Rainy Day R&G

What to do on a rainy afternoon?  It turned out to be a perfect opportunity to take a trip twenty-five years back into the film catalogue.  The feature:  Rosencrantz & Gildenstern Are Dead, starring Tim Roth and Gary Oldman in the title roles.  Which is which?  I don't know if even they know.

As is typical with film adaptations of plays, the cinema allows a lot of flexibility that the stage does not.  This engenders a worry.  Will the film be true to the playwright's work?  There have been enough examples of cinematic Hamlets that stray from Shakespeare's original.  It seems not to be a problem here, though, as Tom Stoppard directed the film.  It stands to reason that directorial control would keep the film according to the playwright's wishes, even as it differs from its staged precursor.

Certainly there is much that differs here from the stage production that I saw back in 2014.  (See 3/9/14 post.)  That said, the film is still incredibly enjoyable, and it holds up after repeated viewings.  (I think this is my third, although it's the first since this blogging venture began.)  Roth and Oldman are excellent in the title roles.  It is obvious that they were well-versed in the preparation.  The witty repartee flows naturally as it would from two long-time friends.

The lavish scenery adds much to the production.  It has a dreamy, confusing quality.  The sets add to the Mobius Strip feel of the movie, as action overlaps and staircases lead back to the starting point.  The audience is left as the characters, wondering what is dream and what is reality.  Add to that the interspersing of scenes from Hamlet.  All told, it provides engaging viewing.

Another amusement with this version of the play is the running gag of physics discovery.  Oldman's character (Guildenstern?) encounters numerous physics experiments.  Acceleration due to gravity, water displacement and buoyancy, even flight are among the sight gags.  They provide additional humor to the already humorous work.

Shortly after our heroes were left hanging, the closing credits rolled.  (Kudos to Stoppard for using Pink Floyd's song, Seamus, as the background.)  This may not be the end here, though.  The DVD edition of the film has a second disc, which contains special features.  It could be another rainy day diversion.

Backstage Killing

As mentioned in a previous post (6/7/15), the new Backstage Edition of Kill Shakespeare was added immediately to my "To Read" list.  It did not stay there long.  I dove in almost immediately, and it took no time to get into and through the book.  It is an excellent, page-turning read!

There are numerous aspects of this book to applaud.  The story--a fantasy world with Shakespeare's characters trying to kill or to save their creator--is very creative and interesting.  In a previous post (8/17/14) I described a stage reading of an abridged version of the story.  Where it was muddled in that venue, probably due to the editing, the story is mush easier to follow in this presentation.  The illustrations are exceedingly well done and bring a richness and depth to the story.  I found myself imagining the story unfolding live before me, even though I knew (or should have known) that I was reading a two-dimensional page.  The highlight for me was the interaction of many Shakespearean characters.  The sheer number of allusions to Shakespeare's canon is impressive.  The authors must have a tremendous grasp of their source material to structure a work without making it seem artificial.  This is not allusion for allusion's sake.  Everything that is included stays within the story and helps to augment it.  One non-Shakespearean reference elicited a chuckle.  During a scuffle in Shakespeare's home, a copy of Doctor Faustus goes flying across the room.  It's nice to see that Will has good taste in literature!

Helpful for following the story (and for identifying the references) are the endnotes that were created for this edition.  Written by Shakespearean scholars, they are an excellent addition.  They helped me to follow the action while placing it within the larger realm of the canon.  I must admit, though, that I was surprised by the lack of proofreading in the notes.  On more than one occasion, the note authors called out mistakes in the original graphic novel, such as incorrect use of "thy" in one of Falstaff's lines.  They seem to miss many obvious errors in their own notes, though.  Glass houses, people.  To be fair...

• VI means six, not four, which would be IV.
• "They're" means they are.  "Their" is the possessive form.
• It's Edgar ALLAN Poe, not Allen.
• Is the character's name Don Jon or Don John?  They're used interchangeably.
• It's Prospero, not "the Prospero."
• Hamlet's name has an "l" in it.  He's not Hamet.

Overall, I recommend this book highly. It is a great treat for a Shakespeare nut.  There are additional volumes in the Kill Shakespeare series, but I'll try to hold out for the next Backstage Edition.  Hopefully it will not be too far into the future!

Hamlet's Teacher

Warning:  This post has nothing to do with a Shakespearean play.  Hopefully the ghost of The Bard is not too upset by this.  I'd rather not have any spectral visits.

My trip to NYC to see the Classic Stage Company's mess of a production of Hamlet (see 4/5/15 post) became the first in a series.  The next play to be performed by the company was Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus.  The fact that Chris Noth, formerly of Law and Order, was cast in the leading role was enough.  As a diehard L&O fan, it was an opportunity not to be missed, previous mixed review notwithstanding.

There is a tenuous Hamlet connection to Faustus.  Hamlet was a student at Wittenberg.  Could Faustus have been one of his teachers?  Granted, one is a fictional character and one was a real person, but it's an interesting thought.  David Davalos' play Wittenberg, which I saw performed in Richmond (see 4/20/14 post), played up this angle.

The CSC stage version was adapted from Marlowe's original.  I had read the play in college, and I reread it twice to prepare for the live performance.  While the CSC production kept period costuming and language, the humor was expanded and updated for modern sensibilities.  This was both a blessing and a curse.  Certainly it made the play enjoyable.  Much of the humor was tied directly to the audience.  For example, the clowns brought onto stage one lady from the audience to dance naked.  (She remained clothed, telling them and us that it would not have been a pretty sight.)  She was a great sport, playing along with the jokes (which continued all night) and receiving well-deserved applause.

In the play's second act, the humor became more outlandish.  I have to believe that in Marlowe's time depictions of papal pretenders, straw horses and Benvolio's horns were over-the-top humor.  Centuries later, though, how would that be received?  Instead, we were treated to bad Italian stereotypical accents and zombies.  Newer is not necessarily better.  (I'm not saying that just because I was nearly a victim of the zombie attack.)  The clowns' presence overtook that of Faustus.  In a play about him, it would have been nice to see more of him and less of Dick and Robin.

The highlight of the play was the parade of the Seven Deadly Sins to end Act I.  Lucifer appeared in white tuxedo, red socks and incredibly eerie contact lenses.  We, the audience, played pride.  The next five sins were cast members.  Greed ended up near me, stealing a (planted) purse from behind my seat.  Anger was a foul-mouthed apparition who continually stabbed himself.  Gluttony and envy were a team, the former stuffing and coating his face with cream-filled donuts and the latter whining about that and about everyone else in the house.  Sloth, too lazy to walk, was brought in on a sled.  The final sin, lust, was another woman from the audience.  She seemed mortified by the attention, tried to play along and then attempted to return to her seat.  Faustus prevented it, though, and an erotic dance ensued.  Oh, wait.  She must be an actress (or the most permissive audience member ever)!  We were duped.  Well played!  The actress returned in the second act to play the role of Helen, a pretty sight indeed.

As the play drew to an abrupt close with the death of Faustus, I was sorry to see an enjoyable and well-acted evening of theatre come to an end.  Perhaps the abruptness was by design, a sign that any death, even one known four and twenty years in advance, is too soon.  Whatever the intent, it was a quick end to Faustus as he was pulled down to Hell within a fog of stage smoke.  And then it was done.  And so is this post.  Terminat Author opus.

Finally!

Back on 8/17/14, I wrote about the Backstage Edition of Kill Shakespeare.  It was scheduled to be released in October, 2014, and I looked forward to adding it to my collection.  As bad luck (or publishing delays) would have it, October stretched into the new year.  On June 2, 2015, finally it was released officially.  My copy arrived with much fanfare (although perhaps that was only in my mind).  Now that the school year is over, I'll have plenty of time for play-going, film-watching and reading.  This one is near the top of the latter list.  (As I type this, I'm roughly half-way through.)