Tom Stoppard ponders the absurdity of life and the inevitability of death in his existentialist comedy classic Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead, the thrillingly staged if occasionally inscrutable latest from A Noise Within.

 Shakespeare buffs will recall the title characters from their comic relief-providing featured roles in Hamlet, best friends summoned by the recently crowned King Claudius to spy upon his disgruntled nephew, though it’s Hamlet who gets the not-quite-last laugh by secretly substituting his college chums’ names for his own in a letter his uncle has written ordering his death, thereby providing the inevitable end to a pair of lives so absurd, their individual identities seem virtually interchangeable.

 Stoppard’s inspired conceit is to make these two bit players the stars of the show, with occasional appearances by a quintet of Hamlet principals and by the troupe of roving players the Prince has hired to expose his mother’s betrayal and his uncle’s usurpation of the kingly crown.

An opening sequence during which Rosencrantz (Kasey Mahaffy) and Guildenstern (Rafael Goldstein) play a hilariously improbable game of coin toss and another that has the pair attempting to carry on a conversation made up entirely of non-rhetorical questions set an initially accessible absurdist comedic tone, though what follows proves not quite as easily fathomable.

 Fortunately, master director Geoff Elliot, a pair of sensational lead performances, and an all-around superb supporting cast go a long, long way towards making a tough read of a play a good deal more comprehensible than it is on the printed page, and a whole lot funnier to boot.

As it twists and turns towards its inevitable end, Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead probes existentialist questions of identity, fate, mortality, reality, free will, alienation, and the folly of life itself in a series of conversations between its titular protagonists with occasional appearances by a philosophizing thesp known only as The Player (Wesley Mann).

Along the way, Stoppard inserts sequences culled directly from Hamlet among those he has written in contemporary English, scenes director Elliott has his Shakespeareans play a bit off-kilter with the aid of Jenny Foldenauer’s Tim Burton-esque costumes and Klint Flowers’ matching wigs and makeup.

 Acing arguably their most challenging assignments to date, a pitch-perfectly in-sync Mahaffy and Goldstein dazzle throughout, the former as the perhaps not-so-wacky-as-he-seems Rosencrantz, the latter as the more introspective, philosophizing Guildenstern … or is it the other way around?

 Mann’s The Player does his own delectable scene stealing, whether attempting to interest R&G in taking an active part in his ragtag troupe’s pornographic, pedophiliac fare or doing his profession proud by dying onstage like the most masterful of master thespians.

As Mann’s fellow (if considerably less loquacious) Tragedians, Oscar Emmanuel Fabela, Jonathan Fisher, Matt Jennings, and Philip Rodriguez play it deliciously creepy, kooky, mysterious, and spooky, and the astonishing young Sam Christian’s Alfred is quietly heartbreaking in high-heeled drag.

 Paul David Story’s blond bombshell of a Hamlet is ably supported by the equally askew Jonathan Bray (Claudius), Abby Craden (Gertrude), Apollo Dukakis (Polonius), and Katie Rodriguez (Ophelia), with Michael Yapujian’s Horatio and Marc Leclerc’s Ambassador playing it suitably straight in the play’s direct-from-Shakespeare coda.

Frederica Nascimento sets the production in what looks rather like an empty Hollywood soundstage, a clever scenic design dramatically lit by Ken Booth and featuring Sydney Russell’s properties and Kristin Campbell’s projections, with master sound designer Jeff Gardner setting a appropriately quirky mood throughout.

Gabrielle J. Bruno is stage manager and Jacob Houser is assistant stage manager. Kaja Sondergaard is costume assistant and Ken Merckx is fight consultant. Additional casting is by Nicole Arbusto.

Nick Bruno, José Angel Donado, Emily Goss, Kyle T. Hester, Emily Kosloski, Abe Martell, Dale Sandlin, Story, and Frederick Stuart are understudies.

Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead may always be a bit too much of a brain-teaser for my taste, but as any A Noise Within fan might easily have predicted, California’s Home For The Classics delivers the Stoppardian goods in spades.

A Noise Within, 3352 East Foothill Blvd, Pasadena.
www.ANoiseWithin.org

–Steven Stanley
October 13, 2018
Photos: Craig Schwartz

Tags: A Noise Within, Los Angeles Theater Review, Tom Stoppard