Liverpool Shakespeare Festival presents Hamlet and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

Aug 13 2009 by Laura Davis, Chester Chronicle

It’s hard for an actor with a small part to watch from the wings as the spotlight follows the lead around the stage.

Not so for Richard Kelly, because what is a tiny role in Hamlet will transform into the protagonist of his next play.

And, even more satisfying, the Prince of Denmark will become nothing more than a bit part.

Liverpool’s Lodestar Theatre Company will become the first to perform Shakespeare’s tragedy, back-to-back with Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which explores the story of two minor characters from the original.

“The same actors play the same roles in both plays, and we use the same set and wear the same costumes,” says Kelly (Guildenstern).

“We’re rehearsing Hamlet at the moment and I’m also learning my lines for R&G. Reading the two plays side-by-side can get quite confusing.

“Sometimes I find myself launching into a scene from the wrong play.”

R&G, as they are calling it for convenience, starts outside the Danish castle where the two lead characters have been summoned by Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius, who is now king.

“He’s called them there to keep an eye on Hamlet and report back to him with anything suspicious, but they’re very confused about why they’re there.

“They are completely lost and sometimes can’t remember who is Rosencrantz and who is Guildenstern.”

Unlike Hamlet, R&G is a comedy with a tragic tinge at the edges.

Stoppard’s 1966 play, turned into a film in 1990, has often been compared to Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot because of the idiot savant qualities of its characters, whose stupidity often leads them to great insights.

“We’re rehearsing Hamlet at the moment so we’re stuck in Shakespearean language,” says Kelly, 22.

“R&G is in contemporary language and the only time it goes into Shakespeare is when Hamlet pops up.”

This presents its own challenges for Kelly, who decided to play Guildenstern in his West Midlands accent.

“I thought it would suit R&G better but it makes things difficult for Shakespeare. It’s not the easiest accent to say the lines in because of the rhythm.”

The two plays are being produced at the Liverpool Shakespeare Festival by Lodestar Theatre Company, formed in 2006 by artistic director Max Rubin, who teaches at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts.

Many of its members are LIPA graduates including Kelly, and Stephen Fletcher, of the Capital of Culture hit musical Eric’s and 2007’s Liverpool Nativity, who is playing Hamlet.

The Shakespearean play opens on Monday in the Small Concert Room at St George’s Hall, no doubt bringing back memories for those who saw Hollywood star Alan Rickman play the role there in the 90s.

R&G opens at Novas CUC, Greenland Street, on September 1 and both plays will be played back-to-back during the weekend of September 12-13.

“We see the Small Concert Room as part of a big family estate,” explains Fletcher, 28.

“The play has been cut down quite a lot to make it more manageable for audiences and the venue fits in with that.

“It’s less about a national conflict and more about a family’s struggles, so many of the scenes about Denmark being at war have been taken out.”

As a result, the script has been pared down from about four-and-a-half hours to two – something Lodestar hopes will help attract younger audiences.

“To be or not to be’s still in there,” interjects Kelly.

Ah, that famous phrase – surely the biggest challenge for an actor playing Hamlet is not to fluff that particular line.

“You can hear it in the room,” agrees Fletcher, “everyone thinking ‘he’s going to say it’ and wondering how it’ll be performed.

“Short of putting on funny glasses and a wig and having a limp there’s only so many ways you can deliver it.”

Even so, Fletcher’s Hamlet will not be the archetypal ditherer but more a man trapped in a world he cannot comprehend.

“Most people see him as mad but I think he’s actually the most sane person in the whole play, he is just speaking a different language to everyone else,” he explains.

“He finds out his mum is shacked up with his dad’s brother, which is bad enough – it’s like my mum falling in love with my Uncle John if my dad died – but then he finds out his uncle killed his dad.”

Hamlet is at St George’s Hall, Liverpool until August 23; Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead is at Novas CUC from September 1-13. Both plays will be performed back-to-back on September 12-13. For more information visit www.theliverpoolshakespearefestival.co.uk