Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead

Not exactly Shakespeare, but Hamlet-buffs familiar with Tom Stoppard's play will recognize why I include it here. Stoppard took two minor characters and made them the center of his inside-out Hamlet. In many versions of Hamlet it does appear that R&G are pawns, innocent victims of Claudius' feud with Hamlet. I felt that way for a long time, especially after seeing R&G Are Dead in London in 1975.

But a community theatre production of Hamlet changed my view of R&G. After the killing of Polonius it is R&G who capture Hamlet and bring him to Claudius, roughing up their old school chum in the process. 'Shakespeare On Wheels' employed a similar direction. Thus I was reminded of Hamlet's line in explaining his note switching to Horatio --

They did make love to this employment; they are not near my conscience; their defeat does by their own insinuation grow.

However, Stoppard's play (and an excellent film starring Gary Oldman, Tim Roth and Richard Dreyfuss) contains some of the most brilliant dialogue in the modern theatre, as well as an exquisite definition of tragedy.

Player: There is a design at work in all art -- surely you know that? Events must play themselves out to aesthetic, moral and logical conclusion.
Guildenstern: And what's that, in this case?
Player: It never varies -- we aim at the point where everyone who is marked for death dies. ...
Guildenstern: Who decides?
Player: Decides? It is written. We're tragedians, you see. We follow directions --- there is no choice involved. The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means.
from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Act 2

Looking For Richard

Looking For Richard: The documentary produced by Al Pacino on his quest to find the inner meanings of Shakespeare's play.

Theatre of Blood

Check this Vincent Price horror film out of the video store and enjoy. A has-been Shakespearean actor has the final word on several critics who dared to criticize him. He chooses to off them in creatively Shakespearean ways, following the several deaths in the plays of his last season

The Reduced Shakespeare Company: Complete Works of Shakespeare

A stage production of insanity as a troup of three very funny men do something about all 37 plays in a little over two hours. All of the histories as football game (with a crown for the ball); Titus Andronicus as a Julia Child style cooking show (pretty much all I ever wanted to know about this play); Othello done in rap form and the comedies blended together into one improbable plot that almost made sense. Hamlet done from subtext with audience participation supplying Ophelia's inner angst ("I want babies now!").

Should you get a chance to see the RDC do this show (or any other, for that matter) this writer highly recommends them as way to waste an evening and truly enjoy it.