I have to say, right off the bat, that Stoppards's Arcadia is simply the best play I have read to date.
But this isn't far behind. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is an exceptionally good piece of writing - a youthful prank bursting with theatrical mischief and literary flair. Stoppard's philosophizing playfulness here is clearly indebted to the music hall absurdism of Beckett's Waiting for Godot, a play I much admire also. His writing is just so crystal clear and pristine, and it's lost none of it's fresh and inventive appeal.

It's plot is quite straightforward - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are in the (metaphorical/literal) wings of the great events going on stage in Hamlet's struggle for vengeance on the man who murdered his father and usurped the throne. Stoppard juggles reality and ideas, the philosophy of chance and purpose, memory and death, he pulls all the strings in all the right places, it's simply one of the great scripts of 20th-century theatre. I simply don't agree with some who feel it's dated. No way!

Stoppard gets the thumbs-up again. Bravo Sir!

The Certainty of Death
26 July 2011

tI liked the film of this play so much that when I was wondering through a secondhand bookshop and saw a copy on the shelf I snatched it up immediately. One of the reasons was because I wanted to actually read the play upon which the film was based (and remembering that the playwright also made the film), and it does seem to be quite faithful. However, unlike the film, the action of Hamlet, around which this play is based, has been pushed further into the background.

tWhile I am probably going over a lot of the ground that I explored in my movie review, I think that it is necessary when approaching this play. There isn't much difference between the play and the film and the major theme, death, permeates right through it. Right from the beginning we are looking towards the ultimate fate that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern face: their death. The second theme that permeates the play is that of the play. The tragedians are major characters in this play, and there is an exploration of reality verses the make believe, and the concept of death permeates this as well.

tThe tragedians perform violent plays. As the player says '… well, I can do you blood and love without rhetoric, and I can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and I can do all three concurrent and consecutive, but I can't do you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory – they're all blood, you see'. While reading this does not have the same impact as Richard Dreyfus actually speaking the lines in the film, it does give a clear indication of the idea of the theatre, and that it is about blood, and indeed it is about death. I spoke to a friend at work and said that the difference between a Shakespearian tragedy and a comedy is that at the end of a tragedy everybody dies, while at the end of the comedy everybody gets married, to which his response was 'so what's the difference then?'.

tThe other interesting thing about the tragedians is that they are nothing without an audience. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sneak away from them while they are performing a play and when they meet up again at Elsinore, the player is deeply insulted, insinuating that without an audience they are simply a bunch of idiots making fools of themselves in the woods. That, in many cases, is so true. Without an audience a play, a song, and even a film, is nothing. It is only the audience that makes them what they are.

tAs for death, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern grapple with the concept of death, yet it is clear that they do not fully understand. it They speak of rather being alive in a box buried underground than dead because 'at least you are alive'. However they are oblivious to their fate, despite knowing that fate is forcing them towards that end. They chastise the player for his understanding of death, because on the stage death is not real. You put on a performance, keel over, and lie motionless, only to get up again. However it seems that to the players death is a performance. When the player is stabbed, he keels over, apparently dead, only to rise up again to a resounding applause. That, they say, is not death. Death is the end, death is final, and when they have reached this part of the play, they already know of their fate, and know that there is no way to avoid it.

tIn a sense I got the feeling that this play, similar to Waiting for Godot, had absolutely nothing happen in it. While there is action occurring behind the scenes (which is Hamlet), nothing is happening when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are concerned. There is no goal, no purpose that they are heading towards, they are only there to be push and pulled in the direction that fate takes them. At the beginning of the play they are summoned, and when at Elsinore, they are ordered about by the major character's in Hamlet, and in the end, through Hamlet's slight of hand, are put to death. It appears that they did not have a choice, and they even wonder at one point, before they are put to death, whether there was a time at which they could have said no. In anycase, the play itself ends with death, that is the death of the major characters in Hamlet. The only ones who seem to survive are the tragedians, but even then, they are no better off than they were at the beginning.

I've also written a blog post on a version that I saw staring none other than Daniel Radcliffe.

I read this play in 1967 - that was the year Evergreen Magazine published it in its entirety.

It was Canada's Centennial Year, and we were hosting the World's Fair in Montréal. My family had driven there on a Saturday, and so Mom and Sis, my Dad and my Bro, and myself alone - once there - each separated and did our own recce's. At the appointed time we were to meet at the vast carpark.

André Gagnon’s buoyantly sunny Piano au Soleil was bopping down on me from the car park loudspeakers. I bought the magazine while waiting for them there.
***

Once home again, I found myself, that Sunday, amazed at Stoppard's intellectual acuity. And like me at the time, his cultural outlook was humorously existentialist.

Like me as well, he is small 'c' conservative with a touch of libertarianism.

I devoured it in an afternoon. A New literary star was born!

You don't get to heaven without deciphering the world's game. And Stoppard/Shakespeare's dangerous duo are dangerous at that point because the vision of evil has burnt them out. Whaddya do about it?

Like Beckett's Vladimir and Estragon, they quip about it - gravedigger style.

