453. GREAT CINEMA ADAPTATIONS: ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD

Peter Josyph via Zoom

Ever since its premiere at London’s Old Vic in 1967, and then on Broadway where in won four

Tony Awards including Best Play, Tom Stoppard’s masterpiece has retained its status as one of

the most original and challenging stage works of the 20th century. Entertaining and engaging the

intellect more than the emotions, the play follows the offstage adventures and philosophical

musings of the two ex-students turned court-ordered spies that we see in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

The 1990 film was scripted and directed by Stoppard himself because, as he put it, he’d be the

only person “to treat the play with the necessary disrespect.” Starring Richard Dryfuss as The

Player, Gary Oldman as Rosencrantz, and Tim Roth as Guildenstern—no, wait, we mean

Oldman as Guildenstern, Roth as Rosencrantz—the film caused a scandal when it beat out

Scorsese’s Goodfellas for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Discussions will include

its similarities to Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, and what its characters being scripted in, and

borrowed from, a play by Shakespeare says about big ideas like Free Will, Fate, and Probability.

1:00-2:00 p.m. / 1:00-2:30 p.m.                                                                                  2 Sessions Thursdays, May 1 and May 8                                                                               Fee:  $50

 [A Zoom link will be sent to you prior to each session, typically on the day before your class and the morning of your class.  If you have any questions or need help getting online, feel free to call us at 516-480-5733 and we’ll get right back to you with assistance.]

ABOUT THE LECTURER

Peter Josyph is an author, actor, director, and filmmaker whose films include: Liberty Street: Alive at Ground Zero; Acting Cormac McCarthy: The Making of Billy Bob Thorton’s All the Pretty Horses; Shakespeare In New York: The Sonnets; and A Few Things Basquiat Did in School. His books include: Adventures in Reading Cormac McCarthy; What One Man Said to Another, Talks with Richard Seltzer; and, The Wounded River, which was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book. He also excels in literary and film criticism.