When Tim Minchin pitched Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead to Sydney Theatre Company, it was apparently on the proviso that he work with Toby Schmitz and Simon Phillips. As the opening night performance showed, it was another inspired choice by the comedian from Perth.
This isn’t the first time Minchin and Schmitz have been cast in Tom Stoppard’s play, with both having played smaller characters in a university production in 1996. Seventeen years later, they appear as the main characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, in this very meta STC version. The result is a witty, intense number in which both actors shine.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead centres on the story of the two attendant courtiers in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, summoned by Claudius, King of Denmark, to determine why his nephew, Hamlet, is acting so unusually. In the Shakespearian version they are wooden characters who ultimately end up being executed. Rosencrantz (Minchin) summarises their roles perfectly when he whines to Guildenstern (Schmitz), ‘I’m better in support!’
In Stoppard’s script, these two bit-players become the main characters. Students of Hamlet will recognise the original dialogue spoken by Polonius, Ophelia, Hamlet and the king and Queen. In contrast, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern spend much of the beginning of the play engaged in their own comically confused analysis of events and conversations around them. As their mysteriously pre-written death draws nearer, the pair become increasingly more manic, as conversations take on an overriding air of existentialism reminiscent of Samuel Beckett’s works of the same era.
Watching Minchin and Schmitz together is a rare joy for the theatre fan. Their mutual respect for one other is evident whenever they’re on stage. Schmitz is the consummate professional, never putting a foot wrong throughout. Minchin is a less experienced stage actor, however only the harshest of critics would notice this single flaw: early in the piece, his accent was a little too upper class on occasion. More importantly, he was largely responsible for the superb comic timing evident throughout, playing the hapless Rosencrantz to perfection.
The theatre pedigree of the rest of the cast also shone through. Queen Gertrude (Heather Mitchell) and her attendants display affectations reminiscent of Tim Burton’s best protagonists, while the group of travelling players are firmly on the hilarious side of grotesque. Adele Querol doesn’t have much to do in her STC debut as Ophelia, but her appearances are slightly pantomime-like, in keeping with those of the court in general. Tim Walter is a convincingly paranoid Hamlet, and both Christopher Stollery and John Gaden are solid as Claudius and Polonius respectively.
Gabriela Tylesova designs a stunning set, which adequately fills a stage often too large for its content and proves once again why Phillips has collaborated with her so frequently. The effect is amplified by superb lighting crafted by Nick Schlieper and the suitably echoed sounds provided in intervals by sound designer Steve Francis. The musical score of Alan John also proves why he hasn’t been short of work at the STC in recent years.
The STC has had its fair share of criticism in recent years for their alternative adaptations of popular plays. There should be no such complaints about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which exceeds every expectation. Surely Stoppard himself would be proud.
Rating: 4 ½ stars out of 5
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Writer: Tom Stoppard
Director: Simon Phillips
Designer: Gabriela Tylesova
Lighting Designer: Nick Schlieper
Musical Director/ composer: Alan John
Sound Designer: Steve Francis
Assistant Director: Sarah Giles
Voice and Text Coach: Charmian Gradwell
Cast: Paul Cutlan, John Gaden, George Kemp, Angus King, Ewen Leslie, Tim Minchin, Heather Mitchell, Nicholas Papademetriou, Toby Schmitz, Berynn Schwerdt, Christopher Stollery, Aaron Tsindos, Adele Querol, Tim Walter
Sydney Theatre
6 August – 14 September
(Pictured: Toby Schmitz and Tim Minchin in Sydney Theatre Company’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Photo: Heidrun Lohr.)
