The magic of the play lies in watching the pair get tied up in philosophical knots, in seeing a couple of ‘little people’ like ourselves try and make some sense out of the empty gaps of time between fateful encounters; instead, this production comes off like Stoppard’s greatest hits (and not even all of them—no “We’re actors; we’re the opposite of people!”) sans the connective tissue of gloriously, methodically mounting tension. The pacing becomes more natural in the well-staged final act (on the boat to England), but even then, a most important death scene is rushed.