Tom Stoppard: ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD (Dir. Yuri Butusov)

Premiere: September 16, 17, 19, 2023 Performed in Russian with Lithuanian subtitles Age 14+ Tom Stoppard's play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" was first performed in April 1967 at the Old Vic Theatre in London. At the time Stoppard was a little-known young playwright and theatre critic. In the play, two minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet – Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, men who failed to say "no" in time – became the heroes of contemporary drama. The familiar Shakespearean plot is masterfully re-staged: King Claudius summons Hamlet's friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to escort the prince to England, handing them a secret letter requesting his execution. The prince switches the letter and they fall into fate's trap. Scholars note that the play brilliantly fuses classical Shakespearean dramaturgy with Beckettian experiments, the aesthetics of the absurd, and virtuoso wordplay with English irony. Director Yuri Butusov prizes the play's poetry and the possibilities offered by the classic aesthetics of the absurd. The theatre-within-theatre illusion is reinforced by the laconic stage design of Marius Nekrošius. This is the first staging of the play in Lithuanian theatre.

Adresas: Vilniaus senasis teatras