Stoppard does Beckett

A lot less funny than I thought it was gonna be - almost devastating in a very quiet way. Can imagine the last act kills onstage.

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

Update (31 March 2024):

Just watched a live performance of this play in Toronto, with the lead roles played by Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd (Merry & Pippin from Lord of the Rings!), and I have decided to update my rating to 5 stars. This is a brilliant play, all the more so because Tom Stoppard wrote it when he was 29. Watching the play being performed brought out nuances that escaped me when reading it on the page.

Some additional thoughts:
- Truth is a matter of agreement and trust, not verifiability, because it is rooted in observations that are ultimately subjective.
- Language obscures as much as it reveals. Language can either be a garden exhibiting a profusion of delights and beauties, or a casket which seals them shut/entombs them from the naked eye forever.
- Life/art imitates art/life imitates life/art...in an eternal chain...
- Our actions are driven not by conscious choice, but by passion, desire and attachment. Only a few of us ever manage to tame these to live consciously, and even are at the mercy of forces and events we can do nought but respond to. If the world is a wave, each man is born at a different height of the crest, to differing levels of clarity. Some of us are born to be lead characters, and others extras. But the faith we place on the written and spoken word is immense. Ultimately we all want to believe or accept that things are proceeding a certain way for a certain reason, because it brings us relief.
- All that we do - art, scientific reasoning, religion - is but a response to and an attempt to rationalize the fear of death.
- A single word or timing of chance and circumstance can seal our fate.

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Quotes from the play: https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes...

A rambling satire about the alchemy of time and chance, probability and determinism, destiny and free will, morality and hypocrisy, and the struggle to find truth and beauty amidst society's cruelties and injustices.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet, sent on a quest that proves to be their doom. In this play, Stoppard attempts to weave a profound exploration of life and existence out their brief appearance.

While Rosencrantz and Guildenstern can sense that they are part of something bigger that they can't fully see and haven't been told about, they lack the courage and imagination to do anything about it, to break out of the grip of what feels like destiny. Character indeed turns out to be fate. Even when presented with a warning of what might befall them, they fail to see the message. They see and discuss everything but the obvious. Neither Rosencrantz, for all his slippery guile, nor Guildenstern, for his sincerity and tendency to over-analyze, are able to determine the wider context and trajectory of the seemingly absurd events unfolding around them. On several occasions, they sense an ending coming but fail to realize its full import.

Perhaps this play is meant a satire on the plight of the marginalized who are usually excluded from the grand narratives of history and opportunities to shape society, by way of R and G's confusion at not knowing the full extent of the forces that shape, toss, turn and ultimately extinguish their lives.

Or maybe it's about hierarchy and exploitation: R and G exploit the minor characters in their play as much as they themselves are exploited by the major characters in Hamlet. But while Rosencrantz remains cheerfully dense and self-involved throughout, it is only Guildenstern who comes to appreciate the fragility of life when his own life is forfeit.

Maybe it is also a sideways satire of the acting profession itself: how it attempts to recreate the dramas and deep rhythms of life, but in attempting to pay homage to it in recreation, also parodies it and makes a mockery of its attempted seriousness. Human beings need an audience to feel alive and on their best behavior, and so perhaps that's why they invented religion and the performing arts.

To fully appreciate this play, it helps to be familiar with the plot of Hamlet. But I guess postmodern plays may not be for me. Like Waiting For Godot, I found hard to stay interested, with only the knowledge that this is a classic keeping me going. The absurd, seemingly meaningless dialogue belies a profundity that is not easily discernable in a first reading, but it does bring to mind Wittgenstein's rants about the vagaries and imprecisions of language: that nobody ever really knows if we're speaking the same language to one other and truly understanding each other, or just associating meaning to sounds and riding off the consistency of constant conjunctions between word and response that we observe in the world.

Either way, not the easiest or most interesting read, but it does have its moments of clarity, pathos and profundity.

— dying is not romantic, and death is not a game which will soon be over...death is not anything...death is not...It's the absence of presence, nothing more...the endless time of never coming back...a gap you can't see, and when the wind blows through it, it makes no sound...

consider me Affected! really enjoyed this one. definitely reminded me of waiting for godot, which i’m glad about because it also reminded me how much i love waiting for godot, and i have discovered how much i love this play and i can definitely see myself rereading it for ages to come

It's absolute genius!
The play is just funny and ironic and absurd and it's so entertaining to read...
Just a bit difficult to stick with the repentine change of character and situations and the dialogues can be difficult but it is a very enjoyable read none the less. I wish I could see it live in theatres in Italy.

Each of us is the star of our own life. You may be a bit part in someone else’s narrative, but in your own mind, yours is the story that matters. Or you may struggle to find meaning in your own life, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in this play by Tom Stoppard.

Last night I attended a live broadcast of the National Theatre production, starring Daniel Radcliffe and Josh McGuire. The set was very simple and the dialog was copious and delivered rapidly. I couldn’t help but admire how well they knew their parts.

There was definitely a “Waiting for Godot” vibe to the production, as R & G wait for some kind of sign or direction as to what they are supposed to be doing.

A knowledge of Shakespeare’s Hamlet isn’t necessary to appreciate this play, but I think it enhances the viewer’s appreciation.

