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16:00
19.
05

ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD

The Old Theatre of Vilnius

Grand Hall
Duration 3.40 (with intermission)

Premiere 2023

Author Tomas Stoppardas
Director Jurij Butusov
Set designer, costume designer, light designer Marius Nekrošius
Music selection by Jurij Butusov
Sound designer Aleksandra Klimova
Assistant director Eglė Kuzienė

Cast: Dmitrij Denisiuk, Igoris Abramovičius, Valentin Novopolskij, Viktorija Aliukonė-Mirošnikova, Artur Svorobovič, Maksim Tuchvatulin, Liuda Gnatenko

Performance 14+

The performance uses loud noise, smoke and bright flashes of lights. Actors smoke on stage

Performance in Russian with Lithuanian and English surtitles

“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” masterfully plays out Shakespeareʼs classic plot: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern – Danish Prince Hamletʼs childhood friends, with whom he also studied at a German university – are summoned by King Claudius, the murderer of Hamletʼs father, to accompany the prince to England. The king hands them a secret letter with a request to behead the rightful heir to the crown. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern accompany Hamlet to his certain death, but after the prince successfully exchanges the letter, they themselves fall into the snares of fate.
Scholars of contemporary dramaturgy emphasise that in “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” classical Shakespearean dramaturgy is fused with Beckettian literary experiments and aesthetics of the absurd, while intellectual puzzles and virtuosic wordplay are intertwined with English irony.