The long and short of it: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at the Old Vic
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
The Old Vic
11 March 2017, matinee
Dress Circle E11, £16
http://www.oldvictheatre.com/whats-on/2017/rosencrantz-and-guildenstern/
As a teenager I had a fondness for the film version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, possibly because of the wit and wordplay and exploration of Hamlet but also at least in part because I had a thing for Tim Roth (I'd watched Reservoir Dogs too young on my own in the middle of the night and what can I say, seeing him die had a big impact). I've not revisited the play much in the last decade and now, after seeing David Leveaux's excellent production, I can't help but think it's the poor man's Waiting for Godot: very clever, often very funny, generally interesting, but also smug.
Still, aside from the play's longeurs I passed a very entertaining afternoon. Leveaux and set designer Anna Fleischle have created a slick production that succeeds in every way you would wish. It has the rare distinction of actually being improved by its incidental music, by Corin Buckeridge; kudos also to the onstage band of actor musicians. Pleasingly, the three leads are perfectly cast. I'm not Daniel Radcliffe's biggest fan (to be fair, Harry Potter was probably something of a poisoned chalice) but he's got touchingly/comically awkward/confused/lost down pat, and he is the ideal foil to Joshua McGuire. I think I've only seen McGuire previously in The Magistrate at the National; here as there he has perfect comic timing, engaging stage energy and simply wonderful diction.
In addition to their good rapport and excellent timing and all that, Radcliffe and McGuire are also about the same height, namely, short. David Haig, who plays the Player, is tall, and I'm afraid I enjoyed this a lot (and it certainly makes a lot more sense to me than Richard Dreyfus in the film). Haig intrudes into R&G's world like a galumphing giant, Gandalf among the Bagginses etc etc. In reality he's probably only a head taller but in my mind he looms gigantically over these abandoned characters whose only purpose is to disappear. All three together deliver an ensemble performance that could not be bettered, let down only by the dragging pace of this youthful play.
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