May 2, 2022 ~~ Started my day by finishing this book. No changes to my original review, except to paraphrase what I said in my original review of Hamlet:

Every time I read Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead I understand it better and love it more.

And this evening for Dinner Theater I will watch the movie!


May 1, 2022 ~~ Any time I read Hamlet I have to read this book and see the movie too. So back we go to Elsinore!

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Original review, 2014

My tummy hurts from laughing so much. Reading this play is even more fun if you have seen the movie version a dozen or so times and can have it running through your mind as you turn the pages of the book.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have become my favorite characters in Hamlet because of this play. You just have to root for them, even when you know what their fate will be. They try so hard to understand what is happening but they can never quite grasp enough details for their lives to make sense.

I want to go right back to page one and start all over again. I think I will toss a coin: heads, I re-read immediately, tails I go on to something else.......Heads!

"We do onstage the things that are suppose to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit being an entrance somewhere else."

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead can be seen as Stoppard's answer to the question what are the minor characters of the play Hamlet doing while the tragic prince is agonizing and plotting? Stoppard's simple answer is "nothing".

R and G spend there time playing word games, musing on the nature of death and fate, and try--desperately and futilely--to gain some understanding of the grand events unfolding around them. Performed on a bare stage, which R and G never leave, the play is not a story of people but of characters; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are defined entirely by their roles in the play. They have no memory of their past, because they did not exist before they were sent for by the King and Queen. They never appear singly, and so they themselves are not quite sure which of them is Rosencrantz and which Guildenstern. They are trapped in an absurd theatrical world which, while at first witty and humorous, becomes profoundly unsettling until at last Guildenstern is left alone on a dark stage saying as he faces his own death, "There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said--no. But somehow we missed it."

It is short and easy to read but Stoppard's pun laden style means that rereadings are rewarding and go a long way towards a more complete understanding. I also recommend at least a basic familiarity with Hamlet, because R and G are Dead has no plot of its own and never gives more than basic exposition concerning the story going on in the background.

Well worth reading, especially if you can not see it performed.

This is a classic existentialist work by playwright Tom Stoppard which focuses on an absurdist dialog between the two minor characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Thanks to my extraordinary high school AP English teacher, I was introduced to this wonderful and funny play and it gave me more insight into the incredible complexity of the original as well as opened my eyes to modern perspectives about it. A must.

Buona pièce teatrale assurdista che però mi è piaciuta meno di quanto mi sarei aspettata.

Absurder geht es kaum. In Shakespeares "Hamlet" nur blasse Randfiguren finden sich Rosencrantz und Guildenstern in Stoppards Drama unfreiwillig in einer Hauptrolle wieder. Die Handlung bewegt sich innerhalb derer von Hamlets, nimmt jedoch Bezug auf die Aktivitäten Rosencrantz' und Guildensterns, die nicht bei Shakespeare zur Sprache kommen. So werden die beiden ahnunglosen Herren wie Marionetten durch unsichtbare Hand durch das Drama geführt. Sie irren und stolpern von Szene zu Szene, ohne sich in Raum und Zeit zurechtzufinden und zu wissen, warum sie beide auserkoren sind, herauszufinden, warum sich der Prinz von Dänemark seit dem Tod seines Vaters so verändert aufführt. Ohne Wahl und Entscheidungsfreiheit stecken sie im Strudel der Ereignisse fest. --- Trotz diesem tragischen Umstandes lebt dieses Drama von ebenso zahlreichen komischen Elementen wie dem legendären Frage-Tennis. Eine grandiose Idee von Tom Stoppards in meinen Augen, ein solches absurdes Werk zu erschaffen, das so unsagbar viele Ansätze zur Interpretation bietet. --- Beim ersten Lesen ist es durchaus günstig, mit dem Hamlet-Stoff vertraut zu sein oder ein Exemplar zum Nachschlagen bereitliegen zu haben.

mad lad took on /hamlet/ and somehow didn't look like an idiot doing it

Shakespeare's two poor dumb bastards, caught up in words. (Now I want to watch the movie again)

This has been on my TBR since high school, and I probably would have enjoyed it more then. Its humor and message would have felt fresh and funny instead of like things I’d already encountered only better, or techniques that have already had the shine worn off of them. Self-referential humor is only funny the first dozen or so times, and then you realize that it’s everywhere and it’s only about half as clever as it thinks it is. There are some undeniable similarities to Waiting for Godot as well, and it seems like a solid addition to the absurdism canon. It’s not a philosophical bent that helps me get through my day, but not everything is for everyone.

