Uncertainty is the normal state: Furies’ Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

Tom Stoppard’s reputation for virtuosic displays of linguistic and intellectual gymnastics has held its ground for the past fifty-odd years, and one of his earliest plays – Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead – is perhaps the first time we see his talent on display. Described variously as ‘Beckettian,’ ‘absurdist,’ or ‘absurdist existentialism,’ the play takes place in the wings of Hamlet, and asks what Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (those relatively minor and interchangeable characters) are doing throughout the course of the play while they’re not on stage. By turns funny, strange, witty, and head-scratchingly dense, the play has become one of Stoppard’s enduring crowd-favourites, and is presented here by independent company Furies in a sparse-but-not-empty production.

Wilde thing: Furies’ The Importance of Being Earnest

I can’t quite believe this is the first production of The Importance of Being Earnest that I’ve seen, even though I’ve read it several times. One of Oscar Wilde’s most popular and successful plays, ‘Earnest’ is one of those pieces of theatre which zips along by itself, and in this production directed by Chris McKay, it shines and is a delight from start to finish.

The gods must be crazy: Furies’ Antigone: The Burial at Thebes

Sophocles’ Theban plays are among the all-time greatest stories in literature, and along with Aeschylus and Euripides, was one of the great dramatists of the Athenian Golden Age. Mythic, epic and created on a grand scale, Sophocles’ plays changed theatrical form as it was then known and became classics of their time and for all time. Presented here by independent company Furies at Darlinghurst’s Tap Gallery’s intimate downstairs theatre, Antigone is, alongside Oedipus the King (or Oedipus Rex as it is more commonly known), perhaps his most well known play. The story of Antigone, Oedipus’ daughter, it tells the struggle of how she strove to give her brother Polyneices the burial he deserved. Defying the order of the king, she faces the consequences of her actions, setting in motion a tragic (albeit preventable) train of events.