For playwright Patrick Hamilton, his 1929 thriller, Rope, was intended as a “De Quinceyish essay in the macabre.” If he was going to create any adjective to describe his work, De Quinceyish is certainly the one.

“Something more goes into the composition of a fine murder than two blockheads, a knife, a purse, and a dark lane,” De Quincey (satirically) suggested a century earlier. With two young gentlemen merrymaking atop a chest containing their murder victim, Hamilton’s cunning characters and grisly plot undoubtedly fit De Quincey’s bill. This dark and enigmatically humorous production could prove just the trick, then, this Halloween week. 

Director Livvy Stamp discusses why Hamilton’s “fine murder” appealed, and will continue to a Cambridge audience today: “The play is about these two Oxford undergraduates who murder a third because they have been reading Nietzsche and want to prove that they are the Übermensch.” Their murder victim is then concealed in a chest, dinner guests are invited, and the party commences. “When I first read the play, I was on tenterhooks. You know about the murder from the very beginning, so the tension is there from the beginning. It gets thrown back in their face, though, as the actual realities of murder are realized. There are consequences.”

The cast will present the play at Corpus Playroom, a self-professed 'intimate space.' “That’s so cliché,” Stamp laughs. But what proves truly valuable about this intimate setting for Stamp is the opportunity it creates for “audience involvement.” “I think it will be an incredibly engrossing experience. It is an exciting and engaging evening of theatre.”

Now in his sixth year at Cambridge, Pete Skidmore returns to the stage, having directed Copenhagen just last week. Playing an old Aristocratic dinner guest and unknowing father of the murder victim, Skidmore is aware of the sympathy the “genial” character Sir Johnstone Kentley will stir. “He is just having a good time, making it all the more tragic as the audience realizes that he is eating off a chest that his dead son is concealed in.” 

Kyle Turakhia’s character, Kenneth Raglan, is similarly sympathetic, standing in stark contrast to the cunning, arrogant murderers Wyndham Brandon and Charles Granillo (played by Oliver Mosley and Alasdair Mcnab respectively). “I’m playing the nice one,” Turakhia determines. “My character is supposedly the manifestation of the guy in the chest who has been killed. They invite me to the party because I am similar to him. The character is innocent and lovable, and not very intelligent.” Raglan should be “Hugh Grantesque,” Stamp suggests. “He is a sweet man, desperate to please. There is a line in the play where the murderers compare Raglan to the guy they’ve just murdered. For the audience, then, this person in the chest was this guy standing up, just hours ago. It is poignant in that way.” 

These “representatives of unintellectual humanity,” as Stamp describes them, assembled by two young men devoted to Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch, surely offers moments of comic relief. “When you put the script to life with actors, you realize how funny it can be. The play is tense and deals with a very serious subject matter, but there are lots of lines and characters that are funny. It is a very witty cast and rehearsals have been quite fun.”

Ben Walsh’s Rupert Cadell may prove to be at the heart of the play’s comedy. Older than the two undergraduates by about nine or so years and a veteran of the Great War, Rupert brings something a little different to the stage. “He is funny and shamelessly self-satisfied,” Walsh explains. “He has a limp and he is an eccentric, incredibly affected character. It is an awful lot of fun to play.” 

“Although it can be really funny in parts,” Skidmore acknowledges, “the underlying tension is present all the way through and occasionally rears its ugly head through the veneer of a polite dinner party.” For Stamp, this means a continuous, conscious effort to prevent the cast from becoming “desensitized to the horror of it all.” With a “naturalistic and realistic” vision for her play, “hon[ing] in on the reality of the tragedy” is essential. 

“People will certainly come out feeling unsettled,” Skidmore concludes. With Halloween weekend creeping upon us, the Corpus Playroom offers a timely and thrilling treat. After all, “people do like a little scare this time of year.”