Stoppard revival charms and challenges Chichester

Chichester Festival Theatre has revived Tom Stoppards first great stage success, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. The play was first performed in public at the 1966 Edinburgh Festival, and my first encounter with it was at the Young Vic, London, some 40 years ago, Nick Keith writes.

 

The memory of that night is still strong. R&G remains what it has always been a rollicking rollercoaster of verbal pyrotechnics, which excite, engage, amuse and astonish. The play examines a host of human issues, some lighthearted and others deeper. The players are two people caught in a drama where their importance and involvement is on the periphery, literally on the edge, and they can take a comical, puzzled and dispassionate view of the weird events unfolding around them.

 

The background story is from Shakespeares great play Hamlet. This revival is directed by Trevor Nunn, and a revealing discussion between director and author is printed in the programme. This discussion took place with the production company on the first day of rehearsals.

 

Stoppard insists that œa play is an artifact, some kind of artifice�, and that the theatre is a œrecreation�. He does not believe that it is important for an audience to know Hamlet or be well-versed in the philosophical debates which his play explores. He describes the philosophical themes as œcogs which people have tried to understand for millennia and theres no resolution to it.

 

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern question their roles, their identities, free will, control over their destinies, and the meaning of life, in much the same way as we all do in our lives from time to time. Although they are part of a play, their sense of existence / reality  or lack of those things has echoes for most of us in our real lives.

 

The play opens with an examination of probability and chance. The characters are playing a coin-tossing game (which we learn is their perennial past time as they wait in the wings waiting to be called into the action).

 

In this instance Rosencrantz correctly calls heads more that 80 times in a row to win the coin. What are the chances of that, we are asked, in the great scheme of things? And yet, we learn, in this never-ending game of chance the characters are roughly equal in their winnings, despite this improbable run of one-sided luck.

 

The characters meet a group of strolling players who are desperate for money and will do anything for an audience. Then they are intermittently engaged with characters from the play within the play with Hamlet, with the King and Queen, and others without ever understanding what they are there for, what they are really supposed to do, and how they can possibly perform those jobs properly and effectively.

 

Does that strike any bells? There are certainly some great universal challenges covered with wit and wisdom. However, you have to remember that this was the authors debut success (although not his first play), and there are inevitably some rough edges in the delivery of so many big themes.

 

The dialogue is so fast and furious that the play proceeds at one pace the proverbial 100 miles an hour. Sometimes the audience will ask themselves whether they are literally losing the plot, but Stoppard brings you back into the fold. He recalls in the programme seeing Becketts Waiting for Godot as a young man, and loving the play without understanding it all. So you can enjoy the scope and speed of this play without grasping every nuance. It leaves an extremely powerful impression on the mind.

 

One slight regret is that this revival is on the main stage at Chichester, rather than in the Minerva. There is a strong feeling that this play benefits from a smaller and more intimate theatrical environment like the Young Vic where an audience can share the main characters sense of being part of the action and yet peripheral.

 

It is also disappointing that Tim Curry, due to perform as The Player (the leader or impresario of the players) is ill and misses this production, which runs until 11 June. Chris Andrew Mellon performs man full y and memorably in his place. Samuel Barnett as Guildenstern and Jamie Parker as Rosencrantz are skilful in the lead roles.

 

All in all you leave the theatre buzzing with thoughts, ideas and a fresh view on exploring the meaning of life. Go if you can the play was loudly and enthusiastically applauded at the end but there are few seats left for this production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.