Today I watched the film version of this play from 1990 that stars Timothy Roth and Gary Oldman.

This is an engrossing meta story about the two messengers - who were minor characters - from Hamlet and the plot is surprisingly good. At one point there is an actual play within a play within a play. I also enjoyed the famous ‘verbal tennis match’ scene as well - very clever word play.

My daughter’s Language Arts class is performing the play this semester and she is learning her lines for the role of Guildenstern. She knows Hamlet inside out which is necessary to get the most out of this play. It would be five stars for me but I had to keep asking ignorant questions - like who is Polonius - as it has been a few years since I’d seen Hamlet.

I just upgraded this play to 5 stars from 4.5 stars since it has been stuck in my mind with such fondness.

5 stars

One of Modern Mrs. Darcy's reading challenge categories for this year is a book you can read in a day. I'd had Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead recommended to me before and I was looking for a little lighthearted reading. The thing is, to truly get what's going on in the place, you should read it either right after reading, or concurrent with reading Hamlet. Like many people I've read the Shakespeare original a time or two, but like most people, that was many years ago. To get a real sense of what's going on here, you need to be fresh on the Bard.

Nevertheless, the play is witty and enjoyable, and easily finished in a day. It did seem a bit pretentious to me. Maybe it's because it would be difficult the take on Shakespeare, even in the best of circumstances. There are some really funny parts, and many amusing parts. I'm not familiar with Stoppard's other work, so it's difficult to compare it with his other output.

A pleasant diversion in a winter that seems set never to end, I can recommend this. I also recommend brushing up on your Hamlet first.

Wouldn't have thought I could ever fall so deeply in love with such an absurd, non-sensical play. Bridging the gap between modernism and post-modernism and being a straight-up portrayal of absurdism, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" makes the reader question everything and get no answer at all. And oh, being as lost as the characters is so fun, especially when it comes to a play, whose sole purpose is to be represented on stage. Reading it, however, gives you a whole other perspective on it, not necessarily making you understand anything that makes part of the "big picture", but providing you with small tiny pieces of knowledge that actually come from within, so that you can build that personal bigger picture which was so important to the modernists. And doing all that in a postmodern attitude, by making use of "Hamlet" both in theme as well as in pieces of the play itself, make "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern" a masterpiece in my opinion. I would recommend reading it to anyone, as long as you go into it with a mind open to not understanding a single thing, and yet understanding everything at the same time.

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Peasant 1: Did you hear? Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead?

Peasant 2: Really dead?

Peasant 1: Really dead.

Peasant 2: Really?

Peasant 1: Really, really.

Peasant 2: Really, really, really?

Peasant 1: Really, really, really.

Peasant 2: Really, really, really, really?

Peasant 1: Would you stop that? They're dead as dead can be - which is actually pretty dead.

Peasant 2: Pretty dead indeed.

Peasant 1: But they're not the pretty dead.

Peasant 2: Few are pretty when dead.

Peasant 1: To be sure.

Peasant 2: Was it murder?

Peasant 1: Oh yes, t'was a murder of a show. All the crowd demanded their money back indeed.

Peasant 2: And who could have done the dirty deed?

Peasant 1: Stop that, we're no minstrels to be finishing each others rhymes.

Peasant 2: Or cleaning up the other's crimes.

Peasant 1: I've half a mind to let you join Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, can't you see our audience is growing tired of such absurdity? Though absurdity may be our part (the peasants together) absurdity for a laugh quickly loses all sense of art.

Peasant 1: As I heard it, I believe that Hamlet may be to blame for the deaths of those two men. I heard that he replaced a letter - with instructions to kill him - with one bearing instructions for their death.

Peasant 2: Quite the rumour. Where did this original letter come from I wonder?

Peasant 1: Oh, that's quite easy to tell. It came from Claudius, Hamlet's dear uncle.

Peasant 2: So was said letter - of which we have not seen...

Peasant 1: Much as we have not seen Rosencrantz or Guildenstern...

Peasant 2: ...therefore a letter to put master Hamlet out of his funky misery?

(Enter Dr. John Watson and Sherlock Holmes)

John Watson: I say, Sherlock, we don't even belong in this type of fiction.

Sherlock Holmes: My dear Watson, you forget that this is now a murder mystery. And murder is quite within our realm of expertise.

Both Peasants: (turn to the audience) Aside from committing them we hope.

Watson: Then, I presume you have come to a decision about this case by now Holmes?

Holmes: Indubitably, my good fellow. The solution is rather obvious.

