Hawks and Handsaws
"If six monkeys were thrown into the air..." I suppose it's even odds
they would land their tails as much as their heads. If they landed on
their tails they might take up writing plays. On their heads; they
might get work as guitarists for the Rolling Stones.
I saw the DC company
Longacre Lea's mount of a Tom Stoppard play the other weekend at the Callan theater, Catholic University
Longacre Lea Productions - Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.
My niece Nicole knew one of the production assistants (I think through
the Folger Shakespeare theater's drama workshops). The six monkeys are
from a speculative line from the first act. You gotta think these things
through, and it always helps to do this with monkeys.
The Washington
Post dissed the play in an early review
Slow Death for 'Rosencrantz & Guildenstern':
They had two supposed reasons. Length - aye, seeing that they were
staging a minimalist production to start they might have aimed at a
certain brevity. Three hours ain't brief. Their other concern was -
"Jonathon Church's overly twitchy interpretation of Guildenstern." I
am not a theatre person, nor was an english major. (iantp|em), but I
didn't notice this at all. I thought he did an excellent job. Perhaps
he did not give the sense of claustrophobic fate Guidenstern needs to
bring to the role, while at the same time maintaining the appropriate
forward verbal momentum. I tend to think of Samuel Beckett in terms of
dread, and Pinter for uncomprehended fate. You can't deny these to
Stoppard, but I don't he wants to jam ashes in your eyes either.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are characters from Shakespeare, old
friends of Hamlet's that the King has sent for to try to find what his
mal-affliction consists of. Hamlet claims: "I am but mad north
north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw" (Hamlet, MIT).
However; Hamlet is quite mad. He is a man who fate has dealt an
unfortunate turn. He has lost his main chance in life, a prince set to
become king, when his father dies and his uncle takes the throne. There
is nothing really that favors Hamlet's version of things from more
ordinary explanations that yet strip him of future kingship. Hamlet
does nothing that deserves our according him status of trustworthy
viewpoint. The hawk from a handsaw comment featured in both plays forms
the critical nexus. Folded double-meanings that rather than speaking to
Hamlet's strategic purpose and clarity are indicative of doubt and a
paranoid state of mind that colors his entire uncharitable and
mistrustful dealings with Rosencrantz & Guildenstern. A henshaw is
a small bird that a hawk will catch and eat:
Brewer, E. Cobham. Dictionary of Phrase & Fable. Hawk and Handsaw..
Predator and prey. Alternately a hawk is a name of a builders tool the
board a bricklayer holds mortar with. Hamlet tells us he can
differentiate one thing from another. In the 'recorder' passage that follows (playing the
stops etc) there is nothing Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern can say to Hamlet, or do, that is not put uniformly into the
worst light. He never attempts to differentiate or measure things. His
statements to everyone are hostile caustic riddles, launched with
insinuating aggression. Rosencrantz and Guilderstern, the lead
charactors of Stoppard's play, have every reason to feel unease as they
wander through Shakespeare's drama unaware the events around them are
hurtling towards a fixed violent conclusion. You get a sense from the
title that things will not end particularly well for our heroes.
This is the significance of the coin flipping scene that begins the
play. Called from the ether into being in a world of no even chance, no
free will, of determined and tragic fate. Their lives in the hands of
an angry and confused man. Placed into this world by a writer intent on
illustrating the intractability of tragic course. They discover at the
outset that Guildenstern can flip a coin any number of times - it will
always come up heads. Dimly this brings awareness that they are not
living in a normal world where reason and other experience dictate this
ought not happen. The one thing left open to them is to grope forward
to an understanding of the narrowness of their world and fate.
Some of Tom Stoppard's other works include 'the Real Inspector
Hound' (which this same company did last year), 'Jumpers', 'Every good
boy deserves favor', 'Doggs Hamlet', 'Cahoots Macbeth'. There is a
theme of plays within plays that runs through a lot of this
Tom Stoppard - Wikipedia.
In addition to directing the film version of Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are Dead. he co-scripted the unique movie 'Brazil' with Monty
Python's Terry Gilliam. As well he scripted 'Empire of the Sun' based
on JG Ballard's novel. That movie was autobiographical of the Ballard's
own childhood. I was unaware of the way that Stoppard's life (born
Tomas Straussler in the current Czech republic) paralleled Ballard's in
some aspects until looking over his Wiki bio. That and another
Wikipedia article also indicate that recently he wrote a script, which
apparently is not going to be used, for the seemingly troubled motion picture production of Philip Pullman's trilogy.
His Dark Materials - Wikipedia (also
His Dark Materials - imdb).
11:54:33 PM  ;;
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