Well, I had inherited my Mom's black sense of humour, of which for her the apogee was to be seen in Edward Gorey's books. So I could dig Stoppard, even though he appeared pretty facile.

His dialogue resembles verbal firecrackers!

So you can well imagine the next day, at high school, I had a ready stock of wit to display to my fellow nerds, loitering round our lockers.
***

Four stars, friends. For though Stoppard flirts with profundity he never long pursues it.

Stoppard sees life as a mere joke. Small wonder, for when as a mere child his folks fled Nazi Czechoslovakia for faraway India, he felt his life as overwhelming culture shock.

Still, life's not an absurdist game. It's an ordeal - as any modern introvert knows (though perhaps Amazon has now declared war on us, I don't know, with the new push to 'extrovert' us all)!

But we Aspies had it right at the outset: life hurts and then you die. Sorry, it's no joke. Try curing That, Herr Doktor Asperger!

So Stoppard lives on the surface. A pretty Rough surface when you get to old age, Tom?

But, still, you know, you've gotta laugh with him all the way to the Beyond.

When, at last, the hounded Christian introverts among us will find our peace and profundity.
***

Here in Ontario, today our neighbourhood has become nothing but - as Voltaire once quipped about Canada - "quelques arpents de neige" (several acres of snow).

On the surface, Canada hasn't changed much since the eighteenth century.

But deep down, inside my own aspie self, I know life's not a joke to dumb down with stats and weather bulletins, as our media would have it.

Life's not a boring game.

And neither is it absurd.

No -

For been-there-done-that Rosencrantz's screamingly Woke skullduggery -

Is only the fast lane to hell.

Non è facile parlarne, a cominciare dai nomi. Va bene Rosencrantz, che non so perché mi suona meglio e l’ortografia è più potabile ma è dura con Guindnstein o Guinnestein o… vado a controllare…ecco Guildenstern, quello giusto finalmente. Non sono riuscita a districarli dignitosamente dall’Amleto di Schachespeare.

Stoppard affida a uno dei due di presentarsi (confondono loro stessi i loro nomi) come Sciachespeare li ha concepiti : “Noi, Rosencrantz e Guildenstern, allevati con lui fin dall’infanzia, svegliati da un uomo ritto sulla sella di un cavallo, siamo convocati, e ci presentiamo, e ci viene ordinato di capire cosa lo affligge e di indurlo a distrarsi, per esempio con una recita, che sfortunatamente, come si vedrà, viene interrotta tra lo scompiglio generale a causa di una qualche sfumatura al di là della nostra comprensione... e questo, insieme ad altre cause, provoca, insieme ad altri effetti, una forte, per non dire omicida, esaltazione in Amleto e, di conseguenza, noi lo stiamo ora scortando, per il suo bene, in Inghilterra. Bene. Adesso ci siamo. La plausibilità è la mia sola presunzione! La vita è un gioco d’azzardo con pronostici spaventosi... se fosse una scommessa non l’accettereste” .

Stoppard non si chiede perché Sciachespeare li metta in scena, due inutili spioni, nè, soprattutto, perché non li dimentichi nella nave abbandonandoli al loro destino di personaggi superflui all’economia della tragedia.
Non lo fa perché nel finale Sciachespeare ci tiene a comunicarci, già agghiacciati dalla carneficina consumata sotto i nostri occhi, che Rosencrantz e Guinonricordo sono morti in Inghilterra: vite inutili, illuse di vivere una vera vita, come se ne consumano da millenni ma che meritano almeno un epitaffio: scarti della storia che vivono l’assurdo, reale più del dolore esibito degli altri attori sulla scena.

A volte sembra di leggere, nei dialoghi di Stoppard, Camus e il suo Sisifo.
Se uno dice:
” Sii felice... se non sei nemmeno felice cosa c’è di tanto bello nel sopravvivere? Andrà tutto bene. Suppongo che andremo avanti e basta… La condizione umana: dipendere da ciò che non si conosce ma che si intuisce non si potrà schivare…
L’altro risponde:
Agiamo sulla base di informazioni frammentarie... cercando di vagliare istruzioni che ricordiamo solo a metà e che non riusciamo neanche a separare dall’istinto… Liberi di muoversi, di parlare, di improvvisare e quant’altro. Noi non siamo liberi… Il tempo ci spinge alla deriva, aggrappati a dei fili di paglia.
E entrambi convengono: Ci terranno qui a ciondolare finché non moriremo. E forse anche oltre.
E il tutto mentre “si sfidano a testa o croce e si scambiano vaneggiamenti, doppi sensi, insinuazioni, giochi di parole. Come se fossero alla mercé di un impenetrabile mistero.”

L’Amleto non è per nulla uno spunto della commedia. Richiami buoni a permettere allo spettatore delle ultime file, quello non allittrato, di ridere ma piuttosto punta l’obiettivo sui retroscena del dramma scespiriano mentre è rappresentato: due allestimenti su un solo palcoscenico contemporaneamente, entrambi volutamente grotteschi, perché anche l’Amleto grottesco lo è.

