Dispatch Ros and Guil

Several years ago, two maybe, I was at a youth retreat. I don't remember the name of it of if it was fall or winter but Braddigan was there. Who is Bradiggan, you ask? Good question. I had never heard of him or the band Dispatch of which he had been a member: "the band that redefined independent music history" ("Dispatch (band)." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 14 Oct 2009, 01:34 UTC. 27 Oct 2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dispatch_(band)&oldid=319735940>). But I was drawn to his music and I couldn't believe that his CDs were only $5 each – WOW. Even though I had never heard of Dispatch evidently they were internationally popular. I was amazed at his silent popularity.


He had a great message and supports several humanitarian foundations (Dispatch Foundation; The Relief Project; and Love Light and Melody) but I'll come to the sum of it. One of the stories he told was about people in Nicaragua that live and make their 'living' at a trash heap: children, mothers, daughters subsisting on a trash heap. There they find treasure, their portion in this world.


Fast forward to a summer I would have never dreamed. In the summer of 2009, I was offered the opportunity to direct probably the most difficult modern play in the English language: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. That's probably putting it mildly. Will anyone argue with me if I say it's the best British play written in the 20^th century? What about the best play written in English in the 20^th century?

So, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, we've teched and are ready to open. It's our last rehearsal and we don't have music, no curtain call, pre-show or curtain warmer music. Nada. Zilch. Zippo. I'm tired and I don't really have the energy to think about one more thing or to dig through the pile that is my music collection.


One of the lines in this piece, I'll always remember. Guildenstern is describing what he thinks about their ambiguous situation saying they are: "sifting through the whole field of human nomenclature like blind men in a bazaar looking for their portraits". The point being that neither character can he remember which he happens to be: Ros or Guil. They know they are not Hamlet – "that much is certain" - and frankly are relieved by that thought. It's our last rehearsal and one of the two lovely producers brings in her iPod o' music. She says something like: "There's some song about a king and queen and their son. It's by a band called Dispatch." I think my eyes must have lighted up. I begin to listen. Since Hamlet is a sub-plot (or and majorly-minor part of the actual plot) I am in the least, intrigued. I didn't have to think, I just had to sift and dig, no problem.


We decide – opening night – to have Ros and Guil come out early and do a little coin flipping, spinning on stage as part of the curtain warmer – before the show actually starts. The song is "Prince of Spades" by Dispatch.


And I have come full circle. A touching circle. It meets its end like a snake trying to swallow its tail. And the line goes that forms the circle, once done keeps going on in another direction. I'm sure, down the road, I'll meet another circle it's making.


Why am I so sure that it continues? Because in the Summer of 1996, I spent five weeks in London. In that summer, I had a front row seat, in a small, intimate lecture hall with stadium seating. Directly across from me a man talked about writing plays. After I had (and my friends sitting beside me) asked no less than a dozen questions, he leaned forward, looked at me and asked "Why, you must be the theatre people." That man was Tom Stoppard, the playwright of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.


From Tom Stoppard and his translation of The Seagull in 1996 to Braddigan and his story a couple of years ago about the sad lot of people digging through a trash heap in Nicaragua to directing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead written by Tom Stoppard with curtain warmer music by Dispatch (who Braddigan is a member of) at the Capital Fringe Festival we have come in a circle. Where will I find the orbit land next? At what spot will I find another circle shoots off these circles? From Mr. Stoppard to Braddigan to the Capital Fringe Festival, we land and I am sure somewhere Ros and Guil, even now, are still looking for pictures of themselves. Nicaraguans search through things discarded by others for something of value, even something to eat. While I line-up dots on paper in order to talk about circles, I try to attribute some meaning to what I have dug up and call valuable.

Dispatch - http://www.dispatchmusic.com/

Braddigan - http://www.braddigan.com/