• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (National Theatre Live)

5/29/18 (Tues), Tokyo

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern get their day again in the Old Vic’s revival of Tom Stoppard’s through-the-looking-glass take on Hamlet, broadcast as part of the great National Theatre Live series. I always thought that Beckett did the two-man existential comedy act with more punch and efficiency, but R&G is a fun ride nevertheless and with funnier lines to boot (“We’re actors – we’re the opposite of people” “[He’s] stark raving sane” “Life is a gamble with terrible odds. If it were a bet you wouldn’t take it” “The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily… that is what Tragedy means”). Its concept of diving into a classic through its minor characters is feeling its age, partly because of the many imitations it has spawned (Wicked, anyone?), and the part with the players is a hippie touch stuck in the 1960s, saved only by a fabulously flamboyant performance by David Haig as the lead player. But the dazzling wordplay and audaciousness of the interaction between Shakespeare’s fictional world and Stoppard’s own are as fresh as ever. Continue reading →