ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD. Tour to 18 May.
Tour
ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD
by Tom Stoppard
Clwyd Theatr Cymru To 2 March 20023, then tour
Runs 2hr 25min One interval
Review Timothy Ramsden 2 March
A clear, uncompromising revival that hits out with a renewed shock of the new.I never thought I'd call a production by Terry Hands (Mold's artistic director and ex-RSC supremo) colourless, even less that it'd be as a compliment. But Johan Engels' huge wood disk with its minimal additions, and Hands' own white lighting, create an aptly washed-out world for the void that is the existence of Shakespeare's ultimate bit-parters.
One result is to restore the pair to the world of Samuel Beckett and Waiting for Godot. Christian Patterson's round-faced Guildenstern is a Vladimir, endlessly speculating without reaching a conclusion. Patterson's puzzled or briefly illuminated facial expressions catch the sense of a mind directed away from everyday reality. Oliver Ryan's chirpy Rosencrantz fizzes with instinctive responses to each moment, responding to his partner with Estragon-like immediacy.
Ryan, a frequent player in Mold and Cardiff, seems increasingly to have the stature in Welsh theatre that the likes of Anthony Sher or Simon Russell-Beale built themselves in the major English companies during the eighties and nineties.
Hands' production is strongly cast throughout. Richard Moore leads the Player troupe with a ripe energy seeped in melancholy. This sense is increased by their initial appearance, drained behind a white gauze in a slow procession headed by the bleak sound of a lone trumpet anachronistically searching out a version of Chopin's 'Funeral March'.
Elsinore's court remains similarly wispy. Even Hamlet, world drama's great individual, fleets through moments of action as if blown by coldly fatalistic winds. The only other character allowed to register is the boy-player Alfred, the painted tart resigned to his fate when the acting company's coffers are empty.
Stoppard's wit is serious – Hamlet, world drama's great ditherer, is here the only person to act decisively, silently, almost casually, swapping his own death sentence for that of Stoppard's non-interventionists while they are secured in sleep. But there is humour too, though its sound and colour dissipate in the frozen void around.
This fine production reminds how intellectually shocking and stimulating Stoppard's play was when it burst onto the sixties stage in Britain and reminds us it is far more, and stronger, than merely a clever idea worked up with wit.
Rosencrantz: Oliver Ryuan
Guildenstern: Christian Patterson
The Player: Richard Moore
Players: Paul Amos, Garry Lake, Dyfrig Morris, Craig Rogan
Alfred: Guy Lewis
Hamlet: Daniel Hawksford
Ophelia: Claire Redcliffe
Claudius: Ifan Huw Dafydd
Gertrude: Sara Harris-Davies
Polonius/Ambassador: Raymond Bowers
Fortinbras/Player: Simon Jessop
Horatio/Player: Michael Geary
Attendant: Michelle McTernan
Director/Lighting: Terry Hands
Direction assisted by: Ben Benison
Designer: Johan Engels
Sound: Kevin Heyes
Music: Colin Towns
Tour to 18-23 March New Theatre Cardiff, 8-13 April, Swan High Wycombe, 15-20 April Theatre Royal Plymouth, 29 April-4 May King's Theatre Edinburgh, 6-11 May Theatre Royal Norwich, 13-18 May Theatre Royal Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
2002-03-04 17:13:08