish and good. He still thinks that nightclubs are dens of delight, but that there is probably one girl in the world for him whom he will one day find.
Leila Arden – Another university friend. Female. 20s. Young, good-looking, and has no ideas. She also has the same tendency to conceal that deficiency with a show of sophistication. She has a fairly good stock of many-syllabled and rather outré words which she brings out with rather comic emphasis, and might even be thought deep. But she is not.
Sir Johnstone Kentley – The victim’s father. Male. 50+. A decidedly pleasant older gentleman, slightly bent, old for his years. Slow moving, utterly harmless, gentle and a little listless.
Mrs Debenham – Kentley’s sister who only says about three goddamn words in the whole thing. Will be represented by a mop wearing a hat through most of the play. Female. 50+. She is, indeed, so completely a nonentity as to acquire considerable personality and distinction from the very fact.
Rupert Cadell – The murderers’ idol. A university lecturer. Male. Late 20s to 40s. Hamilton calls him He is a little foppish in dress and appearance, and this impression is increased by the very exquisite walking-stick which he carries indoors as well as out. He is lame in the right leg. He is enormously affected in speech and carriage. His affectation almost verges on effeminacy, and can be very irritating, but he has a very disarming habit, every now and again, of retrieving the whole thing with an extraordinary frank, open and genial smile.”
