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12 The Founder | Wednesday 23 February 2011 E X T R A Arts Interview: Drama Society’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Q: What made you choose this play? A: We both share a passion for both Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the ideas of existentialism present in works such as Waiting for Godot. This play presents us with a fusion of the two. Through Stoppard’s reworking of Hamlet we felt there was a great opportunity to manipulate Shakespeare without our own emotional connection to Hamlet. We can at once make fun of, and protect the beauty of the original while also playing with more of our favourite ideas, that of existentialism, discordance and alienation. Q: The play is comparatively short on female principals – was this at all a concern when you first chose to bid it? A: While there is a striking lack of female dialogue in the play, this does not mean that the female characters do not play an important part in the unfolding of events. Furthermore, we cast the part of Alfred to a female actor (Sian Mayhall-Purvis) and changed the host of attendants and Tragedians to unisex roles. This enabled us to further subvert Shakespeare in a play so obviously preoccupied with reimagining tradition. Q: There have been a variety of high-profile productions of this play in the past – not least the movie featuring Gary Oldman and Tim Roth. Have you been more concerned with taking inspiration from or deviating from past productions? A: We are both aware of previous productions of the play but there has been no sense of strong influence in regard to our own interpretation. We have strongly advised our actors to develop their own characters according to both our and their own reading of the text giving little or no consideration to previous productions. We believe that our interpretation is solely unique and, to prove this, have invited Gary Oldman, Tim Roth and Stoppard himself to Jane Holloway Hall. Q: The play is going to be performed in the Jane Holloway Hall. You say that you want to use this space to create an “existentialist Arts Editor Julia Armfield takes an opportunity to remove her ranting hat (for once) and have a little internet Q&A with Douglas Gibson and Robbie Brown, the directors of the latest Drama Society play: Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. void”. What exactly do you mean by that? A: The play will be performed entirely in the promenade style, meaning that the audience is ‘free to roam’ the space at their discretion, under no influence from the actors or ourselves. There has been a deliberate choice taken by ourselves, in conjunction with Kim Williams (Props and Costume) in destroying the idea of a clear historical context, lending the production a timeless and accidental feel. Q: The idea of metatheatre – i.e. plays within plays or scenes that in some way acknowledge their own Doug Gibson (left) & Robbie Brown (right) who are directing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Photos: Tom Shore theatricality – and the interaction between actor and audience is hugely important to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Have you attempted to highlight this in any way through your direction? A: The promenade staging, merging actor and spectator, only serves to exaggerate this theme, and there are many moments of direct interaction and even manipulation of the audience to serve our needs. The fact that the actors will remain in character, in the space, throughout the performance, as if in a ‘haphazard rehearsal for a bad production of Hamlet - learning lines, moving props etc. - provides a further level of meta-theatricality. However, these two examples do no justice to the depth of meta-theatre’s influence on both the script and the staging of the play, and to answer this question fully would require a two page spread. At least. Probably more. Q: The play focuses a great deal on the nature of art and reality and the idea that an event can only truly be construed as real if it is witnessed. Do you think that Stoppard is using his characters in this way to comment on the believability of theatre? A: ‘Audiences know what to expect, and that’s all their prepared to believe in.’ The reality is that, on stage, everything is witnessed, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are never alone - they have each other, and as soon as they don’t, they die. To add to this, an audience is always present, in the knowledge that they are witnessing actors pretending to be characters. In this way art is not reality. Life itself is not always witnessed, whereas theatre always is. Q: How do you think your production will differ from anything else we’ve seen from the Drama Society? A: As far as we are aware, there has never been another production at RHUL to declare ‘the era of seats is over!’ This audience/performer relationship will present a completely new theatrical experience and hopefully kick start a new wave of contemporary theatre, drawing influence from performance companies who are relevant right now. No longer do we expect an audience to be passive, stagnant, and possibly bored by orthodox, repetitive theatre. This is also a genuinely funny play which ranges from base slapstick and farce to high level punnery-something that a play very seldom focuses on when performed at RHUL. Q: Do you think your production will be accessible to everyone, whether or not they are familiar with Tom Stoppard or Shakespeare’s Hamlet? A: Although knowledge of Hamlet will be of benefit to the audience, it is by no means essential as this play stands alone as a classic, consisting of great jokes, deep intellectualism, ponderings of mortality/fate/probability, perverse desires, emotionally charged dialogue and poetic language, along with revolutionary staging, physical theatre, an energetic cast, a focused crew and above all an incredible rapport between two great actors (Dan Collard and Alex Burnett). Q: When is it on and where do we buy tickets? A: Tickets will be available from our launch night (24th February, Stumble Inn - 8 till close) and from the SU box office from thereon in.
