STAGE REVIEWS : ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’ Alive, Well : Smartly Offered Production at OCC Doesn’t Retreat From the Play’s Braininess or Zaniness

Orange Coast College, which regularly stages a Shakespeare classic or two in the fall, is trying something different this time around: Tom Stoppard’s difficult but rewarding “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.”

Anyone familiar with “Hamlet” knows that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are those shady characters who play a small but pivotal role in the Prince of Denmark’s tragedy. Stoppard decided to follow R and G along their behind-the-scenes journey, giving us a lively and rather philosophical comedy, first produced in 1966.

At OCC, director Alex Golson doesn’t retreat from the play’s braininess, nor its pirouettes on the absurdities of life, death, love and much that falls in between. This production starts slowly but eventually finds a zesty pace, complemented by more-than-decent acting, smartly offered.

When we first meet R and G, they’re pondering the state they’re in, which is somewhere between a magical kingdom of improbabilities and a hellish dimension of pointlessness and desperation.

As their story unfolds, and it becomes increasingly clear to us (but not to them) that they’re fated to be cogs in the machinations surrounding the melancholy prince, Stoppard engages in his customarily delirious wordplay and chicanery plotting.

Fragments of “Hamlet” stand side-by-side with Stoppard’s own tale, which is heavy with punny talk. Some folks may find it too sluggish, all this thoughtful banter between R and G, but the best advice is to be patient: Stoppard has a first-class theater mind, and the humor will win out.

Golson and his student cast realize that vitality gives all that gab some life--they’re not opposed to tossing in a Stooges move every now and then. There’s ample action at OCC, but it falls in step with the paradoxical nature of the comedy.

When it comes down to R and G themselves, a link with Laurel and Hardy may be as close to an apt description as it gets. Rosencrantz (David Lamb) is the more blissful, the more bemused (and somehow more tragic) of the two, while Guildenstern (Todd Kulczyk) is all nervous anxiety. Both Lamb and Kulczyk are student actors with potential, and they show it here.

On the technical side, designer Rick Golson opts for a minimalist set, with a raised platform that serves as everything from a castle walkway to a ship’s bow. The lighting by Jane Hobson is also effective, especially in the third act when R and G find themselves on their fateful cruise from Denmark to England and are alternately terrorized by a storm (major use of strobe lights) and soothed by a starry sky.

‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’

* An Orange Coast College production of Tom Stoppard’s play. Directed by Alex Golson. With David Lamb, Todd Kulczyk, David Scaglione, Michael Wilkesen, S. Teigan Ann, Fran Price, David A. Fleischmann, Paris Cluff, David McCarthy, Michael L. Nottingham, Salvy Maleki, Q.S. Powell, Elizabeth Anne Hoffmann, Tony A. Swagler, Steven Musil, Joseph Dunham, Jill Johnson, Trista Peare, Rich Valente, Pauline Tannous, Jason P. Gomez, Paula Vinson, Renee Gibson, Kim Whitehead, Janae Dimick, Ron Miller and Ami Silber. Set by Rick Golson. Lighting by Jane Hobson. Costumes and makeup by David Scaglione. Plays Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. through Nov. 22 in the Drama Lab Theatre, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. $6 to $9. (714) 432-5880. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.