From Sophocles' Oedipus, through Shakespeare's Hamlet, to Beckett's Estragon and Vladimir, tragically ignorant or unconfident of the significance of their actions, or comically incapacitated by deference to an anticipated bestower of meaning ('Godot') who never turns up; the theatre has a longstanding preoccupation with the possibility and nature of individual human action. A peculiarly apt medium to explore the tensions between authentic self-creation and mere puppetry or mechanism, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is part of a theatrical tradition which casts the stage as the human condition; a self-conscious re-working and elaboration of the inherited metaphor.
      The English Touring Theatre's new production, showing at the lovely Richmond Theatre, gives a faithful and brilliantly timed interpretation of Tom Stoppard's 1966 debut play, in which Shakespeare's minor characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are (mis)appropriated and thrown into the existential crisis originally reserved for Hamlet. Sensitive to the fact that the characters can't upstage Stoppard's script, which jokes with the audience even while its unsuspecting actors speak their lines, the set, costume and music are marked by simplicity. (The set perhaps excessively so, with its stacked chairs, fire exit, and real-time clock giving the impression of a school hall - albeit thus providing another layer to the theatrical metaphor.) The central actors ruminate and converse with a sincerity and naturalness crucial to the absurd effect of the play, and in their very lack of theatrical pretension, Nicholas Rowe and James Wallace capture excellently the awkward familiarity, contempt, and even reluctant love between Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. James Faulkner's paternalistic and exuberant Player deserves special mention for his convincing mock-mock-death, and the rest of the cast play multiple characters with technical ease and almost balletic co-ordination.
      But the largest presence in this play is inevitably Stoppard himself, through the protesting medium of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The humility of this production is its virtue, its apparent lack of sophistication being even essential to the play's impact. Thus despite their best efforts to take control, the two gentlemen stumble uncomprehending through scripts not of their own making, unable to escape narratives imposed variously by Stoppard, Shakespeare, the King, the Prince, and even the Players. They were sent for, and - inexplicably to themselves - they came. So Rosencrantz complains, 'Incidents... All we get is incidents... Is it too much to ask for a little sustained action?; and Guildenstern observes in disbelief and disappointment, 'We've contributed nothing!' And when - as frequently - they evade or forget their orders, their every impulse strikes them as doubly arbitrary, and they are consigned to yet deeper meaninglessnesses, slipping into mere 'play'. (In a cruel joke, Stoppard threatens even their games by suspension of the authoritative laws of probability and logic, the coins they toss for bets turning up heads 90 times consecutively). Rosencrantz and Guildenstern continually try to recall an authoritatively ordained purpose, as though some remembered instruction or discovered note might make sense of what they are doing. But the memories and notes when they come don't make sense either.
      So in states of permanent amazement, the nature of their actions constantly outrunning their knowledge and intent, Stoppard's eponymous anti-protagonists inhabit a world that fundamentally eludes their active participation. The mismatched pair are affectionate, hopeful, ridiculous, deferential, competitive, vain, but above all nostalgic for a time when they remembered their names. In this absurd context, their last ditch defiance is to try to make sense of their situation by re-description. This initiates the elaborate wordplay that is perhaps the special interest of the play, though it is more clever than deep and fails in my view to live up to Beckett's more austere dialogue. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern constantly re-deploy words in an attempt to subvert imposed realities. Each hopes that with enough ingenuity he might find some portrayal of his situation that countenances him as its author, and renders it his own. They speak in puns, draw inverted inferences and upside-down syllogisms, refuse to see the consequences of their beliefs, attach perverse meanings to each others' expressions, confuse word orderings, and pre-empt thoughts. But ultimately the words always trip them up and catch them out, so that Stoppard leaves them 'high' when they thought they were 'home' - and dry.
      But what after all might salvation by re-description look like? Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's ambitions for autonomy are wildly erratic. Sometimes they aspire only to some description or other of what they are doing (as when they try to recall why they were sent for, and what they are supposed to do). Other times they want nothing less than to impose their own decisions, being unconfident equally in the capricious nature of the ruler (or player) who dictates their purpose, and in the spurious authority of the audience who interprets their acts. Guildenstern gestures into the auditorium, in a kind of exasperation that the sanity and significance of his life is to be decided by an audience who cannot find him intelligible. (In fact, this audience responds throughout not only with laughter, but also with uninhibited affection and recognition. The play's long run-time however means that there are two intervals, and by the third - least coherent - act, there is less participation.)
      Individuals less metaphysically deferential than Rosencrantz or Guildenstern might presume to trust their own self-conceptions and get on with it. But, with their constant lapses of memory and their incessant wordplay, all hopes are frustrated of achieving the narrative continuity and self-understanding pre-requisite for full-fledged character. Their sentences trail off, or are repeated, and they cannot remember their names, so it is fitting that the action should disintegrate towards the end. This is the charm of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Capturing a peculiar kind of deferential resistance, in the play's most touching moment, they claim indeed to be astounded by the 'implausibility' of their own story.
      If you like Stoppard, you will like this.
Naomi Goulder