TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Modern-Day Play Clarifies Why Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead

ADVERTISEMENT

By KATHY L. GREENBERG

Tribune Correspondent

Published: March 28, 2008

TAMPA William Shakespeare killed off Hamlet's college pals, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, with little fanfare or remorse. Some might say they deserved it, considering they betrayed the Danish prince to his murderous uncle Claudius.
Shakespeare never clarified the motivation of these minor characters, but playwright Tom Stoppard presumed there was more to their story. In 1966, he reconstructed the tale of the two bumblers in "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," which went on to receive Tony and New York Drama Critics Circle awards.
Jobsite Theater will present the play in April, positing existentialist thought with all the humor that Stoppard intended.
"The play is … similar to 'Hamlet' and Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot,' where two guys stand onstage waiting for two hours," says director Katrina Stevenson. "These guys [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern] don't act. They are acted upon, and that's very much like how Hamlet is. His great flaw is inaction.
"These guys don't do anything. Everything happens to them and tragedy ensues."
In "Hamlet," King Claudius recruits Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to find out why the prince is acting so weird. After Hamlet accidentally kills Polonius, Claudius sends his nephew to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who bear a letter licensing the English king to kill Hamlet.
The prince finds the letter and rewrites it so that his friends will be executed instead. At the play's end, an ambassador from England announces that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.
Stoppard supposed the events that occurred beyond the court, from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's points of view as they await Claudius' instructions.
He expanded on Shakespeare's characterization and created two confused nincompoops who spend hours trying to figure out what's going on, who they are and why they're there, each coping with their predicament in his own way.
"Rosencrantz is very much driven by the sensory, simple needs, like being sleepy or hungry. He's genuinely innocent," says David M. Jenkins, Jobsite's artistic director who will play Rosencrantz.
As Guildenstern, Shawn Paonessa described the character as "a hyper analytical who insists that logic and reason will prevail. He's always trying to understand. He's the ultimate observer.
"His doom is his insistence that he can analyze everything and that everything has a reason. In that pursuit, he probably overanalyzes to the point where he can't move."
Despite their distinctive qualities, the pawns are really two parts to a whole. Rosencrantz acts as the id to Guildenstern's ego, and together they form the perfect idiot savant.
"They have an odd symbiotic relationship," Paonessa says. "Guildenstern always has to be smarter than someone, and Rosencrantz always needs someone to tell him what to do. Put them together and they become dependent on each other.
"Rosencrantz is constantly living in the moment, which brings Guildenstern back down to earth. On the other hand, without Guildenstern, Rosencrantz would have no one to provoke him to think."
Stoppard's play is often hailed as a treatise to existentialism, which asserts that life's purpose is not preordained and that individuals create the meaning of their existence. It has been analyzed, philosophized and deconstructed in high school and college courses, academic texts, literature and essays.
Questioning life's purpose is basic to the human psyche, and that accounts for all the overthinking.
But such heady stuff was not necessarily the playwright's intent. He has insisted that first and foremost the work is a comedy.
Thinking too hard about the message can kill that humor, and what a tragedy that would be.

ON STAGE
Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern Are Dead
WHEN: Thursday through April 20; 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday
WHERE: Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Shimberg Playhouse, 1010 N. MacInnes Place, Tampa
HOW MUCH: $24.50; (813) 222-1001; www.tbpac.org

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT