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Show Rosencrantz and . . . 'Worms -eye view of Hamlet' BY JANE COTTRELL "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" played twice Friday to local audiences. The performances in Kingsbury Hall made it easy to see why this play by Tom Stoppard was named the best play of 1968. "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" has been dubbed "a worm's-eye view of Hamlet." The appellation implies comedy, and comic the play certainly is-but it can be much more than that. Viewed through the eyes of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet's college buddies, the J events in Shakespeare's play take , on an even more muddled aspect than they do in the original. The confused pair, assigned by '"udius to find out what's amlet, don't really have of what the situation is, La problem, or how to Ergo, they kill time by flipping coins, playing word games and testing each other's unfortunately unfortu-nately idle wits. Their bumbling antics are laced with excerpts from Shakespeare's tragedy, and the result is comedy-comedy full of quick quips, an extremely fast script to delight the theatre buff. But it doesn't end there; the play is singularly appropos of the times. Whether Stoppard is spoofing spoof-ing or whether he's serious is hard to tell, but the question is raised: Isn't the baffled plight of Rosencrantz Rosen-crantz and Guildenstern the plight of all modern men, whether they realize it or not? The bringing of this excellent play to the Utah campus is certainly cer-tainly a credit to its sponsors, Artists and Speakers and Lectures and Concerts of the Division of Continuing Education. More offerings of-ferings of this sort should certainly cer-tainly be the goal of these committees com-mittees and of those who fund them. |
