Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead

[Doug Alan <nessus@mit.edu>]

Last week at the New Erlich Theater in Boston I saw the play
*Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead* by Tom Stoppard (who also, by
the way, wrote the original screen play for the movie *Brazil*).  It
was a bit of a strange play -- my girlfriend thought is was annoying
and unbearable, but I thought it was way cool, though it *was* annoying
at times.

The New Erlich theatre has a rather unusual setup -- the seats nearly
surround the stage, and it's nearly impossibe to get in our out of the
theater without getting on stage.  They let people in who were late,
but they had to wait until 20 minutes into the play, when the action
of the play at that moment synchronized with letting late-comers
trudge across the stage.  Behind the stage was a deep recessed area,
where dimly could be seen all sorts of miscellaneous garbage, like
manequins of Marylin Monroe, posters of Elvis Presley.  At the edge of
the stage area there were easy chairs, a painting eaasel, etc.
Characters who were not on at the moment, would reside in these
places.  In fact, one of the characters needed to sit down next to me
(I was in the front row), but I had gummed up the works a little bit
by puting my jacket and some other miscellaneous stuff on this empty
seat.  A bunch of TV sets that all displayed what was on the stage,
were scattered around.

Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are two bit characters from *Hamlet*.  In
*Hamlet*, R. and G. are friends of Hamlet and they are sent with
Hamlet by the King to carry a letter to the King of England.  Little
do they know that the letter requests that the King of England execute
Hamlet immediately.  Somehow Hamlet knows what the letter says and
replaces it with a letter requesting that the King of England execute
Rosencrantz and Gildenstern instead.  In *Hamlet*, they do indeed get
executed.

*Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead* starts off with R. and G. dead,
only they don't know it.  They are a bit confused about where they are
and what is going on, though.  They are playing a gambling game that
they have played with each other their whole lives.  They flip a coin
and if it comes up heads, Rosencrantz wins it.  If it comes up tails,
Gildenstern wins it.  In all this time, neither R. or G. had been up
or down more than a few coins, however, now it has come up heads
90-something times in a row and Gildenstern is a bit perturbed.

Eventually, a traveling drama/prostitution troupe travels along and
they agree for the price of a coin to put on a show for R. and G.
The play they put on is *Hamlet*, only it becomes more like a series
of flashbacks to what led up to R. and G. being dead, and R. and G.
are drawn up into it.  The scenes from *Hamlet* are straight from the
original play, except that the interpretation is rather unusual.  All
the male characters (except for R. and G. and Hamlet) are played by
women dressed as men.  All of the female characters are played my men
dressed as women.  And one scene contains a flashback to the very
beginning of the play where R. and G. are flipping coins, while new
action simultaneously takes place.  The real R. and G. are played by
R. and G., but the flashback R. and G. are played by women.  The King
is played by a woman who is dressed and acts and talks like Elvis
Presley.  The Queen is played by a man who is dressed and acts like
Marylin Monroe.  Hamlet is played by a guy who is looks like James
Dean, only his leather jacket has been modified to be a kind of
straight jacket.

The music was also kind of unsusual for the setting.  Most prominent
was the repeated use of that grating song that goes "Dad, I'm calling
you from jail.  I'm in jail, Dad.  I like it here.  I'm in jail...."
They opened the final act with Kate Bush's "Oh, England, My
Lionheart", and during a scene on a boat where pirates attack, they
used the jig from Kate Bush's "The Jig of Life".  (Their use of
reversing the sexes makes me wonder if they ever saw the video for
Kate Bush's "Ran Tan Waltz", which is a song about a wife and a
husband who are having some difficulties.  In the video, Kate plays
the husband, and a man plays wife.  Only at the end of the video, Kate
pulls off her hat and beard, and the man playing the wife pulls off
his wig.)

Recommended to one and all, except to those who don't like this sort
of stuff, in which case it isn't recommended.

|>oug

"I was not in love with you, so your beauty made me happy." -- Sharon Olds