P L A Y B I L L

ge n erously su pport ed by

ARTIST NOTE: Ted Dykstra

How lucky am I to be able to be in one of the most famous plays of my generation, by a writer who is as famous, in one of my favourite theatres in the world? Yeah.

A lot of the laughs here in week two: Jordan and I going off the rails with dialogue at speed. How many times we have to hear Ken say he will never act on stage again. Watching Diego play a small part and not know his lines because he hasn’t decided on his timing. Trying not to look at Nancy because she makes me giggle. Ollie playing an actor, again. Daniel and Paolo having sex in Act Two. Bill Webster. (You’d have to know him)

Then there’s getting to know Leah, who I taught at NTS, Gregory, whom I have so admired in the last few years, Peyson, whom I’ve never met before this, Tim, who is my sports fix… And Nancy and Janet, who actually seem to like us all. Oh and let’s let Mike Ross write some music.

Did I mention Joe Ziegler was at the helm? Note to self: Gratitude is the only prayer there is. I am grateful.•

A MESSAGE FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Dear Friends,

A decade ago we sent a survey to our supporters in which one of the questions was: which play would you most like to see performed? The easy winner was Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. In the meantime we have staged three other Stoppard plays as well as the two plays that most influenced Stoppard in the writing of “R and G”: Hamlet (of course), and Samuel Beckett’s existentialist vaudeville act, Waiting for Godot. Those of you who were there when the great William Hutt created his last original performance as Beckett’s Vladimir, will remember that his playing partner was Jordan Pettle who is our Guildenstern tonight. You will also remember that tonight’s director Joe Ziegler played “Pozzo”, and “Lucky” was the ubiquitous Oliver Dennis who was also Horatio in Hamlet. Some of you will remember that Joe also directed Hamlet and that tonight’s Gertrude – Nancy Palk – played Gertrude then. As a company’s body of work grows these echoes grow with it. I am so glad that we are finally getting around to this play and, as Ted said, grateful for it all.•

TED DYkSTRA, Rosencrantz in

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

ALBERT SCHuLTz, Artistic Director

approximate running time: 2 hours and 30 minutes

there will be t wo 15 minute intermissions

ROSENCRANTzAND

GuILDENSTERN ARE DEAD

TOM STOPPARD ( uk 1966 )

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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is presented by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc. The audio and/or video recording of this performance by any means whatsoever is strictly prohibited.

spe ci a l t h a n ks: dav i d hoekst r a , ch r ist i n e lu ksts, em m a z u lkosk e y

Jacqueline Robertson-CullHead of Hair & Makeup

Susan Dicks,Geoff Hughes, Joanne LambertonCutters

Gulay Cokgezen, Janet Pym, Natalie SwierczSewers

Janet Pym Dresser

Kaz ChopicanMillinery

Greg ChambersProps Builder

Barbara NowakowskiFirst Hand

Mike KeaysCarpenter

CREATIVE TEAM

Joseph ZieglerDirector

Dana OsborneSet & Costume Designer

Kevin Lamotte Lighting Designer

Mike RossSound Designer & Composer

Nancy DrydenProduction Stage Manager

Janet GregorAssistant Stage Manager

Kelly McEvenueAlexander Coach

John SteadFight Director

David BenMagic Consultant

PRODuC T ION

SOuLPEPPER PRODuC T ION

ROSENCRANTz AND GuILDENSTERN ARE DEAD

Oliver DennisTragedian

Leah DozOphelia

Ted DykstraRosencrantz

Diego MatamorosClaudius

Nancy PalkGertrude

Jordan PettleGuildenstern

Gregory PrestHamlet

Peyson RockTragedian

Paolo SantaluciaAlfred

William WebsterPolonius

Kenneth WelshPlayer

Daniel WillistonTragedian

Tim ZieglerTragedian

CAS T

i llust r at ion: br i a n r e a

There are those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who say, “What happened?”

