Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Dir: Tom Stoppard

1990

*****

Based on Tom Stoppard's successful play of the same name, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is an absurdist, existentialist tragicomedy, and quite possibly the only one. It feels like a heavy mix of something you'd expect to see from either a Cambridge's Footlights production or at Edinburgh's Fringe festival, indeed it debuted in the latter in 1966. It's very much an actor's production. The premise is simple but extremely clever. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are minor characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead covers the exploits of the two minor characters behind the scenes of the story and asks what they actually got up to when the key events of the story are being carried out. In Stoppard's play, neither character is sure where they came from, presumably only coming into existence at the beginning of the story that they are unaware they are in. The bulk of the story sees them interact with other key players during the scenes they're not in, question their own existence, relativity and probability, the overall scenario they find themselves in and the nature of reality in general. When the characters aren't being silly, they are asking mindboggling philosophical questions. The script is incredible and is read at a hundred miles an hour. Not to be taken on by the faint-hearted, and I struggle to think who could have done a better job in 1990 than Tim Roth and Gary Oldman. These roles might just be the career-best performances by both actors. They've both played iconic characters since but there is something uniquely special about these two performances. Support is strong from actors such as Iain Glen, Ian Richardson, Joanna Miles and a scene-stealing Richard Dreyfuss. It has been said by some that the film adaptation doesn't work at all, due to the fact it really only works as a stage production but I disagree. The people who say that have generally seen the play, it is natural for them to prefer one version over the other and the play may well have been better but it works brilliantly as a film, albeit a rather theatrical one. Metatheatre is nothing new, indeed, it's rather Shakespearian, Hamlet also being a good example of a play-within-a-play. A smarty-pants script has never been so funny, and without want to sound controversial, I'm not sure Shakespeare has either.