Recommended.

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

I LOVE the movie that was adapted from this play. Reading the play was equally enjoyable to watching the movie. There are, of course, some slight differences between the two, but the play is an amazing work that employs such a nuanced use of the English language, while being a heck of a lot of fun.

Having read the play I am now totally enchanted by Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are Dead.

Rosecrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead follows two minor characters from "Hamlet" as all the action from that play sweeps around them. It is absurd, funny, sad and poignant by turns.

Sir Tom Stoppard is quite possibly the greatest playwright of the 20th Century.

I can't wait to watch the filmed version that I got from the library.

I really looooved this play the first time around and I am quite bummed out that it didn't work out upon my reread. I absolutely adored the first act, which I thought was awfully cleverly written and had some amazing one-liners and (gay!) banter that would have made Oscar Wilde envious, but the rest of the play seemed lazily plotted-through and ultimately fell flat. The hilarious dynamic between Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that was set up in the first act, didn't quite make its way into the second and third act. Their story seemed to go nowhere ... which, I know, is the purpose of the play, but I cannot help but wonder if you couldn't have gotten a more satisfying resolution for them?

Anyways, I will leave you with my favorite quote that I (re)discovered when reading this:

Ros Fire!
Guil jumps up.
Guil Where?
Ros It's all right – I'm demonstrating the misuse of free speech. To prove that it exists.

I settled for a 4-star rating, since it was 5 stars the first time around and 3 stars now. The truth always lies somewhere in the middle. ;)

Original Review (September, 2018):
What is life? What even is this play? Why am I trash for this???? I will say it time and time again but plays really are my thang. I know a lot of people struggle with them but they are among my favorite literary pieces: The Importance of Being Earnest, Waiting for Godot, A Raisin in the Sun, The Merry Wives of Windsor and now: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

n  Life is a gamble, at terrible odds. If it were a bet you wouldn’t take it.n

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are characters in William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet. They are childhood friends of Hamlet, summoned by King Claudius to distract the prince from his apparent madness and if possible to ascertain the cause of it. When Hamlet kills Polonius, Claudius recruits Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to escort Hamlet to England, providing them with a letter for the King of England instructing him to have Hamlet killed. (They are apparently unaware of what is in the letter, though Shakespeare never explicitly says so.)

Along the journey, the distrustful Hamlet finds and rewrites the letter, instructing the executioner to kill Rosencrantz and Guildenstern instead. When their ship is attacked by pirates, Hamlet returns to Denmark, leaving Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to die; he comments in Act V, Scene 2 that "They are not near my conscience; their defeat / Does by their own insinuation grow”. Ambassadors returning later report that "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.”

And that’s where Tom Stoppard comes into play. (No pun intended.) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is an absurdist, existential tragicomedy by Tom Stoppard, first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966.

The action of Stoppard's play takes place mainly "in the wings" of Shakespeare’s, with brief appearances of major characters from Hamlet who enact fragments of the original's scenes. Between these episodes the two protagonists seem confused by the events of Hamlet and seem unaware of their role in the larger drama. The play is primarily a comedy, but they often stumble upon deep philosophical truths through their nonsensical ramblings.

n  We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.n

Stoppard also littered his play with jokes that refer to the common thespian tendency to swap Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the midst of the play because the characters are basically identical. He does this by making Rosencrantz and Guildenstern unsure of who is who, as well as having the other players (Claudius, Hamlet, Gertrude) refer to them frequently by the wrong names.

Because of the play's similarity to Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Rosencrantz is sometimes compared to Estragon (one of the tramps who wait for Godot), and who shares his dim perception of reality, while Guildenstern parallels Vladimir, who shares his analytical perception. Many plot features are similar as well: the characters pass time by playing Questions, impersonating other characters, and interrupting each other or remaining silent for long periods of time.

The play opens with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern betting on coin flips. Rosencrantz, who bets heads each time, wins ninety-two flips in a row. The extreme unlikeliness of this event according to the laws of probability leads Guildenstern to suggest that they may be "within un-, sub- or supernatural forces". The audience learns why they are where they are: the King has sent for them. Guildenstern theorizes on the nature of reality, focusing on how an event becomes increasingly real as more people witness it.

n  We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.n

Metatheatre is a central structural element of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Scenes that are staged as plays, dumb shows, or commentaries on dramatic theory and practice, are prominent in both Stoppard's play and Shakespeare's original tragedy Hamlet. In Hamlet, metatheatrical elements include the Player's speech (2.2), Hamlet's advice to the Players (3.2), and the meta-play "The Mousetrap" (3.3). Since Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are characters from Hamlet itself, Stoppard's entire play can be considered a piece of metatheatre.

Personally, I loved every bit of this play. Its charm. Its wit. Its social commentary. I was laughing out loud several times and took our two protagonists immediately to heart. I mean, those misfits. I cannot deal. Tom Stoppard is a literary genius. The fact that he always found the right words to set the scene and hit the mark is mind-boggling to me. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is, in my humble opinion, one of the best plays of the English language.

n  Rosencrantz: I don't believe in it anyway.
Guildenstern: What?
Rosencrantz: England.
Guildenstern: Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then?n

And so I will end with one of the biggest compliments I could ever give: Oscar would’ve loved this!

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.

3½