Word: rosencrantzes
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...Cook's Garden, an Ira Levin melodrama about medical ethics, with Burl Ives, Screen Actor Keir Dullea (David and Lisa) and George C. Scott as director. From Britain, David Merrick is bringing a sure conversation piece: Playwright Tom Stoppard's existentialist upending of Hamlet, titled Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Another West End import is the adaptation of Muriel Spark's novel about a slightly bonkers Edinburgh schoolmarm, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. The title role, perfected by Vanessa Redgrave, now goes to Australian-born Zoe Caldwell. Arriving more belatedly from Britain is Harold Pinter...
...deed. Hamlet is also the first supremely self-conscious hero to tread the stage. This is where Richard Pasco's failure is most manifest. He portrays a computer's Hamlet, mechanically feeding himself punch cards marked Father's Ghost, Ophelia, Laertes, Horatio, Polonius, Claudius, Gertrude, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and responding mechanically to them. His co-players do not perceptibly help by acting like crumpled punch cards...
Shostakovich's score swells at all the wrong places. When Hamlet confronts Ophelia "mad," there is a chance for some very sinister stuff: a glaze-eyed Aryan appears, bearing down on her. But up jumps a nervous little Dragnet theme to turn it ludicrous. When Hamlet asks Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, "Am I easier to fret than a pipe?" the scene is played in heavy silence that exaggerates its portent. But presumbaly that's the director's doing, as, unfortunately, is a lot else...
...Crimson hurlers have carried the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern routine to an extreme. In Harvard's 3-4 win over Penn last Saturday, McCandlish was hit hard in the first three innings. Scott came in, held the Quakers to one run for the rest of the game, and picked up the win. When Harvard battered Brown 16-3 on Wednesday, Scott pitched the first five innings. The McCandlish took over and limited the Bruins to a single hit over the last four innings...
Those who remember Earle Hyman's exemplary Horatio in the Festival's earlier production can only be disappointed by John Devlin's bland and colorless performance. Patrick Hines, who did Rosencrantz before, has moved up to Polonius. Given to excessive handclapping, he takes the easy way out and plays the role only for its comedy. Polonius is much more than the "foolish prating knave" Hamlet calls...