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previewBare Theatre Preview Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead is an absurdist tragicomedy that Bare Theatre’s youthful Rogue Company will perform ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, a brilliant absurdist tragicomedy by Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter Sir Tom Stoppard, OM, CBE (nee Tomáš Straussler), on July 30-August 3, at Common Ground Theatre in Durham, NC. Dramatizing offstage action from English dramatist William Shakespeare’s tragic masterpiece, HAMLET, Stoppard’s existential play focuses on two minor characters -- the title character’s treacherous college classmates and confidants. Bare Theatre managing director Heather J. Hackford and artistic director Carmen-maria Mandley will jointly stage the Raleigh, NC-based troupe’s production, with Hackford is directing the world of Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Mandley is directing the world of the players and Guildenstern. The prize-winning 71-year-old dramatist and screenwriter, who won the 1967 London EVENING STANDARD Award for Most Promising Playwright, also won the 1968 Tony Award® for Best Play, the New York Critics Award for Best Play of the Year, the Prix Italia, and the Plays and Players Award for Best New Play for ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD. Stoppard won three more Best Play Tonys -- for TRAVESTIES (1976), THE REAL THING (1984), and THE COAST OF UTOPIA (2007) -- plus 1998 Academy Award® for Best Original Screenplay for SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE. “I first heard of this play and watched the film in high school,” recalls Carmen-maria Mandley. “I went on to see productions of it and worked minimally on a production of it about four years ago. I wanted to co-direct this [play] with Heather. I wanted to do this project also because of the gaggle of participants we acquired this year. It really suits them. We also wanted an opportunity to do some intensive physical and clown work.” Heather Hackford adds, “I wanted to direct this play for the experience of co-directing with Carmen. This play, with its different worlds, lends itself to split directing and it has been so interesting to see the similarities and differences in our styles and personalities play out on stage.” Mandley says, “I agree on the first comment Heather makes. Collaboration is fun, as are the three worlds these guys are living in. The young people were SO excited at the prospect of this being this summer’s Rogue production that we couldn’t help but choose it.” First produced in 1966 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD made its Broadway debut, directed by Derek Goldby, on Oct. 9, 1967 at the Alvin Theatre, later transferred to the Eugene O’Neill Theatre, and closed on Oct. 19, 1968, after 420 performances. This production won four 1968 Tony Awards, including Best Play honors. The 1990 motion-picture version of ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, written and directed by Tom Stoppard, starred Gary Oldman as Rosencrantz, Tim Roth as Guildenstern, Iain Glen as Hamlet, Joanna Roth as Ophelia, Ian=2 0Richardson as Polonius, Donald Sumpter as Claudius, Joanna Miles as Gertrude, and Richard Dreyfuss as the Player. EDITOR’S NOTE: This plot summary contains SPOILERS. Heather Hackford says, “Stoppard’s first play, ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, presents a backwards view of Shakespeare’s HAMLET. The play opens with the title characters (Tara Pozo as Rosencrantz and Maura Clement as Guildenstern) alone on stage, placing bets on the toss of a coin while traveling toward Elsinore, the castle of Danish King Claudius (Matt Fields), and their childhood friend, Prince Hamlet (Sasha Brown). Unsure of where they are going (and even of who they are and where they come from), they depend upon others to give their questions answers. While awaiting instructions, they fall back upon games -- word play and wagers -- that rarely alleviate the sense that something larger is happening and that they should know what it is.” “Instructed by the King and Queen (Janie Cole) to ‘glean what afflicts’ poor Hamlet, the boys attempt to cross-examine the prince, but end up only more confused. Neither do they have the wit to see their own deaths foretold when the Player (Jake Bowden) and his Tragedians (Liz Shipman, Simon Hernandez, Brent Rappaport, Garrett Stein-Seroussi, Nick Fields, Jeffrey Fowler, and Kelsey Heathcoat) rehearse THE MURDER OF GONZAGO, which includes the execution of ‘two smiling accomplices -- friends -- courtiers -- two spies’ who accompany a prince to England, only to be betrayed by a stolen letter,” Hackford says. She adds, “After Hamlet kills Polonius (guest artist Khoa Pham), [the father of Hamlet’s lady love Ophelia (Jen Harper)], R&G are dispatched to retrieve the body; but of course, the job is too much of a challenge for these two. They are then dispatched to England with the prince. “During the ocean voyage,” says Hackford, “R&G discover that the letter they carry from Claudius calls for the immediate cutting off of Hamlet’s head. Before they can decide what to do with the letter, it is stolen from them by Hamlet and replaced with another.” “After the ship is attacked by pirates and Hamlet escapes overboard in a barrel, R&G open the letter again, only to learn that it is now they who must be killed when they arrive in England. In the end, as the title suggests, R&G resign themselves to their fate. The play ends with ambassadors from England informing Horatio that, at long last, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead,” says Hackford. In addition to directors Heather Hackford and Carmen-maria Mandley, who co-designed the show’s sets and lighting and serve as the play’s properties mistresses, the creative team for ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD includes technical directors Jeff Alguire and Calvin Thomas, costume designer Jennifer Aiello, costume supervisor Jeremy Clos, sound designer G. Todd Buker, and stage manager Missy Dapper. Hackford says the show’s set is a “graffiti skate park that doubles as a ship”; its lighting is “dark and simple”; and its costumes are “basic blacks with Napoleonic touches at three different stages of completion depending on the world.” She adds, “The players will be in patterns of clothes, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern will be in completed clothing, and the HAMLET cast will be over-done.” Co-director Heather Hackford cautions Triangle theatergoers attending ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD to “Strap in. The worlds that surround Rosencrantz and Guildenstern range from the absurd to complete lunacy. And not to give away the ending, but they die in the end.” Bare Theatre presents ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD Wednesday-Friday, July 30-August 1, at 8 p.m.; Saturday August 2, at 2 and 8 p.m.; and Sunday, August 3, at 2 p.m. at Common Ground Theatre, 4815B Hillsborough Rd., Durham, North Carolina 27705. 919/771-3281 or http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/37369. BARE THEATRE: http://www.baretheatre.org/next.html. COMMON GROUND THEATRE: http://cgtheatre.com/events. INTERNET OFF-BROADWAY DATABASE: http://www.lortel.org/LLA_archive/index.cfm?search_by=show&id=2005. INTERNET BROADWAY DATABASE: http://www.ibdb.com/show.php?id=7644. INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100519/. STARK RAVING SANE (unofficial fan site for the play and film): http://www.starkravingsane.co.nr/. TOM STOPPARD: http://www.ibdb.com/person.php?id=8912 (Internet Broadway Database) and http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001779/ (Internet Movie Database). ================== WHAT: The TRIANGLE THEATER REVIEW is a FREE weekly e-mail theatrical newsletter, featuring previews and reviews by Robert W. McDowell and reviews by Alan R. Hall, Kate Dobbs Ariail, and others. (For brief bios of our critics, see http://www.cvnc.org/about/critics-bios.html.) Classical Voice of North Carolina, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and this state’s leading performing-arts platform, not only pays our reviewers but also makes continued publication of TTR possible. The online versions of our critics’ theater reviews are now listed in the “Performance Reviews” section of CVNC’s home page: http://www.cvnc.org/. 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