Word: rosencrantzes
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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THEATRICALLY AND intellectually, Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is one of the last decade's most awesome dramatic conceptions. An ingenious retelling of Hamlet from the point of view of that tragedy's two incidental victims, this piece of absurd theater involves difficult staging, acute psychological insight, and beautiful language which demands highly subtle direction and acting...
...timing and emotional control of the lead characters is excellent. Pope Brock plays an appropriately ingenuous, high-strung and thoroughly bewildered Rosencrantz to Bernie Holmberg's pompous, melodramatic, and equally bewildered Guildenstern. The most intense monologue of the play and much of its dramatic focus belong to the Head Player of the troupe performing at Elsinore, a part skillfully played by Chris Josephs. He is the most noble, though he appears the most decadent, of the major characters. The times being "wicked," he supports himself with obscene tableaux, though he is the only figure who understands and carries...
...meaningful by the approval of audiences, enjoy advantages that people in an indeterminate world do not share. While love and providence provide meaning for the characters of Shakespeare, Stoppard's people have no external frame of reference. Unable to see that they themselves create the significance of their actions, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are caught in a world where their identities and their living and dying are equally arbitrary...
Joseph's troupe is also superb, always mirroring the unreality with which Rosencrantz and Guildenstern view the "real" world. Lauren Sunstein, as the sniffling and oft-abused Alfred, plays her small part exceptionally well, as do the other Players, whose near-wordless roles require remarkable agility and continually forceful expression...
OTHER MINOR characters were not as satisfactory, mostly because their roles were not so thoroughly conceived. Eloise Watt, as Gertrude, adds a nice touch with her lustful perusals of Rosencrantz. However, she and her Claudius, played by Bill Strong, are too sweet to be scheming and too sincere to be ridiculous. Tony Cesare's Polonius is silly, rather than senile; his character lacks what the genuine figure of Polonius invariably exhibits, an exaggerated sense of his worth and of the importance of his actions. Fletcher Word plays Hamlet who seems neither intense nor melancholy. Liz Hollister, however, portrays Ophelia effectively...