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

This has been my favourite play since I first studied it for English Lit 'A' Level waaaaayyy back in 1993. I've returned to it again and again over the years and it still blows me away every time. This is as close to written perfection as I've ever read. I absolutely love every line.

-----------------------------------------------------------

I've just got back from watching this performed by Daniel Radcliffe, Joshua McGuire and David Haig. What a fantastic production! They really did it justice. The supporting cast were also excellent. What a great night!

"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.

Description: Hamlet told from the worm's-eye view of two minor characters, bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Echoes of Waiting for Godot resound, reality and illusion mix, and where fate leads heroes to a tragic but inevitable end.

A revisit via youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4SVV...



Youtube is handy but in this case I crave the DVD to play on the eight foot screen.


HEADS HEADS HEADS HEADS HEADS HEADS HEADS HEADS HEADS etc. etc.

Reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet first made it easier for me to connect to this play. The title of this play is one of the last lines in Hamlet. Stoppard knows that we know how it ends for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. So, with this title Stoppard’s not making any pretence of a surprise ending.

Compared to the darkness to Hamlet this was light with its antics and comedy.

Reading this, Stoppard reminds me it is possible to laugh, even at the serious stuff.

I think Hamlet is a prerequisite to understand a lot of this play, and I suspect it's probably a lot easier to appreciate on stage than reading it.

This play was funny in a non-sensical Alice-in-Wonderland kind of way - but too much was lost in translation.

Witty, Hilarious, Insightful & Intriguing! A Brilliant Play! I Loved It!

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!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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!

i actually really liked this play. i thought it was really funny but also had super emotional and serious points with the existentialism and inevitable tragedy. this actually helped me understand and appreciate hamlet more (even though i still think it’s overrated) but this play is absurd no doubt. i felt just as clueless as rosencrantz and guildenstern in the beginning

Karmic retribution for false friends...Hamlet: "Thou hast killed me in thine heart...and now in my true heart let thy execution take place; to false friendship - a dungeon that neither you nor I shall be condemned to...let thy execution be my final act of friendship." (So sorry Bill!)

“Actors! The mechanics of cheap melodrama! That isn't death! You scream and choke and sink to your knees but it doesn't bring death home to anyone- it doesn't catch them unawares and start the whisper in their skulls that says- 'One day you are going to die.”

I didn't know anything about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead going in (Except having read Hamlet several times, and having the excellent recommendation from a friend) so what I believe this book is about and what it's intention may be, could possibly be at odds.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are two minor characters in the play Hamlet, who seem to be killed in the last part of the play almost as an afterthought - brought to the forefront of this play. In this book, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are the major characters.

This play is more than anything, about the painful awareness of self and how to reconcile that with one's place in the universe. Occasionally Rosencrant or Guildenstern will address the audience angrily, or engage in games that seem to be bound more by cosmic laws than chance. If the coin is always "heads", which is an astronomically infinite possibility, than maybe the ensuing actions that follow cannot be swayed to change, no matter how impossible or absurd the "destiny" may seem.

But they continue to have to act, within this illusion of free will. This is best illustrated in their interactions with the actors, and the anger directed at them for not dying "real" deaths. Whilst demanding the actors to show them something real, when they themselves aren't real, either, precludes their own onscreen deaths. It's anger at circumstance, anger at destiny, and the desire for will outside of predetermination,

Hamlet himself makes occasional appearances that intersect with moments in the original play - but he's been reduced here to a bit character. He appears whirling into the play, intense and angry and a little absurd. He's become to this play what Rosencrant and Guildenstern were to him in "Hamlet."

Making us aware that each character has their own lens to which they view the story, which could make the hero either villainous, absurd, invisible, or meaningless.

Overall an excellent play, and one I'd like to see live.

-----------------------------------------------------------

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.

-----------------------------------------------------------

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