'Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead' will stream in cinemas from April 20 as part of NT Live
Daniel Radcliffe is brilliant as dim, doomed Danish courtier Rosencrantz (or is it Guildenstern – nobody’s quite sure) in the latest big revival of Tom Stoppard’s classic 1966 play. ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’ is a mind-bending absurdist comedy set between the lines of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’. Living in a strange, existential void – essentially backstage at a production of the play – the Danish prince’s titular childhood friends bicker and grump while trying to shake the uneasy feeling that their lives seems to have no meaning or significance beyond their bit parts in ‘Hamlet’.
It is a fascinating choice of play for the star of the second most successful entertainment franchise in human history to opt for, because Rosencrantz isn’t really a star role. He essentially serves as a deadpan foil to Joshua McGuire’s prattling, nervous, more intellectual Guildenstern. Lest we forget, one of D-Rad’s most recent film parts was as a farting corpse in ‘Swiss Army Man’; this is obviously pretty different, but both are suggestive of a man happy to bury his ego in the name of chuckles. And he really is very good, a beautifully pitched arsenal of vacant stares, uncomprehending looks and beatific smiles, occasionally boiling over to high panic. He is a wonderful counterweight to the febrile, twitchy McGuire, and does something similar for David Haig’s Player King, a travelling actor played like Jack Sparrow’s sinister brother by the reliably brilliant stage veteran.
The problem, then, with David Leveaux’s revival is that the play itself feels trapped in its own limbo. The premise remains a masterstroke but the play is so famous now that this alone can’t keep it fresh. Moreover, it feels – or Leveaux’s production makes it feel – there’s little that can be done with this technically exacting piece that wasn’t mapped out half a century ago. Set backstage at a dated-looking, period ‘Hamlet’, in most respects it doesn’t feel significantly different to the last major London revival (Trevor Nunn’s, in 2011). It’s not a massive problem – the play remains pacy, funny and unconventional – but there’s a sense of underlying unadventurousness. Ironically, it feels more like a museum piece than the 400-year-old tragedy it riffs upon.