Theatre 2024: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

The final show in our “Off-Mirvish” subscription series was the remounting of Tom Stoppard’s 1966 absurdist play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, highlighting two minor characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  Within the context of the play Hamlet, Rosencranz & Guildenstern (henceforth mentioned together as R&G) are two bumbling former childhood friends of the Danish Prince who are summoned to Elsinore Castle by his mother Gertrude and stepfather Claudius to observe and report on Hamlet’s strange behaviour.  They watch on as Hamlet mounts the play  “The Murder of Gonzago” to trap Claudius into admitting that he murdered Hamlet’s father.  In response, Claudius bribes R&G into betraying Hamlet by escorting him by boat to England with a letter to the English King requesting Hamlet’s execution.  Hamlet discovers the plot and switches the letter with a new one indicating that R&G should be put to death instead.

To some degree, Stoppard’s play retells this small subplot of the play Hamlet, but from the perspective of R&G.  We first meet the pair as they sit together in an indeterminant location, repeatedly playing a game betting on whether a flipped coin comes down heads or tails with the winner pocketing the coin. Guildenstern stubbornly calls “Heads” and loses 89 consecutive coins which seems to violate basic laws of probability.  This coin flip scene is our first clue that we are watching an absurdist play.  Absurdism is the philosophy that the universe is irrational and meaningless and trying to find meaning is a useless endeavour that leads to conflict.  Theatre of the Absurd is a term coined for plays that focus on absurdism.  Throughout the play, Guildenstern becomes upset at the incongruity of his experiences and acts out aggressively because of it.  Rosencrantz is gentler in nature and seems satisfied to just go with the flow since he can’t (or won’t) actively change anything anyways.  He just wants to be happy and to make his friend happy as well, to the point where he rigs a new coin game so that Guildenstern would win every time.

R&G seem unsure of who they are (mixing up each other’s names), why they are there, where they are headed, or what they can remember.  This theme of Individual Identify or lack thereof, further accentuates the irrationality of the universe.  They meet up with a theatre troupe led by a character known as “The Player” who seems to hold the answers to their confusion but does not or cannot reveal them clearly to R&G.  When they first meet, the Player refers to R&G as “fellow artists” as if alluding to the fact that the pair are actually actors or characters within a larger story (i.e. the play of Hamlet?).  Because of this, it is debatable whether R&G have any free will or ability to change a destiny that has already been pre-determined for them. While they consider it, they make no efforts to choose any path other than the one laid out for them.  Their fate and the inevitability of their deaths are so set in stone that it is actually in the title of Stoppard’s play (no spoiler alert required).  In this regard, R&G act as a stand-in for the “everyman” since death will ultimately come to us all.

Stoppard cleverly weaves actual scenes from Hamlet with the extra discourse and musings between Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and the Player. When speaking to any of the other characters within the play Hamlet, the Shakespearean text is quoted making it very meta since we are watching a play within a play.  The two titular characters are played by Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd who previously paired up to play the Hobbits Merry and Pippen in the movie version of Lord of the Rings.They are both excellent in their roles as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern respectively, especially Monaghan whose facial expressions exude his character’s sweet innocence and bewilderment.

I’m not sure that I fully appreciate Theatre of the Absurd and why plays of this genre are considered entertaining.  Perhaps it takes too much brain power for my taste.  At very least, Hamlet is referenced in this Stoppard play, which gives it some relatable context for those who are familiar with Shakespeare’s classic as opposed to watching the absurdist play Waiting For Godot, or as I like to call it, “Waiting for this Play to End”.  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a three-act play that spans over three hours including two short intermissions.  This is an extremely long time to concentrate and try to follow along while inane, nonsensical dialogue is rapidly dispensed.  In the end, what I got out of it is this: “Life is absurd and then you die”.  I think this could have been conveyed in about half the time.

Theatre 2024: Aladdin

The next show in our 2023/24 Mirvish subscription series was a touring revival of the 2014 stage musical Aladdin, adapted from the same-named 1992 Disney animated film featuring songs by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman.  This movie was part of Disney’s “Renaissance” of commercially successful animated musicals that included The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.  In turn, the film is based on the story of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, a much darker Middle-Eastern folktale associated with the stories told in One Thousand and One (Arabian) Nights.  In that folktale, Aladdin is portrayed as lazy, greedy, self-entitled and kills two men (abeit evil sorcerers)—hardly the hero of modern-day depictions.

