Tom
Stoppard comedies at Lakewood Playhouse
By
Alec Clayton
published in The News Tribune, April 21, 2017
 |
| (L to R) FRANK ROBERTS (Rosencrantz) and PAUL RICHTER (Guildenstern) photo by Tim Johnson |
Tom
Stoppard’s The Fifteen Minute Hamlet
is like a thinking person’s Marx Brothers movie. His Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is that same thinking
person’s version of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First” with a dose of Waiting for Godot thrown in to sweeten
the stew. These companion pieces, so different yet so alike, are playing at
Lakewood Playhouse.
The
evening leads off with The Fifteen Minute
Hamlet, which is just what the title implies: Shakespeare’s Hamlet pared down to a mere 15 minutes,
with a talented and perfectly in-sync ensemble cast delivering rapid-fire the
most famous lines from Hamlet, with a
big helping of physical comedy, in the tradition of the Reduced Shakespeare
Company’s The Complete Works of
Shakespeare (Abridged).
As
soon as the ensemble quickly skewers the classic tragedy, they follow with a
five-minute encore (fewer words and everything speeded up), immediately
followed by a one-minute version. It is slapstick of the highest order.
The
troupe is led by a droll Nathan Rice as The Player and Dylan Twiner as Hamlet.
That
is the appetizer. Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern Are Dead is the main course.
It is a long, complex and brilliant comedy featuring Frank Roberts as
Rosencrantz and Paul Richter as Guildenstern, two characters from Hamlet who
did not appear in The Fifteen Minute
Hamlet. Roberts and Richter play off each other like musicians who have
been improvising together for their shared lifetime.
The
play opens with a crazy routine in which they investigate the laws of
probability by tossing coins with an insane amount of repetition. One might
think that too much repetion would become boring, but as Stoppard wrote this
scene and as Roberts and Richter perform it, it is crazy funny. In a similarly
funny scene later on, they turn philosophical discussion; i.e., debate, into a
game of tennis with points scored according to a set of rules only they
comprehend — rules they change at will.
Throughout
the show they tackle such deep subjects as the nature of life and death — what
would you prefer, being locked in a little box forever or being dead in the box
(at least you wouldn’t know you were suffering, or do the dead know they’re
dead?) What is the meaning of life? What are we doing here? Where are we going,
and who are we? Throughout, they get confused about who they are. Am I
Rosencrantz or am I Guildenstern? Perhaps they are neither. Perhaps they are
actors waiting to go onstage for their brief appearance as Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern. Stoppard poses these questions, but R & G do now answer them
or can’t agree on the answers. That is up to the audience.
Familiarity
with Hamlet helps to understand Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but
understanding might not even matter. It might be enough to simply get swept up
by the verbal fireworks, of which there are plenty.
For
readers who might want a little more explanation, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
were minor and forgettable characters in Hamlet.
They were childhood friends of Prince Hamlet who were sent to spy on him and
who accompanied him on a trip to England. In this play, they are the main
characters, but they have no idea why they have been cast in these roles. Along
the way on this mission they don’t understand, they run into all the main
characters in the Shakespeare play, from Gertrude (Dayna Childs) to Claudius
(Ben Stahl) to Polonius (W. Scott Pinkston) to Ophelia (Gabi Marler) to a cast
of stock characters in the traveling theatre troupe. These are all the same
actors, in the same roles, as in The
Fifteen Minute Hamlet.
Stoppard’s
writing is inspired, intelligent and hilarious. The acting throughout is
outstanding. Blake York’s rough-looking set — a brick wall and a bunch of boxes
— and Aaron Mohs-Hale’s lighting are wonderful. Rochelle-Ann Graham’s costumes
are suitable for the characters, time and place, except for the modern tennis
shoes worn by the main characters. These out-of-place shoes are harbingers of a
great running joke.
The
two plays together are long, but worth every minute of it.
WHEN:
8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through May 7
WHERE: Lakewood
Playhouse, 5729 Lakewood Towne Center Blvd., Lakewood TICKETS: $15
INFORMATION:
253.588.0042, www.lakewoodplayhouse.org
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