Watson: So it was Hamlet after all, his hands are certainly most guilty.

Holmes: Why of course not Watson. Don't be ridiculous. It was not Hamlet after all who initiated the beginnings of this murder.

Watson: Claudius then, it was his letter that sent two men to their dooms.

Holmes: Ah, Watson, you see but you do not observe.

Watson: Surely, you do not mean to insist that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are responsible for the deaths themselves?

Holmes: Try to keep up Watson, I said murder, and I meant murder. This is no suicide case, it is a murder following an attempted regicide, most foul.

Watson: Why then, Holmes, whatever the dickens could be the solution?

Holmes: There is clearly nothing more elusive to you Watson than an obvious fact. We are looking at a murder committed centuries ago, murder that continues to haunt the here and now. In several different worlds at this time, several versions of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are being murdered all over again. The true criminal - the one which remains as truth - is clearly the old bard himself. Mr William Shakespeare.

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n  "We're tragedians you see. We follow directions - there is no choice involved. The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means."n

An interesting take on Hamlet, this is told from the perspective of two minor, comic-relief characters, so minor they don't even merit on-stage deaths. And that is kind of the point here, that they are so insignificant even they don't know which is which.
The play echoes the occurrences within Hamlet, of course, but as details add up, we realize that this takes place after, and the title is literal.There are also echoes of Waiting for Godot, with the circular, rhetorical dialog and comedy edging into something more profound.
This is, of course, a play, so seeing a performance of it before reading is preferred. There is a film, with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth in the title roles (fittingly, I can't remember who plays whom). Without having the memory of a performance, this can get a bit bewildering and obtuse. Still, a worthy modern classic

I found this an interesting read fifty plus years since I last experienced the play. I had always looked at this play as a lucky pot o'gold for the author. A playful mix of Beckett and Shakespeare that begs us to question how it couldn't miss. The thing that stood out at the time and does still, is how much mileage Stoppard gets out of references to what we know is the ending. And where I once thought that was a flaw, I now look at it as a strength of the play. How many times and ways can we accept the references to what will be the endgame of the play. My admiration for how Stoppard milked this drew my respect for the author. Second, and this somewhat depends on what the actors playing the leads bring to the play rather than how much compassion Stoppard inspires for the two main character. If the warmth of their friendship, innocence of their involvement, and the futility of their Fate is exhibited by the actors, this play is a masterpiece.

background characters.

you don't think about them much.
(unless you're a harry potter fan i guess)

but they're seething.
writhing.
riveting.

they have their own stories.
they have their own explorations, philosophies, existential breaks.
all this goes unnoticed.

but worse! but more importantly! ----
because who cares about the thoughts of a background character, come on come the fuck on come ON ----
they have their own perspective on the real story

and it is not what you expect.
and you have no idea.
no idea.


this has been in me for 8 years.
a reread:
books that scream your name precisely.

England is simply a conspiracy of cartographers

من هم تو نمایشنامه‌ی هملت همیشه به نقش این دو نفر فکر می‌کردم... همیشه اعتقاد داشتم بود و نبود این دو نفر تغییری تو روند نمایشنامه به وجود نمیاره و مرگشون هم یه واکنش شدید بوده. تو فیلم هملت به کارگردانی لارنس الیویه هم هر چند بسیار وفادارانه‌ست این دو نفر از داستان حذف شدن... خوشحالم دیدم فقط من چنین حسی نداشتم و این نمایشنامه رو خوندم.

5 stars. I wish every existential crisis were this fun!

stoppard's play is a wonderfully witty, charming, absurdist, existentialist love letter to hamlet. i don't even want to say anything else about it. i'm incredibly impressed that he managed to tackle hamlet and create something with true meaning and profundity that doesn't simply echo what shakespeare has already said. i read it once and immediately re-read along to a filmed performance. that alone should be a testament to my enjoyment of it. i highly highly recommend to anyone, but especially those who feel a reverence for hamlet.

Hey kids look, characters questioning the nature of their createdness! This really does wear its postmodernism on it's sleeve. I remember being impressed as hell when I read Arcadia years ago, Stoppard was just so damn erudite and witty. But this is more in the style of Beckett's stage work, the absurd, almost clownish dialogue and the little tableaux that reoccur over and over again, and all of it masking something desperate and chilling. But Stoppard seems too passionate, or maybe just too persistently curious to really engage with that unspeakable nothingness on the same level that Beckett does. It's too bad that this is the play most associated with Stoppard, it's sort of what made his name as a young playwright, but his work even a few years later is stronger by leaps and bounds than this.