American Opera Projects “…. a perfect first exposure to opera” - TimeOut/New York
Time Out/NY's review of the recent public workshop of Herschel Garfein's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead directed by Mark Morris and held at the Mark Morris Dance Center Nov 20-21, 2009.
As Charles Jarden, general director of American Opera Projects, was introducing Saturday afternoon’s reading of Herschel Garfein’s opera-in-progress Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, pointing out the emergency exits in the Mark Morris Dance Center, a mike came undone from its ceiling post and swung ominously like a noose.
Such irony would not be lost on Tom Stoppard—nor, thankfully, was it lost on Garfein. His wry adaptation of Stoppard’s 1967 retelling of Hamlet through two of the play’s minor personages lacks some of the play’s absurd existentialism, but keeps at its heart many of the play’s trademarks—from Stoppard’s dialogue to the endless flipping of a coin to the famous game of questions.