The thing I liked about this play is its comment on minor characters, and that’s where I think the self-referential angle really works. It shows what happens when a character is obviously not the hero of the story. What happens to them when they’re not being summoned by people with actual roles to play? The answer is pretty much nothing. They’re left waiting in the wings struggling to make sense of who they are and what’s going on, which isn’t the worst metaphor for life (though it’s not the most useful either). R&G Are Dead is good at what it does; I just never felt any particular way about it. The 1990 film is currently free on YouTube, written and directed by the author, which provides some helpful context.

I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.

دیگه نمی‌تونم، برای همین نزدیک آخرش ولش می‌کنم. اول رفتم سراغ متنش که نتونستم ادامه بدم. بعد رفتم سراغ صوتیش از اجراهای بی‌بی‌سی که خیلی هم خوبه، ولی بازم دیونه‌م کرد. دیگه آخر رفتم سراغ تئاترش که دنیل رادکلیف عزیز توش بازی کرده و با اینکه واقعا اجرای خوبی بود، خود نمایشنامه رو دوست نداشتم

این نمایشنامه خیلی شبیه «در انتظار گودو» هستش و دو تا از شخصیت‌های تقریباً بیخود هملت نقش اصلی رو دارند. خوندن نمایشنامه‌های بِکِت بهم نشون داده که با بی سر و تهی مشکلی ندارم، اما اینجا اصلاً نتونستم ارتباط بگیرم

نمایشنامه رو می‌تونید از اینجا دانلود کنید
Maede's Books

۱۴۰۳/۱/۲۳

Just a fantastic look at the world of Hamlet through the eyes of two minor characters from the play.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are a dynamic duo of characters. They are the Gilligan and Skipper, Abbot and Costello, Laurel and Hardy of literature.

Without giving too much away, the opening sequence of consecutive coin flips is hysterical, as is Rosencrantz's monologue about learning about death.

At the same time, it is so well written and introspective that it offers a real insight into the lives of two guys who are no different in many ways than the young men of today.

A must read.

This play is tremendous fun as it spoofs the theatre of the absurd while paying hommage to genius of William Shakespeare. Stoppard tells the story of two minor character from Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who bear an unquestionable ressemblance to Vladimir and Estragon from Beckett's "Waiting for Godot". There is a also a discussion of the relationship between reality and the theatre which reminds one of "Six Characters in Search of an Author" by Luigi Pirandello. Stoppard is clearly of the opinion that neither Becket nor Pirandello had thought of anything that Shakespeare had not already discussed over 300 years earlier. Stoppard is probably corret in this regard. His play is hilarious.

ROSENCRANTZ: Here we go again.

GUILDENSTERN: But I thought we were...?

ROSENCRANTZ: Were what?

GUILDENSTERN: Well, dead.

ROSENCRANTZ: No such luck.

GUILDENSTERN: Are you positive? This doesn't look much like Elsinore.

ROSENCRANTZ: Of course it doesn't. We're in a different play.

GUILDENSTERN: What play?

[Enter DONALD TRUMP and HOPE HICKS]

TRUMP: Jesus Christ, how could you say that? Little white lies? Are you completely stupid?!

HICKS: [weeping] I couldn't, they were so, I didn't know what to—

TRUMP: You're fired!

HICKS: Oh, please, please Mr Trump, I promise I'll—

TRUMP: You heard me!

[They exit. HICKS's sobs diminish in the distance]

GUILDENSTERN: What play? Are we the stars this time?

ROSENCRANTZ: [peering upward] I can see the title.

GUILDENSTERN: So are we the stars?

ROSENCRANTZ: It says "Kim Jong III part 2".

GUILDENSTERN: We're not the stars then.

ROSENCRANTZ: 'Fraid not.

GUILDENSTERN: I never really believed we were.

[A pause]

GUILDENSTERN: What kind of play is it?

ROSENCRANTZ: [peering upward again] "A nuc—"

GUILDENSTERN: What?

ROSENCRANTZ: "A nuclear tragedy".

GUILDENSTERN: What does that mean?

ROSENCRANTZ: "Will the world end tomorrow? It's a coin toss."

GUILDENSTERN: I still don't get it.

ROSENCRANTZ: I think I'm starting to understand.

GUILDENSTERN: I'm not.

ROSENCRANTZ: [Taking out a coin] You call.

GUILDENSTERN: Tails.

ROSENCRANTZ: Heads. Shall we do it again?

[GUILDENSTERN nods, ROSENCRANTZ flips the coin]

GUILDENSTERN: Tails.

ROSENCRANTZ: Heads. A third time?

GUILDENSTERN: Tails.

[ROSENCRANTZ flips the coin and looks at it with a despairing expression]

ROSENCRANTZ: Heads.

GUILDENSTERN: [Pointing at the sky] What's that? I think it's getting closer.

ROSENCRANTZ: Uh-oh.

CURTAIN