Non sono riuscita a ridere come sembra avvenga in teatro, forse perché il teatro nasce per essere ascoltato e visto: “ A cosa serve la pantomima? … Beh, in effetti è un espediente... rende l’azione che segue più comprensibile; voi capite, siamo costretti ad un linguaggio che compensa la mancanza di stile con la mancanza di chiarezza.”

Uvek se trudim da prvo pročitam delo, pa da onda gledam film, ukoliko postoji, naravno, jer sam veliki ljubitelj obe umetnosti. Međutim, ovaj film sam gledala davno i to neposredno posle čitanja "Hamleta" (prvo čitanje), jer me zaintrigirao naslov. Oduševila se idejom, dva sporedna lika najpopularnije tragedije na svetu postaju glavni likovi tragikomedije apsurda. Hmm, hajde da vidimo šta to Rozenkranc i Gildenstern zapravo rade iza scene, da li opravdano stradaju jer izdaju prijatelja, ko su oni, i zašto ne mogu da se sete gde su pošli i šta treba da rade (jeste, podseća na Vladimira i Estragona), da li se njihova sudbina može promeniti ili je predodređena već postojećim, davno napisanim ulogama... Ako vam se čita ili gleda nešto neobično, i ukoliko niste davno posvetili pažnju fenomenalnom teatru apsurda, ovo je pravo delo za vas. Elem, da se vratim na početak, čitajući delo posle filma, bilo je neizbežno da sve vreme čujem glasove Tima Rota i Geri Oldmana, jer su im uloge u filmu odlične!

My oldest needed this for an advanced Language Arts class so I snagged it and asked for it afterwards. I love that there are some marks in here (presumably from the guidance of the teacher or for my kid's parts?) and I love that they add to the story. I can also imagine this being a fun read listening to each person read out a part and actually hear it played out a bit. As it is, it's a short read but I can't say I got the full enjoyment out of it that I would have a play.

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

After reading a bunch of spark notes I gave this four stars.

I was just as confused as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Ma ei suuda otsustada, kas Stoppard on matemaatika bitch või matemaatika on Stoppardi bitch

I was going to give this two stars. I wasn't enjoying the play, I never really could get into it. I was both bored and confused.

But the reason why I bumped it up to three stars was the last 5 pages. It really wrapped up the story and was a satisfying ending.

I loved Hamlet, so I went into this story with super high expectations. Because of that, I wasn't able to enjoy it as much as I though I was going to.

there is quite literally no plot and is a waste of 100 pages. every character in this play is annoying and insane as hell

I watched this movie years ago and thought it was hilarious so I thought I'd check out the play that inspired the film. It's the ramblings of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern while Hamlet goes unnoticed, or at least misunderstood, by them in the background. In far over their heads, both in thematic prose and plot progression, what makes this play so hilarious is the irony. One of the few times irony can truly be claimed: the reader is aware of a humor lost on the characters when we have the foreknowledge of the well-known fate of Rosen & Guild. My favorite part is the detached and indifferent discussion of death between Rosen & Guild when they think it's Hamlet forthcoming end but we the readers all know that it is their deaths they are tumbling towards unknowingly.

Their part-insightful, part-idiotic discussions on chance, fate, death, friends, and word play is amusing. One of my favorite lines "A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself" is humorous because it is spoken by a seemingly nonsensical insane Guildenstern trying to appear intelligent about a Hamlet who is "stark raving sane" trying to appear unintelligent. The humor of self-evaluation in "talking nonsense not to himself" is lost on Guild.

I loved the questions game they played where they weren't allowed to make a statement, only ask questions and the rhetoric it produced. The incorrect assumptions they take on the mundane, taking nothing for given, even previously established facts was amusing as well. Such as: "The old man thinks he's in love with his daughter" received questions such as "He's in love with his daughter?" and "The old man is?" going back and forth until "Hamlet in love with the old man's daughter, the old man thinks" sets them straight. While their conversation is often idiotic, it is sometimes insightful, and amusing in both instances.

But while very witty, it was a little bit hard to follow at times, particularly the stage directions. It made me want to pull out Hamlet and reference the correlating scenes. It may be useful to have read Hamlet recently. I forgot what a great play that is. With the quick conversation and the double plays, I think the movie is a better forum for this and I'm putting this movie on my queue for a rewatch (and it was excellent once again). But what an original idea. Very funny. Give it a read or better yet go watch the movie.

A few of the quotes that struck me:
We're actors! We're the opposite of people.
A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself. Or just as mad. . .Stark raving sane.
Shouldn't we be doing something... constructive? ... What did you have in mind? A short, blunt human pyramid?
A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty - and, by which definition, a philosopher - dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security.
Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions. What do you assume?
In reponse to I don't believe in England: Just a conspiracy of cartographers?
We're still finding our feet ... I should concentrate on not losing your head.
Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect. You'd have a chance, at least. You could lie there thinking, "Well, at least I'm not dead.
We move idly toward eternity without possibility of reprieve or hope of explanation.
If you're not even happy, what's so good about surviving?
Death is not...not. Death isn't. You take my meaning. Death is the ultimate negative. Not being.