Hart House Theatre kicked off its 2012 - 2013 season September 21, 2012 with a dynamic production of Tom Stoppard's brilliant Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, directed by Matthew Gorman. Playing to a packed house that included such luminaries as award-winning author and PEN Canada President Charles Foran and Hart House Warden Bruce Kidd, the actors delivered rollicking performances that engaged the crowd, serving notice that, more than 90 years after it first opened its doors, Hart House Theatre remains a creative and artistic hub for both the City of Toronto and the University of Toronto.
(All photos by Daniel Di Marco)
The toss of a coin and a discussion of the laws of probability mark the beginning of a thoroughly engaging performance by Jim Armstrong (Rosencrantz) and Andrew Knowlton (Guildenstern).
The Player (David Tripp): "We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory."
Benjamin Muir's Hamlet is a strutting peacock who evokes pop music's Prince, while Brenna Stewart's Ophelia takes irritability to new comedic heights.
"We're actors - we're the opposite of people!"
Leete Stetson, Reg Mateson, Tom Beattie and Ray Jacildo play the Tragedians.
Brenna Stewart's Ophelia manages to be both hilarious and compelling in her brief appearances onstage.
"Pirates could happen to anyone."
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern discover themselves aboard a ship bound for England.
Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and the Tragedians en route to England.
Jim Armstrong (Rosencrantz) and Andrew Knowlton (Guildenstern) display deft comedic timing as they take the audience through profound philosophical concepts.
