What a difference a medium makes.

Earlier in this blog, I posted a review of Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” (check the December archives if you want to reminisce). After the review posted, a coworker-to-remain-nameless teased me a little about my negative review but told me that the play was coming to Redlands.

To quote myself:

“A heady and talky enterprise would lend itself well to the stage, where the tools and tricks of film just aren’t available, but in a medium based on visuals, endless philosophical dialogue becomes dull and ultimately pointless. … “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead” is too much a part of the theatrical experience to make the cinematic leap; nothing specific dooms the film, except that the premise was flawed from the start.”

Not to brag too much, but I was so right.

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“Hamlet” never really interested me; like most of Shakespeare’s plays, it’s fun to see it live, and after seeing Sir Laurence Oliver’s “Hamlet,” I feel I finally ‘got’ it, but still, I remain unmoved.

While watching “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead,” written and directed by Tom Stoppard, and adapted from his 1966 play, I got the impression that he didn’t love “Hamlet” either. His play basically upends order and makes Hamlet a minor character in his own life story, but you can be the judge on that one.

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