"Clever Take on Bard-speak: Shakespeare Theatre presents Stoppard's wordplay-ful spin on 'Hamlet' "

By Peter Filichia

June 05, 2006

Here in Madison , [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is] getting a first-rate production from director Paul Mullins, who once again proves he's among the first rank of those who stage plays in New Jersey.

Stoppard has Rosencrantz start out as a dullard, but someone who turns out to be slightly brighter and stronger than he originally seemed. Sean Mahan achieves that transition to perfection. As Guildenstern, David Conrad has a wonderfully Shakespearean manner about him. (Those who saw him do "Richard II" here a couple of years ago won't be surprised at that.) His Guildenstern displays the wide-eyed confidence of those who have no idea how much trouble they're in.

And yet, Andrew Weems has the best role. He's "The Player," an actor-director-producer who goes on and on about the wonders of the theater. Perhaps the reason that there's barely a stick of scenery on the stage is that Weems has chewed it all. And while that's usually a criticism, here it's the greatest possible compliment, for hamming it up is exactly what Weems is supposed to do with this character. At the end, when he must show a truthful side, he's dazzlingly effective.

... Anthony Marble is so arresting in the part that Mullins should consider staging "Hamlet" with him.

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Excerpted from The Princeton Packet

"The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey opens its 44th season with Tom Stoppard's take on 'Hamlet.' "

By Stuart Duncan

June 7, 2006

...And once again The Shakespeare Theatre has triumphed. Director Paul Mullins has found three actors who can play Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and The Player with style and bravado, then blended them so that the individual styles interlace with apparent ease. In the process he scatters playwright Stoppard's witticisms to the side walls and his musing to the foyer like so much confetti, all the time leaving the pith of the piece to be gleaned as needed.

. . . the temptations are formidable: David Conrad, as Guildenstern, is charming in his determined passivity; Sean Mahan, as Rosencrantz, is so compelling in his agonized indecision; and The Player (Andrew Weems) is deliciously pompous as he states: "We're actors, we're the opposite of people." It is a world that Dr. Seuss would hail — the adventure is joyful (a little long, perhaps, but Stoppard would prove always to take the long route to conversation). At the end, we realize for ourselves that we too are in a world beyond our comprehension and we welcome the final scene that returns us to the familiarity of Elsinore .

... But, thanks to Director Mullins and Conrad, Mahan and Weems, the journey is never ill-conceived, nor the road dusty.

For full review, click here.
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Excerpted from Talkin' Broadway

"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are . . . Two Pretty Lively Corpses"

By Bob Rendell

June 7, 2006

The Shakespeare Theatre's 2006 season is off to an excellent start with a lively, inventive production of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead . Despite the play's ever advancing undercurrent of melancholy, director Paul Mullins has taken seriously Stoppard's assertion that the play is foremost a comedy, and successfully emphasizes the brilliant verbal humor, high and low brow, with a knockabout vaudeville style performance.

...Sean Mahan (Rosencrantz) and David Conrad (Guildenstern) display excellent comic timing, playing off one another as the not quite interchangeable title duo, who, in a running gag, cannot be told apart by anyone in the play, including, at times, themselves. It seems that Guildenstern is the more inclined to optimism, and Rosencrantz to cynicism. Or is it the other way around? What is clear is that both actors deliver their dense but witty dialogue with maximal lucidity and liveliness. The Player. . . as performed with zest and a mischievous gleam in his eye by Andrew Weems, is a delight. A major Player here, Weems jousts with Mahan and Conrad and, along with them, delivers the sparkling vaudevillian humor of the play.

Director Paul Mullins maintains the high standard of his recent work for the Shakespeare Theatre.

For full review, click here.

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Excerpted from CurtainUp

"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead"

By Simon Saltzman

All reports that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead have been greatly exaggerated. They are clearly alive and well, at least, for most of Tom Stoppard's funny play which is now making an appearance at the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey, after almost 20 years.

... the production, under the direction of Paul Mullins, is enlivening enough to possibly stir up the dead

...In support of the title characters, played respectively and delectably by Sean Mahan and David Conrad are the seasoned Andrew Weems, as the Player, an outlandish ham of the first order, and the youthful Seamus Mulcahy, as Alfred, the youngest of Weems' morally reckless ("tired of being what they are") traveling thespians, and the one given all the "en travestie" assignments. Both Weems, with his delicious disregard for underplaying, and Mulcahy, with his humiliations all but painted on his innocent face, present a glowing balance of loquacity and mime, perfectly in tune and perfectly contrasted. Their presence and relationship alone are worthy of yet another play within the play within the play.

For full review, click here.