In Disney’s sanitized film version, Aladdin is a poor, thieving street urchin with a heart of gold who roams around the Middle-Eastern city of Agrabah with his sidekick Abu, a chattering little monkey.  He meets and falls in love with Princess Jasmine, but it is decreed by her father the Sultan that she must marry a prince.  The evil sorcerer and royal advisor Jafar seeks possession of a magic lamp with a genie inside who can grant three wishes.  Jafar’s minion is an ill-tempered parrot aptly named Iago.  The lamp is hidden inside a cave that only can be entered by a heroic “diamond in the rough” and Jafar realizes that Aladdin is the one.  Through mishaps in retrieving the lamp, Aladdin ends up becoming the genie’s master and wishes to be turned into a prince so that he can marry Jasmine.  Aladdin arrives at the palace riding a giant elephant (actually a transformed Abu) and woos Jasmine by taking her on a magic carpet ride while singing the now iconic song “A Whole New World”.  Jafar unmasks the fake prince and takes control of the lamp and genie, but Aladdin outwits him and marries Jasmine for the prerequisite Disney happy ending.

The late, comedic genius Robin Williams was the voice of the giant blue genie, and his manic, tour-de-force performance still acts as the gold standard for all subsequent portrayals of the genie in live action movies and stage musicals.  Singing the showstopping song “A Friend Like Me”, the genie goes through all sorts of magical gyrations to prove his powers, including morphing into various forms and multiplying into many genies, as only can be done through animation. To adapt this movie magic into something that would work in a live theatrical production takes some fancy stagecraft.

The musical does a great job of recreating the look and feel of the movie, with bright, colourful sets depicting the ancient city of Agrabah, the gilded and bejeweled cave where the lamp is found, and the palace.  The flowing silky costumes and in particular, the genie dressed in bright blue and Jafar in his long black robe, all channel the wardrobe of the characters in the film.  The animal sidekicks of the film have been replaced with human versions of Iago and Abu, but in place of the monkey are Aladdin’s three goofy but loyal friends Babkak, Omar and Kassim.

While the musical retains the same opening songs to introduce Agrabah (“Arabian Nights”) and Aladdin (“One Jump Ahead”) as in the film, additional songs were added including “Babak, Omar, Aladdin, Kassim” which the four friends sing to busk for money.  My favourite additional song is “High Adventure” where the three friends set off to the palace and fight royal guards in an attempt to save Aladdin who has been captured and imprisoned by Jafar.  Unfortunately, the new song “Proud of Your Boy”, meant to show Aladdin’s desire to honour a promise to his deceased mother to stop stealing, has taken on an infamously negative association when an American far-right, neo-fascist group named themselves “Proud Boys” after this song.  Poor Disney must be horrified.

To reproduce the animated extravaganza of the song “A Friend Like Me”, the extended live production number includes dancing waiters performing acrobatic moves, slinky harem girls and a slew of gold-clad, top-hatted tap dancers that look like they just came from the finale of A Chorus Line.  Additional lyrics are added to the song including a brief interlude where in quick succession, the genie sings notable lines from other Disney animated musicals including Beauty and the Beast (“Tale as old as time..”), Little Mermaid (“Look at this stuff..”) and Pocohantas (“.. And you’ll never hear the wolf cry…”).

The romantic magic carpet ride scene where Aladdin and Jasmine “soar” through the air was a bit of a letdown in this revival version of the show.  My husband Rich and I had actually watched this musical when it first previewed in Toronto in 2013 before heading to Broadway.  In that initial production, I seem to recall the carpet swooping across the entire stage with a large moon and starlit backdrop.  From what I see on Youtube, it is still like that on Broadway.  For our show, the stage went dark, and the carpet made short, constrained movements across a much smaller section of the stage with merely a spotlight on the Aladdin and Jasmine.  Also when “Prince Ali” (aka Aladdin in disguise) made his grand arrival at the palace, instead of an elephant he was pushed on stage sitting on what looked like a slightly raised Ikea trolley used to access objects on the top shelf.  At very least they could have created a taller platform and covered it with royal trimmings and decorations.  I guess these are the staging cuts and compromises that are made for a traveling road show that is only in town for a short period of time.

Better special effects were on display in the grand finale when Jafar takes control of the genie and wishes for himself to be the Sultan and ruler of the lands.  In a flash, Jafar’s black robe turns into a white Sultan’s robe.  Then when Aladdin tricks Jafar into wishing that he could be the most powerful genie, in another flash his robe turns bright red before he “vanishes” into the lamp that he is now trapped in.  Now that is some fancy stagecraft.

In general, this musical version of Aladdin provides all the feel-good fun of the Disney film.  Although it was probably targeted more for families with children, it was still a refreshing change from the many serious, tense or depressing plays that we have watched recently.  It was nice to just relax and enjoy an evening out, forgetting about the woes of the world. That is the power of good theatre.