Review: Hilarious cast brings ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’ to life at Jobsite Theater

Sir Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” is an absurdist comic take on Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” that challenges audiences with dizzying linguistic pyrotechnics. But even before we enter into the intellectual tennis game between playwright and audience, the comic tone is set by the sounds of “Another One Bites the Dust” coursing through the house speakers and blanketing the audience with an aural hint of what’s to come.

In Laurence Olivier’s award-winning “Hamlet” film (1948)—which is free on Amazon Prime in case you wish to refresh yourself before you go—he explicitly states that the story is about a man who “couldn’t make up his mind.” Mr. Stoppard's mind, however, is like a trompe l'oeil painting where nothing is what it appears to be. The title characters are somewhat reminiscent of “Waiting for Godot,” always expecting something to happen. They gamble while they wait, flipping coins that absurdly always come up heads. Then there’s verbal ping pong that will keep you on your toes trying to follow, as well as random observations like your “fingernails grow after death, but your toenails don’t.”

The scenery and costumes are largely transplanted from last season’s Hamlet. Brian Smallheer’s Elsinore is a castle with cartoon battlements and spring-loaded six-panel double doors up center used to comic effect. Katrina Stevenson (Ophelia) does her usual double duty with costumes that make terrific use of handsome embroidery as a motif. Claudius, for instance, has tiny branches and leaves on his shoulder that recall an epaulet. The title characters jump out dramatically in shades of red and black. Jo Averill-Snell provides thoughtful lighting, with evocative texture, a colorful pirate raid, and a dramatic isolation for the finale.

Jobsite often embraces non-traditional casting, feeling free to place actors in roles in which they historically would not have been cast. Here, they swap the traditional gender for Hamlet’s college buddies, although the women are costumed in ahistorical pants instead of gowns from an indeterminate period. It’s really totally seamless. Katherine Yacko’s (Rosencrantz) ensemble is a military marching band plus cutaway hi-lo gown hybrid. Nicole Jeannine Smith (Guildenstern) sports a double-breasted red jacket under a handsome black cape with stunning floral embroidery.

Director David M. Jenkins has chosen to stage much of the show as a vaudeville, with lots of broad physical humor which the accomplished cast carries off with aplomb. The packed audience eats up the schtick. For me, though, it’s not necessary to gin up and italicize the wordplay. Ms. Yacko has lots of “SNL”-type physical comedy, strutting (and picking her teeth) which is skillfully executed, and Ms. Smith, one of the region’s premiere actors who is capable of making almost any dialogue real, just seems to be working hard with the “Who’s on First?”-style verbal silliness.

It’s not a wrong-headed choice in theory, given that the dialogue is intensely packed with philosophical word play on the nature of free will alongside multi-faceted meditations on death.

“Eternity is a terrible thought, I mean where is it going to end.” But Stoppard is so facile that the comedy is built in, so that the carefully crafted business isn’t really necessary for the show to soar. Still, I seem to be the only audience member who notices.

Using the same actors who lead “Hamlet” in what are minor roles in R&G, pays special dividends in the tragedians’ ensemble. It’s a regional all-star supporting cast: Giles Davies (Hamlet), Ned Averill-Snell (Claudius), Hugh Timoney (Polonius) in various neutral caps and hoods with their faces masked, you easily see the skilled quintet individualizing the players. Roxanne Fay (Gertrude) is especially notable as the young Alfred, providing subtle and uproarious mute comedy. And director Jenkins has particular fun manipulating his silent, masked players. In addition Davies, who famously sports long brown locks, appears with comically askew pigtails in his early scenes as Hamlet.

The one cast member who is not a holdover from last season is Jack Holloway as the braggadocio Lead Player reminiscent of a full-bearded Robin Hood in a green cape with tan leather straps on the left shoulder. He captures just the right tone and has one hilarious bit when his eyes go wild flitting to-and-fro.

Stoppard is “much possessed by death,” The tragedians pull off a splendid coup with the mimic stabbing of players whose main job it is to fake extinction to order. “Death is what the actors do best. They kill beautifully. The audience knows what to expect, and that’s all they are prepared to believe in.” The play scene gets amusingly out of hand as the actors become hilariously sexually over-enthusiastic and suggest that the traveling troupe may provide sexual favors on request. But “blood is compulsory; it’s what we do. We are actors; we are the opposite of people.”

One of my favorite Stoppard lines reminds us that another Shakespearean aphorism, “All the world’s a stage,” is indeed true. Just as R&G wait in the wings to appear as minor roles in “Hamlet,” we live our lives on the inexorable slide toward death as characters in stories of the unscripted plays of our family, friends, and co-workers. As the Lead Player perceptively notes, it’s not just for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but for us all that an “exit is an entrance somewhere else.”

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