CityLife

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead @ The Lowry

THERE are those who would argue that Tom Stoppardés debut play, first staged in 1966, remains his best. Almost certainly, it is his most often-performed work and this new version from the Manchester Evening News Theatre Award-winning English Touring Company enjoys their customary clarity and style.

Its title comes from a phrase uttered towards the end of Shakespeareés Hamlet, referring to the demise of a pair of peripheral characters from that play in the wake of some deceitful jiggery-pokery amidst the doomy philosophising and death.

Stoppardés wilfully playful concept puts this hapless pair centre stage, not knowing why they are there, wherever it is they are, nor what is happening, and not even sure of their own names, Rosencrantz (Nicholas Rowe) and Guildenstern (James Wallace) find themselves intermittently swept along by the main action of the play or left, alone and confused, to brood on how their lives seem, inexplicably, to be at the mercy of other people.

Stoppardés play-within-a-play-within-a-play explores many of the same themes as Hamlet itself, including the meaning of life and the inevitability of death, as well as the theatricality of acting, prefiguring Stoppardés subsequent script for Shakespeare In Love.

But it owes at least as much to Waiting For Godot or to Pirandello as it does to Shakespeare. This is all indisputably clever stuff and, thankfully, there are highly watchable performances from Rowe and Wallace, as well as a richly playful turn from James Faulkner as The

Player, the rascally leader of an all-male band of strolling players who also turn into Shakespeareés main characters.

But all the word-play and philosophising can become more wearying than dazzling, while the structure of this production, with an extremely long first half followed by a second half thatés only a third as long, is not necessarily helpful.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is on at The Lowry until Saturday, June 18. é14 - é18. Call the Box Office on 0870 060 1768 for tickets or click here .