Shakespeare... ish

Back in college, when I was both reading and seeing more plays on a regular basis than I do today, I read Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. It takes the two minor characters from Hamlet and spins a story interwoven with Shakespeare's actual play, an existential and introspective affair loaded with wit and wordplay.

Even at the time, I knew there was a film adaptation of the play, written and directed by Stoppard himself. It even featured a promising cast, with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth in the title roles, and Richard Dreyfuss taking on the part of the Player (another minor role from Hamlet, enlarged to leading status here). Nevertheless, it was only recently that I finally got around to watching the movie.

I'm sorry to say that I was a bit disappointed. I'd like to chalk it up to the notion this is a better play than a movie, but the truth is I'd only ever read the original play; I've never seen it performed. In actuality, as I watched the movie, I became more and more convinced that perhaps this is a better piece for the writer who penned it, and for the actors performing it, than it is for the audience watching it.

It is, after all, damn clever. There are scenes of dizzying wordplay that are a triumph of the man who created them, and would be a blast to play as an actor taking on the roles. There are even interesting philosophical arguments raised, worthy of debate that the dialogue provides a healthy start on.

And yet, as a story, it's a rather disjointed thing. It's really only a loose collection of clever phrases and intellectual puzzlers, bound together by the conceit of "happening in the background as Hamlet transpired." It manages to suggest a lot of things without really saying much of anything, and even left me bored at times -- me, who had simply loved it years ago on the page.

But the acting is good at least. As I said, it must be great fun to perform, and it certainly seems as though the three main actors are relishing that. All give good performances, and handle the tricky dialogue with great skill. Still, I was more impressed with the technique than I was moved by anything they were presenting.

In the end, I concluded that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead -- at least in its film incarnation -- is a better intellectual exercise than a piece of entertainment. I rate it a C+.