If life were a play, most of us would be minor characters. Tom Stoppard’s inspired idea

in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was to take two characters considered complete nonentities, bit players in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and give them starring roles. In an act of typical ingenuity, he set the action during Shakespeare’s tragedy, but backstage, if you will. Apart from a few brief scenes in which the action of both flows together, when the characters are onstage in Stoppard’s play, they are (or would be) offstage in Shakespeare’s play. It has become a classic, however, because familiarity with Hamlet is not necessary in order to delight in this play. Its madcap combination of highbrow intellectual discussion, high spirits and cheap jokes is frankly irresistible.

Stoppard requires a pleasurable combination of attention and surrender from his audience. This, his breakthrough play, takes us on a roller coaster ride of misadventures and musings. The playwright is fond of saying that the more doors there are for the audience to open, the better the play. There’s an almost giddy sense of freedom here as he flings open a gobsmacking range of subject “doors” from the search for value, to the impossibility of certainty, to the differences between “reality” and “art”, to the mystery and enormity of death. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern debate identity and meaning, play questions, impersonate other characters, interrupt each other, comment on the plot and action, and are flung willy-nilly into scenes and situations they apparently have no desire or intention to be a part of. Throughout they remain bit players even in their own lives, confused about everything from where they are to who they are. Part of the poignance – and the comedy – here is that they are unable to take any significant action to help themselves, continually at the mercy of fate and the whims of greater men. The world they inhabit can appear arbitrary but the Player (or the playwright) reassures them (and us) that “There’s a design at work in all art” even if we can’t always see it.

Stoppard himself is not fond of discussing what his works are about, but he does admit that his favourite synopsis of this play came from a journalist colleague who saw the first production. According to his friend, the story concerns “two reporters on a story that doesn’t stand up.” That, along with unexpected pratfalls and the zing of the playwright’s inexhaustible delight in wordplay. Add some of Soulpepper’s most beloved comedic talents and you have a feast for the eye, ear and mind. Welcome to the 2013 season!•

BIOGR APH Y

Tomáš Straussler was born on July 3, 1937 in Zlin, Czechoslovakia. Shortly thereafter his family fled the country for Singapore to avoid the imminent Nazi occupation. Stoppard’s father volunteered there as a doctor in the British army, but was killed during the Japanese occupation. The family eventually settled in England after the war, where his mother remarried to a British major Kenneth Stoppard, who adopted Tom and his brother, giving them his English name. Stoppard left school at seventeen to become a journalist, entering the world of theatre as a secondary drama critic. He completed his first play, A Walk on the Water, in 1960. In 1964, Stoppard received a grant that allowed him to write for several months, the fruits of which eventually became his most famous work, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966). After the success of Rosencrantz, Stoppard wrote prolifically for stage, film, radio and television. Some of his notable works include Travesties (1972), The Real Thing (1982), Arcadia (1993) and The Coast of Utopia, a trilogy of plays that premiered in 2002. Stoppard has received numerous awards, including one Academy Award and four Tony Awards, as well as a knighthood in 1997. With a large body of work that continues to be performed extensively around the world, Tom Stoppard is one of the most prominent dramatists of his generation.•

Background Notes by Paula Wing

BACkGROuND NOTES

416 866 8666SOuLPEPPER.CA

Soulpepper Theatre Company is an active member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (pact), the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (tapa) and Theatre Ontario, and engages, under the terms of the Canadian Theatre Agreement, professional artists who are members of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association. Scenic Artists and Set Decorators employed by Soulpepper Theatre Company are represented by Local 828 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. •

Do stay in touch, and please pass the pepper!

YOuNG CENTRE FOR THEPERFORMING ARTSTORONTO DISTILLERY HISTORIC DISTRICT

THANk YOu FOR AT TENDING!

SOuLPEPPER THANkS

For their generous support oF

ROSENCRANTz AND GuILDENSTERN ARE DEAD

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