The Founder | Wednesday 23 February 2011 E X T R A 13 Arts Review: (the revamped) Love Never Dies Vikki Vile Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom sequel, Love Never Dies was cruelly dubbed ‘Paint Never Dries’ by fans of the original when the show opened in March of last year. Just months later, the press reported that tickets were selling for as little as £3 and the show was heading for disaster. No surprise then that the good Lord saw the need for a re-think, controversially closing the show for a few days over the Christmas period for readjustments. Noting the teething problems, I approached my visit to the Adelphi with mixed feelings, concerned that this allegedly underwhelming follow-up would sent me running back to Her Majesty’s Theatre where the original is still packing in the tourists. That said, I believed that Lloyd Webber was not foolish enough to put on a sequel to a renowned original if it was not up to scratch. The rearranged show now begins with one of the big songs: ‘Til I Hear You Sing. There is no lead-up, just bam, there it is before you’ve even had time to get comfortable. I found this confusing, it was like going to see The Sound of Music and starting with the Nazis, but despite this, I believe it worked. Many have asked whether Love Never Dies is an accessible watch to a Phantom virgin and the answer is unquestionably yes, though the content of the sequel will mean less. The plot is touching, rather than taxing. We meet Christine and Raul ten years on, now with a son named Gustav. The family are captured on arrival in New York by the Phantasma Freaks (go with it) and are taken to Coney Island, a down-atheel land of sleaze and mystery. The Phantom reappears to haunt Christine and demands she sing for him one last time, whilst Raul insists he will leave Christine if she does. In addition, there is the added intrigue of the subplot involving Meg Giry, now a washed-up dancer for the Phantasma troupe, and her mother, still bitter that the Phantom fails to notice Meg’s talent. Reading that back, it is easy to see where all the criticism has come from with such a thin-sounding plot. However, I would argue that the music saves the show; unquestionably Lloyd Webber’s greatest achievement since the Phantom of 1986. The set is a feast for the eyes with big projections, acrobatics and impressive costumes creating a sense of life at Coney. The moments between Christine and Gustav in the first act are endearing; Look With Your Heart is a heart-warming number; and she and the Phantom share some thrilling romantic arias. In a peculiar role reversal, Love Never Dies encourages us to side with the Phantom as we see Raul’s character take on a new darkness in his dejected, drunken state. Never have I seen so much tension injected into a title song as in this show’s climax, but Sierra Boggess’ talent makes it worth the wait. I loved it, there’s no denying. It is obvious that Love Never Dies is a show that has had a lot of money thrown at it, but I believe that after a nervy start, this is a wonderful and genuinely spooky show that can run the course. It is a show with heart, intent and meaning, and after all, if the insipid tackiness of shows such as Dirty Dancing can still pack in the punters, why can’t this? Student Workshop Review: Pool (no water) by Mark Ravenhill Knowing nothing of the play, I entered Sasha Haughn’s production of Mark Ravenhill’s Pool (no water) with a completely empty slate of expectations. Unfortunately, when I left I still held an empty feeling. The stage was bare; a tiled floor and three white flats were the only Tim Berendse set. The audience (well, about ten of them) was seated around the tiled floor, with the actors sitting in between them. The rest of the audience, including myself, were placed in raked seating behind the three-sided audience/performance area. From the offset this made me, as an audience member, feel very detached. The small amount of audience members seated in between the actors were addressed throughout the performance, but the majority of the audience were excluded from any interaction and forced to simply watch, almost voyeuristically, as a story was told to other audience members; a confusing situation to find oneself in. Perhaps this was intentional, but it didn’t work. I did not feel engaged in the performance at all, and as a result was not shocked when the actors used crass language or took their clothes off. I have never been a big fan of plays that try to tell an audience a story without interaction between characters. I don’t think it works, and I feel it never will. The whole play sounded like one long monologue split and given to different characters. I was thankful when the actors finally started moving after ten minutes of telling a story to the audience members next to them. Again, the majority of the audience in the raked seating was excluded from these seemingly private conversations and as a result, it was extremely difficult to understand what was happening. Even the actors seemed confused as to who they were meant to be saying their lines to. Some said them to each other, some said their lines to the audience seated around them, and others seemed to say their lines to themselves. When one of the actors eventually took on the role of protagonist, there was a brief sense of hope that there would be some character interaction, but to no avail. I can imagine that the play could be performed more interestingly, perhaps using physical theatre to add some relief to the dry speech, but the actors, who seemed more like narrators, were unfortunately left to perform their insular lines in an unengaging and detached way. I think what let this performance down was the lack of movement and interaction between the characters, whose acting was at no fault at all. What was most important, I feel, was the lack of consideration for the audience, who may have seen a great play if they were sat in amongst the actors. However, the largest part of the audience was excluded, something that was highlighted perfectly in the climax of the play, where one of the actors delivered a highly emotive speech, but with her back to the majority of the audience, hiding any expression or emotion from view, summing up the entirety of the play. tf Arts We don’t hear very much about arts and theatre events on campus, but we’d certainly like to! If you’ve been to see something on campus that you have something to say about, why not write us an article? You can bank on it that the productions will appreciate your efforts. It doesn’t have to be long, a couple of hundred words will do. Write to Auntie Julia at arts@thefounder.co.uk
Page 1 and 2: Nicholas Blazenby Erection Special
Page 3 and 4: The Founder | Wednesday 23 February
Page 11: E X T R A Julia Armfield gets the i
Page 17 and 18: I took this photo on a rather rainy

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