Rosencrantz e Guildenstern sono Morti

FRANCESCO PANNOFINO – FRANCESCO ACQUAROLI – PAOLO SASSANELLI

in

ROSENCRANTZ e GUILDENSTERN SONO MORTI
byTOM STOPPARD

and with
Andrea Pannofino and Chiara Mascalzoni

set design
LUIGI FERRIGNO

music
NATALE PANNOFINO

directed by
ALBERTO RIZZI

In collaborazione
with Ippogrifo Produzioni e Comune by Verona-Estate Teatrale Veronese ETV

By arrangement with Arcadia & Ricono Ltd, by kind permission of United Agents Ltd. Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz e Guildenstern sono morti, translated by Lia Cuttitta, published in Italy by Sellerio editore. For more than sixty years Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead has been staged around the world and has become a beloved modern classic.

In this new production we decided to blend Stoppard's English humour with the comic tradition of the Commedia dell'Arte, to create a show that explores the deep existential and philosophical reflection of the original text while heightening the comic and emotional power that characterises the play.

The play is Hamlet revisited, spied through the keyhole by the dim-witted gaze of its two protagonists, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who, watching the whole story of the Danish prince, grasp only its surreal and farcical side.

Stoppard, after all, is known to the wider public for writing the screenplay of Shakespeare in Love, in which he slipped behind the scenes of Romeo and Juliet, while with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead he plunges headlong into the backstage of Hamlet. He takes two minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and makes them the protagonists of a comedy with a bizarre tone.

On stage, a pair of great actors – Francesco Pannofino and Francesco Acquaroli, as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern respectively – become a duo of tragicomic masks, joined by Paolo Sassanelli as the Player.

At the centre of our staging stands a large stage machine, a medieval contraption blending the cart-theatre of the Commedia dell'Arte with the two-level stage typical of Elizabethan theatre: a playful, changing set in constant motion, which turns now into a theatre, now into a castle, now into a ship.

The period costumes too can be transformed and altered, in a dynamic that keeps making explicit the theatre within the theatre. After all, if Stoppard's play rereads Hamlet in a comic key, our staging also thrives on this metatheatrical suggestion.

A playful, dynamic show with the flavour of street theatre, popular in the most Shakespearean sense of the word – the expression of a layered theatre that can move and speak to everyone.

Director's notes. I have always thought Tom Stoppard's idea was brilliant: to spy on Hamlet through the keyhole, to look at it through the two clowns, the two strolling players, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and to turn the greatest tragedy of all time into a farce about human existence. I think the play has enjoyed great fortune over the years and is much loved precisely because of the freshness of its dialogue, the wit of its stage inventions and its ability to take two minor characters from Shakespeare's work and make them the protagonists of a funny, existential story.

With this production I would like to present Italian audiences with a new, entertaining show that blends English verbal humour with the physical comedy of the Commedia dell'Arte, with a pair of great actors – Francesco Pannofino and Francesco Acquaroli – as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two perfect clown-adventurers able, once again, to make these two extraordinary characters unforgettable. Alongside them, as the Player, Paolo Sassanelli, the ideal performer to lead the company of wandering players with irony, charisma and good humour. Completing the cast are Andrea Pannofino and Chiara Mascalzoni.

Alberto Rizzi

The show is a single act lasting approx. 1h 20'