‘Rosencrantz & Guildenstern’ Offers Challenging, Yet Entertaining, Theater

By Julie Stern

NEW HAVEN — Do you remember Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? They were two minor characters in Hamlet, unremarkable courtiers who appear midway through the play when wicked King Claudius summons them to help figure out what is eating his brooding nephew.

They are again mentioned near the end of the play, as part of a disquieting news report from England: “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead!” (A Shakespearean reminder: Hamlet discovers the courtiers are escorting him to England with sealed instructions from Claudius to the English King, asking him to kill Hamlet when he arrives. Hamlet replaces the letter with a new one, in which Claudius instead asks his English colleague to kill the two messengers who have brought him the letter.)

In 1964, the aspiring journalist and dramatic critic Tom Stoppard happened to see a production of Hamlet and found himself  fascinated by the plight of these two fools, trapped in a script that trivialized them to the point that their existence was limited to a few odd lines in someone else’s story, and ended in their death in circumstances they could neither understand nor control.

This became the inspiration for Stoppard’s  absurd comedy about death that led him to fame and fortune as the youngest playwright ever to have his work produced at London’s National Theater.

Stranded in the limbo of the world in which they suddenly find themselves, with no history or memory of how they got there, like the clowns in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern pass the time in Stoppard’s work trying to make sense of who they are and what is going to happen to them. All they know is that they have been summoned by the king, who can’t even keep their names straight. (Because their names are always linked together, nobody is sure of which one is which; even they don’t know for certain.)

A company of traveling actors meets them on the road, and suddenly, by the next act, these become the players in Hamlet, who proceed to act out the prince’s special playlet dramatizing how Claudius murdered Hamlet’s father and seduced his mother.

Now the pair begins to speculate about death, both in reality and in its imitation, tragedy. Which one is more convincing, that which is real or that which we watch as entertainment? Which one is more terrifying? While it remains unspoken, it is the prospect of their own impending death that haunts the two men.

In the last act, trapped on the boat taking them to England along with the actors who fled the castle after Hamlet stabbed Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern gradually realize the fate awaiting them, that death is a casual line in a play but also the universal ending to existence.

Director Darko Tresnjak has assembled a top notch cast for this play, which continues at Long Wharf Theatre until June 3. The cast is led by Jefferson Mays and Frank Wood as the two courtiers, and Edward Hibbert as the leader of the troupe of actors. The three men have so much presence that the audience is sucked into the dynamic of their interaction, even when, like “Godot,” it gets bizarre or repetitive.

Also, while the stage is kept a simple abstract of black and white, the lavish costumes of both the actors and the royal household are an eye-catching riot of color. There is a lot of burlesque clowning among the actors, and verbal pyrotechnics between the two title characters, both of which keep the audience laughing even as the subject matter is powerful and grim.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is a challenging piece of theater that gets a very worthy production at Long Wharf. It certainly helps if you know your Hamlet, but even if you don’t, it would be interesting and entertaining to watch.

(Contact Long Wharf by calling 203-787-4282 for ticket prices and curtain information. The theater is at 222 Sargent Drive in New Haven.)