Word: guildensterne
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...REPETITION of "heads or tails" in the opening scene of Tom Stoppard's Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead seems ironic, because the play is now worn like an old coin from passing through the hands of so many directors. Although it's been 16 years since its original minting, this weekend's Dunster House performance of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hasn't lost its edge. The innovation of two Shakespearean anti-heroes on center stage, the stark contrast between Elizabethan and modern language--and the themes of the finality of death, the role of fate and the insignificance of human life...
...stage is spare--swathed in a smoothing blue gauze--forcing the actors' charisma to sustain the show. Rosencrantz (Jim Torres) and Guildenstern (Steve Kelner) meet this demand; with exaggerated facial expressions and wild gestures, their compressed energy matches Stoppard's verbal swashbuckling, his inevitable bons mots...
...roles, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern present a unique difficulty--while at times interchangeable, the characters must create enough tension to sustain interest. The actors handle this problem well: Both bearded and flashing sparkling eyes, they at once mesh with and foil each other. Kelner's quizzical manner provides the needed contrast to Torres' air of blank amusement...
Only the players seen through the blue gauze remind the audience of the play's links with Hamlet and with tragedy--when the down-at-the-heel band of players doubles as Denmark's familiar royal family. The troup's leader (Kevin Jennings) confronts the bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with a one-upmanship that never flags. As both the king and the head Player. Jennings plays with vigor and consistency the role of crafty manipulator, impressing upon the audience Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's powerlessness to control their fate...
...another level, being encased in a box symbolizes not only death's inescapability but also the characters' limitations within the constraints of the original Hamlet. Stoppard wanted to emphasize these limitations by confining Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their original roles as bit parts, servants of greater wills. He magnifies the characters without strengthening them--even in their own play they remain ineffectual word-wielders with no more identify than they had as Shakespeare's tools...