A short, blunt human pyramid

[ewx]

Quite a few people I know seem to have been to see Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead on Saturday. It's the third timed I've seen it (now twice as a play and once as a film) and it's as engaging as ever. James Wallace in particular made a great, Blackadderish Guildenstern.

This staging tended to use sound hints that we were briefly in a bit of Hamlet - when in fact the language is a good enough hint as it is. A cute device, certainly, but it felt somewhat at odds with the minimality of the rest of the production to me.

One thing I wondered, is the “no grunting” from the Question Tennis in the original script, or is it a post-Seles interpolation?

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

No, it's not. (http://www.cruel-angels.com/ragad/questions.html)

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

The other cue was that the lighting went colder and bluer in Hamlet, warmer and yellower in R&G. (Actually, I didn't particularly notice the aural hints.)

Great performance, though. BTW - did you attend the matinee or the evening performance?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Matinee. Yes, I should have mentioned the visual hints too, actually.

[kaet.livejournal.com]

One thing I noticed about the lighting was the way that it was very formally austere. I suppose that fitted with the set design. Ime, you're much more likely to see key-and-fill-warm/cold externals and warm internals these days. I suppose it's realism, but it's something that you tend to get in all kinds of play, I find. Having warm and cold washes depending on the action is very pathetic[1], which I suppose fits with the ironic melodrama you get in the play. It does give you hellish crossfades, though, and there were a fair few dodgy ones that I noticed, :(.

[1] With a literal use of the word.

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is.
(http://www.unseelie.org/rpg/question.html)
(A friend with a copy of the script confirms this.)

(S)

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

The play and the film script differ. Either way, 'no grunts' is not 'no grunting'. That matters with scripts.

[senji.livejournal.com]

Given how far they were deviating from the subtitles at points…

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

We're talking about the play.

ewx was recalling dialogue from memory and got the precise phrasing slightly wrong.

(S)

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I suspect Mr K is well enough acquainted with his own work on Usenet to appreciate the distinction and own his words.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

It seems more likely to me that the play as produced follows the script than that I remembered the exact wording somewhat more than 24 hours later. All human memory is fallible and mine is no exception.