Guildenstern's journal

26 sep '00

I have committed Act I to memory, and we have worked all of it at least once or twice, which does a lot to help set my lines for me. I've begun to learn a bit of Act II; my goal is to learn the complete book by October 15.

I have read the sections of Hamlet that involve Ros and Guil, including the long passage in II.ii that occurs between Stoppard's Acts I and II.

I'm off until Thursday, and then we go into four weeks of four nights a week, leading up to the two weeks of tech. I'm impatient to begin work on the third act.

The playing space at the Stage is unusual. It's pretty much square, about 30 feet on a side. Facing one side of the square are about 10 rows of seats, seating about 80; facing the adjacent side of the square are another four rows (perpendicular to the 10 rows), seating about 30. Thus the upstage-downstage axis is a diagonal through the corners of the square. So the stage is really a diamond-shaped thrust.

And at the extreme downstage point of the diamond is a massive support column, 18 inches square. You can be standing a foot away from it, completely downstage, staring it in the face, and yet you're still visible to 95% of the house. Some directors try to pretend the column isn't there, by blocking actors to face upstage, back to the column. And hence butt to the audience.

There is a matching column at the extreme upstage point of the diamond, which is usually masked by flats. For Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, we have no set at all, so the upstage column is in play. We will have a curtain running the length of the upstage left side of the diamond. I'm not sure what the plan is for the upstage left side.

Fortunately, there is a (filthy) rehearsal space taped off with the same dimensions, and a matching column.

How did we end up with such an odd configuration? The facility is an old bowling alley in the basement of a shopping center (from the last 1950s, I'd guess). There is a bar and some benches built from wood recycled from the lanes. The Stage plans to install an elevator to bring the theater up to ADA access standards.

before
index and backstory
after