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Theatre
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

When

Sep 29, 2009 – Dec 6, 2009

Tuesdays–Sundays

Where
Writers' Theatre (325 Tudor Court, 847.242.6000)
Price
$60
Details
http://www.writerstheatre.org/boxoffice/production?id=0072
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Tom Stoppard's inventive, razor-sharp absurdist play imagines Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as offstage existential anti-heroes with no understanding of what play they're in, and it's ultimately as profound a theater experience as it is a ludicrously funny one. The most a company can really hope for is to do justice to the writing; the production at Writers' Theater actually adds depth and insight. The set extends the play's metatheater by placing the audience in the stage wings in an off-kilter way. Acting is astute across the board, with a particularly remarkable performance by Sean Fortunato as a baffled, benign Rosencrantz and Allen Gilmore as the lead player in the dumbshow's acting troupe, elegantly manipulating the line between profundity and tongue-in-cheek parody.

Monica Westin