“ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD”: Theatre Intime has presented “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.” Directed by Jemima Smith, the play was presented May 22-24 at the Hamilton Murray Theater. Above: Unsure about their function in plans beyond their understanding — and unaware of their eventual fate — Guildenstern (Jack Thompson, left) and Rosencrantz (Vincent D’Angelo) engage in banter, games of chance, and a few other things. (Photo by Lucy Shea)
By Donald H. Sanborn III
Princeton University’s Theatre Intime has concluded its season with a Reunions Weekend presentation of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Director Jemima Smith guides the cast and creative team through a polished, well-acted production in which the duo of leading actors admirably rise to the challenges posed by Tom Stoppard’s artfully verbose script.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead centers on two minor but crucial characters from Hamlet. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are courtiers and former classmates of Hamlet, who are tasked with spying on the prince and escorting him to England, where they are to deliver a letter — demanding his execution — to the king.
Along their journey they fill their time with games of chance, excessive banter about random subjects, and theories about their function in the plans of Hamlet and his nemesis, Claudius. The play considers our human tendency to over-analyze and chatter about the wrong things, and miss what is happening right in front of us.
Initially the show existed as a one-act play, titled Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear. The current, expanded version premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966; a subsequent London debut took place at the Old Vic in 1967, with a Broadway run opening later that year. A film adaptation, written and directed by Stoppard (1937-2025), opened in 1990.
Theatre Intime’s production is skillful at highlighting the extent to which the title duo (at least initially) is at the margins of Shakespeare’s action. Set Designer Didi Vekri furnishes the stage with three Romanesque arches (outlined by a red curtain, to underline the theater-within-theater element), which separates the title duo from action to which they are not privy.
Further, for the play’s opening scene, Smith conspicuously places Rosencrantz and Guildenstern at one side of the stage. Physically as well as metaphorically, they are outside of the center, a fact of which they become increasingly aware.
At the beginning of the play we see them passing the time with a coin toss that lands on “heads” a preposterous number of times, to the benefit of Rosencrantz (portrayed by Vincent D’Angelo). An increasingly perturbed Guildenstern (Jack Thompson) questions the “law of probability.”
In a program note Smith considers that the title characters are “very different, but two sides of the same coin. (Or shall we say, the same side of two coins?)”
Thompson is outstanding as Guildenstern, bringing the requisite intensity to the philosophically inquisitive and increasingly suspicious character. His jagged body language supports his memorable delivery of lines, as he paces in agitation.
D’Angelo is the perfect foil as the comparatively placid Rosencrantz. In both delivery of lines and body language he brings smoothness, a bit of reserve, and comparative economy of movement to the somewhat naïve and more fatalistic member of the duo. Thompson and D’Angelo play off of each other well, and — as is essential in this dialogue-heavy piece — both are good at projecting when they deliver lines.
The difference in the protagonists’ personalities is underlined by Kate Andrews’ costumes. The often passionate, volatile Guildenstern is given a bright red vest, while the comparatively mild-mannered Rosencrantz wears a more subdued light brown one.
Eduardo Zuniga is memorably brooding and slightly foreboding as The Player, who leads an itinerant theatrical troupe consisting of Alfred (Aaron Bordeaux) and an ensemble of Tragedians (Eli Edge, Leela Hensler, Cass Kim, and Olivia Romano). Makeup Artist Ava Kronman provides some expressive clown-style face painting for the troupe.
Some of Smith’s best staging is seen in a sequence in which the Tragedians reenact the major plot points of Hamlet, even foreshadowing the title duo’s eventual (titular) fate. It adds a nice layer that, except for the Leading Player’s narration, everything is told through movement rather than dialogue.
Stoppard presents theatrical performance (and arguably, by extension, art in general) as an opportunity for dangerous political analysis and commentary; a reduction of chatter; and an offering of clarity, for a world in which confusion is exacerbated by excessive noise.
Naturally, the play-within-a-play element fascinates Smith, who observes in a program note that the show “honors the absurdity of performance, storytelling, and the medium of theater. Stoppard muses on what can be performed, and whether honesty ever really exists in performance.”
Jonathan Weinberg is entertainingly oily as the villainous Claudius, bringing requisite unctuousness to the role of the usurping king. As D’Angelo does for Thompson, Susan McLernon as Gertrude provides a contrast to Weinberg’s performance, bringing courtly sincerity to the queen (who seems more passive and unaware of the dangerous court intrigue in Stoppard’s version than in Hamlet).
Where most of the play is comic with hints of foreboding, the final act — which depicts the scene on the ship to England, is comparatively dark. These final scenes have the most striking work by Sound Designer John Heitz and Lighting Designer Rowan Johnson, giving a convincing illusion of travelling on a dangerously windy sea by moonlight. A sequence in which the ship is captured by pirates is well staged by Fight Choreographer JD Atwood.
In a pivotal, ironic scene, Hamlet tricks the title characters, who are asleep after theorizing and arguing about their function in events surrounding the prince, by substituting a letter demanding their execution for the one ordering his own. Arjun Menon is suitably enigmatic as Hamlet, successfully portraying the prince’s skill at masking his intentions (which include double-crossing his former friends).
The cast is ably rounded out by John Heitz (Hamlet’s friend Horatio), Seoyin Kim (Ophelia), and Moose Kinsey (who fills a dual role: the king’s foolish counselor Polonius, and the Ambassador who grimly delivers the line of dialogue that gives this play its title).
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is eerily resonant today. The suspicious (bordering on paranoid) theorizing about events beyond one’s understanding — based on incomplete information — next to incessant banter about random subjects, echo less commendable uses of social media. Claudius’ banishment of The Player and the Tragedians, after their performance offends him, would resonate at any time, but especially now.
This is perhaps the most significant mark of this Theatre Intime production’s success: it offers a stylized illusion of being set in Shakespeare’s time, while effortlessly highlighting the contemporary relevance of Stoppard’s play.
For information about future Theatre Intime productions, visit theatreintime.org.