I thought of that quote this weekend and what it means to me. And boy, it takes some shifting of weigt for this kind of creative loss.
You see, British playwright Tom Stoppard has died at the age of 88. You can read obituaries and remembrances from:
- Associated Press
- BBC
- Deadline
- The Guardian
- The Hollywood Reporter
- National Theatre
- NPR
- Reuters
- Variety
Tom Stoppard and his works have been dancing around my synapses for decades both as an audience member and as an actor. From seeing posts on social media from so many theater friends and colleagues, I’m not alone. (He also did quite a bit of screenwriting for you film buffs as well!)
Just last year, my brother and I saw an excellent production of his final play, Leopoldstadt. In many ways, it’s completely familiar as Stoppard, with tragedy and comedy and philosophical musings. But it’s also a sprawling saga of several generations of a Viennese Jewish family from 1899 to 1955 that is affecting and personal in a way I hadn’t experienced from his plays before. I’m sure there’s some joke about an old Dogg speaker learning new tricks. A joke Stoppard might make. Mainly, I find it marvelous to see an artist explore new ground in their 80s.
Many people, theater folk or otherwise, will know Stoppard best from his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead that premiered in 1966 and wins over audiences with its wit still. It’s an absurdist retelling of Hamlet from the point of view of two minor characters that some of you might know from the 1990 film version. And if you’ve been an auditor for theatrical mass auditions in any number of cities over the past few decades, you’ve experienced your unfair share of the “Dead in a box” monologue. (Look, it’s good. We get it. It’s also very hard to top. Please choose something else).
My strongest connection to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead actually goes to the other side of casting. You see back in the last millennium, I was poised to finish my final year at college and it was not unheard of for students, including theater majors and rising seniors, from suggesting productions for the coming year. I’m not sure if anthropology majors had similar benefits, but I was shortly to do something momentous for that major which I will mention shortly.
Anyway, one of my fellow theater majors and I suggested the Stoppard play in question because it was one our theater chair might well enjoy directing, the college might enjoy watching, and one with a large cast, allowing many a theater major and non-major to be in the production. This latter quality was a wonderful aspect of the theater program that I’m certain helped cast me in my first play my very first semester (I knew I was going to major in theater, but I don’t know if they knew that then).
Oh, and one other key aspect of the play? It presented two wonderfully meaty roles for my theater bestie and myself… and whether he was Rosencrantz and I was Guidenstern or vice versa, we’d be ecstatic.
Our cunning plan enacted, I then went halfway around the world to study anthropology, more anthropology, and theater as one does. I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. Maybe.
Importantly, R&G would be the final play of my senior year and therefore my final production at college.
Upon my return from my semester abroad, there was the usual audition and casting process where I need to describe two slight peculiarities, well, possibly peculiar to 21st century readers.
First, all students auditioning had to fill out an audition sheet, a physical piece of paper, that listed any potential schedule conflicts, their contact information, and an unchanging question over the four years I was there:
“Are you willing to have your hair cut or colored for a role?”
The first time I answered, I was a tentative ‘okay.’ Four years later, I had grown hair long enough to be one of the campus Jesii, had shaved my head (in part for a TV show’s sight gag involving “instant baldness”) and, well, when it came to this, my last show, I scribbled an enthusiastic “HELL YES.”
I may have encouraged one of my fellow theater majors, now a professional clown, to similarly answer, but she remained poker-faced about it.
The second peculiarity was that one learned about the casting when the cast list went up on the Theater Department bulletin board outside the professors’ offices. Even though we had email technology at the time, word was communicated by word-of-mouth, usually in excited tones. If the person imparting the information knew of your role (or lack thereof) they withheld the information. You had to walk across campus to the theater building and inspect the bulletin board for yourself. Then, you initialed next to your printed name signifying acceptance of the role.
Both I and the aforementioned poker-faced clown got the news at the same time and went over together. Lest you think she could just hope for Ophelia or Gertrude, know that –even though this was in the ancient times of the last millennium– we knew that the director would be doing “color-blind” and “gender-blind” casting.
We arrived at the bulletin board and I looked at the top of the list.
Rosencrantz was… not me. It was my theater bestie. Okay, that’s cool.
Guildenstern was… also not me. It was another theater senior. She was another bestie and would be a great Guildenstern, but come on. This was not part of the cunning plan.
Next we got to The Player. Readers may recall Richard Dreyfuss played the role in the 1990 film with particular manic fervor. It’s a meaty role and a meta role and absolutely a role to enjoy, especially if one has not been cast as Rosencrantz or Guildenstern.
But I was not The Player.
At this point, my stomach was twisting in surprisingly uncomfortable ways. You see, this was, by my count, the seventh play I would be in college and all six previous times, with hair ready to be cut or colored, I had not gotten a part I wanted. Young actors brood about such things and we convince ourselves such brooding is necessary. Also, did I mention this was part of a cunning plan?
I scanned the rest of the cast list. My friend the clown had found she would be Polonius, and happily initialed her acceptance.
Finally, my eyes fell upon “Hamlet – Bjorn Munson.”
Hamlet. I was to play Hamlet. One of the most storied roles in all of theater. Yet this was an instance where I did not want to play him. His role is absolutely inverse in this play. He’s the supporting character. This was not the cunning plan. Would I end my college acting with one more role I hadn’t longed for?
As I stood there with my young actor ego crashing against my denied dreams, my eyes wandered over to another piece of paper, in large font:
“Happiness is equilibrium. Shift your weight.” – Tom Stoppard
I never asked who put the quote up there. I might have heard the quote before, but in that moment, it cut through my feelings like a scalpel.
When else would I get to play Hamlet? As I have mentioned before on this blog, I had been, correctly, assessed as a character actor. Now, theater productions often have more flexibility, but it would be highly unlikely, no matter what my acting future might hold, that I would be offered the role of Hamlet again.
Moreover, all of Hamlet’s lines in R&G are from the play Hamlet. To play the role, I would need to approach it as if I was doing Hamlet for real because I would be doing Hamlet for real. I would get to perform the honest-to-Dane-ness “To be or not to be” speech for Yorrick’s sake!
Finally, I thought upon all my previous acting roles in college. True, none of them had been roles I had sought, none ones that I wanted, but all had been wonderful roles for me as an actor. They stretched me and I inhabited them. I had performed roles that had made audiences burst into raucous laughter and ones where they were scared to death of what my character would do. I was very happy with the acting roles I had. Maybe it wasn’t so hard to shift my weight after all.
With this reflection, I leaned forward and initialed my name, but it turns out my surprises weren’t done. It was then I realized the director had been watching me from the doorway of his office. I can only imagine in hindsight what he was thinking, seeing one of his seniors pause for so long staring at the cast list. But if he was concerned, he didn’t show it, saying “Oh, I’m really excited to have you play Hamlet. I want to go for that iconic ‘Laurence Olivier’ Hamlet. Bjorn, I want you blond!”
My jaw dropped and I turned to my friend the clown for moral support. She then delivered, with perfect timing:
“It’s no good Bjorn, you put ‘HELL YES’ on the questionnaire.”
And so, if for no other reason, that is why Tom Stoppard will forever have my gratitude; because, however indirectly, and with certain absurdity, he can be said to be responsible for me playing Hamlet.
“Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”