Reid Farrington

CONCEPT

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 film ROPE is the source material for this work. Based on the Leopold and Loeb murder, the story is of two young men who murder a friend just for a thrill. They then host a dinner party for friends and family of the victim, serving the main course on the trunk that is hiding the corpse.

Alfred Hitchcock wanted to make the film in only one camera shot, like he was filming a stage play. This idea was limited by the fact that in 1948 only fifteen minutes of film could be loaded into the camera. Hitchcock solved this problem by structuring the screenplay around five to ten minute takes, and staging the action around the lumbering camera. He hid the cuts between reels by panning the camera into the backs of the murdering boys.

The choreography of the camera, the film crew, and the players in the film are revealed in this piece. This movement is used as a means to generate the majority of the stage action. I follow Hitchcock’s “staging” for the film as a blueprint for my action on stage.

I utilize Hitchcock’s narrative rhythm as the main theme and intersecting it with the choreography of the camera and the film crew. Combining the techniques I used in The Wooster Groups Hamlet and my break out piece, THE PASSION PROJECT, allows me to explore the untold story of the technical ballet occurring off-camera during the making of the film. Blurring the separation between on and off-camera action by projecting the on-camera action (the actors in the film) and staging the off-camera action (the crew making the film) the audience will witness why Alfred Hitchcock called Rope “an experiment that didn’t work out”.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope is a perfect candidate for this experiment because the film is in “one take”, without cuts. It is filmed like a drawing room play, in only one location. Working closely with the Warner Bros. Archive and the University of Southern California, I was able to collect the final screenplay containing Hitchcock’s notes, the scale plan of the set, and photos taken during the making of the film. All this information allows me to project the film onto a stage the exact size of the original film set. Four performers, representing the film crew, capture the projected images on film equipment such as: C-stands, flags, lighting units, and wild walls.

This production challenges the definition of theater with the integration of the projected image and use of choreographed movement. A team of four male performers capture the projected image of the film on hand held screens and moving set pieces. This creates a three dimensional film in front of the audience’s eyes.