TV REVIEW : You Need Patience With ‘The Rope’

The first half of Eugene O’Neill’s “The Rope” (Arts & Entertainment Cable Network, tonight at 6 and 10) is slow going, as a grim-faced rural woman (Elizabeth Ashley) tells us and her somewhat senile, Bible-quoting father (Jose Ferrer) about everything that happened in this family before the play began. Although director Lela Swift keeps Ashley moving around the barn where the conversation takes place, it’s awkward exposition even by the standards of early O’Neill (this play dates from 1918).

But the story picks up with the arrivals of the two men who are scheming to get the old man’s money: his son-in-law (Len Cariou) and his son (Brad Davis) by a second marriage. And the play ends on an ironic note that’s completely non-verbal--a rarity in the O’Neill canon.

The entire production is about 45 minutes long, and it’s a big improvement over “Third and Oak: The Pool Hall,” the first entry in Arts & Entertainment’s “American Playwrights Theater: The One Acts” series. There isn’t any sign of an it’s-only-for-cable attitude in Swift’s direction or the performances of the actors. Ferrer turns in a particularly vivid turn as the blustery old patriarch.

The program does require some initial patience, though--and not only because of O’Neill’s script. The solemn, half-baked introduction uttered by Anthony Quinn will be enough to drive a number of well-intentioned viewers to another channel.