Do You Want To Play At Questions

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Do you want to play at questions? Rosencrants and Guildenstern Play Critique

Do you want to play Questions? Tom Stoppard's, ?Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead? was directed and produced by Michael Robertson, in a two act show performed at the Whitney Fine Arts Theatre on Loring Park. Colored and patterned with existentialism and feelings of absurdity, the two main characters Rosencrantz (played by Michael Snyder) and Guildenstern (played by Kyle Bowe) emerge and encounter a world where their meaning is arbitrary and where they become victims of seemingly random circumstances they neither proscribe nor control. The set (tastefully created by Rick Polenek) was simple, abstract, and somewhat bare. There were many levels, a center raised disk, (which is where the excerpts from Hamlet?s court [Colin Healy, Katrin Bachmeier, Mathew Falk, Jane Davich, and Jack Fits] within the play were enacted) and an Elizabethan mood which left a great deal of leeway for the lighting designer (operated by Jocelyn Shackelford) to be creative. The raised disk created a sense of distance between the stage for the court, and Roz and Guil- Here, they find themselves in an ?un-, sub, or supernatural world? where they are forced to adopt a role or embrace a fate which has been sealed by another author (Shakespeare). Shackelford took advantage of this opportunity and brought is some gobo lighting such as a window shadow in the background of the court scenes. Dustin Smith played classical guitar during the performance which added a delightful element and tone to the production. With many references to Becket, this existential/theatre of absurd... ?thrives to express its sense of senselessness of the human condition and the inadequacy of the rational approach by the open abandonment of rational devices and discursive thought.? -Stoppard. ?Do you want to play questions? is one of the most memorable scenes from the show. During this dialogue, Roz and Guil run o...