An absurdest play with two idiot main characters and one of the most profound quotes of all time “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.”

After reading this play I will never be able to read Hamlet the same way again. Two characters that are minor in Hamlet take center stage in this amazing play.
I know the ending going in, having read Hamlet, what I got in this play is the characters of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
My favorite dialogue is in Act two when they are discussing what death is with the players. The dialogue is just tremendous.
The ending is heartbreaking because they are no longer minor characters but two people that are dead.

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.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, 1966, Tom Stoppard

An ambassador from England arrives on the scene to bluntly report "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead" (Hamlet. Act V, Scene II, line 411); they join the stabbed, poisoned and drowned key characters. By the end of Hamlet, Horatio is the only main figure left alive.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز هفتم ماه جولای سال 2016میلادی

عنوان: روزن‍ک‍ران‍ت‍ز و گ‍ی‍ل‍دن‍س‍ت‍رن‌ م‍رده‌ان‍د؛ نویسنده: ت‍ام‌ اس‍ت‍اپ‍ارد؛ مت‍رج‍م‌ م‍ص‍طف‍ی‌ اس‍لام‍ی‍ه‌؛ تهران، نیلوفر، 1381؛ در 144ص؛ شابک 9644481828؛ موضوع نمایشنامه های نویسندگان بریتانیایی - سده 20م

روزنکرانتز و گیلدنسترن مرده ‌اند؛ عنوان نمایشنامه و فیلمی کمدی-درام، نوشته ی «تام استاپارد» است؛ نمایشنامه، دو شخصیت فرعی نمایش «هملت»، اثر «ویلیام شکسپیر» را پی می‌گیرد، آنها که خودشان را در مسیر« قلعه الزینور» می‌یابند؛ پیش از رسیدن به قلعه، آن‌ها با گروهی از بازیگران، برخورد می‌کنند، و دربارهٔ فلسفه ی وجودشان، پرسشهایی برایشان پیش می‌آید؛ فیلم برنده جایزه «شیر طلایی» چهل و هفتمین دوره جشنواره فیلم «ونیز» شده است این اثر، یکی از ماندگارترین و پر اجرا شده ترین نمایشنامه ها در تئاتر معاصر است، و توانسته به جایگاهی ثابت در میان برترین آثار نمایشی دست یابد؛ این شاهکار مدرن، در دنیای نمایشنامه ی «هملت» اثر «شکسپیر» میگذرد اما توسط شخصیتهایی سردرگم و ره گم کرده روایت میشود که در داستان اصلی «شکسپیر»، کاراکترهایی فرعی بودند؛ «روزنکرانتز» و «گیلدنسترن» در این اثر به یاد ماندنی، بالاخره فرصت پیدا میکنند، تا نقش اصلی را بر دوش بگیرند، اما باید آن کار را در جهانی به انجام برسانند، که بسیار یادآور نمایشنامه ی «در انتظار گودو» اثر «ساموئل بکت» باشد؛ در جهانی که واقعیت و وهم در هم میآمیزند و سرنوشت، دو قهرمان داستان را، به سوی پایانی تراژیک اما غیرقابل اجتناب هدایت میکنند

گاه خوانشگری دست بالا میزند، و برایم مینگارد، که چرا، این فراموشکار در ریویوهایم دیدگاه خویش را، درباره ی کتاب و داستان نمینویسم؟؛ راستش را بخواهید، قضاوت کردن درباره نویسندگانی که عمر خویش را، با واژه ها بگذرانیده اند، کار آسانی نیست؛ اگر از خوانش کتابی مشکلی به دیده ام بنشیند، شاید در متن اصلی کتاب، آن مشکل نباشد؛ ولی هر کتابی هماره برایم، جهانی نو را باز میگشاید، و هماره خوانش واژه ها، دلم را به تپش وامیدارد؛ هر چند این روزها، بیشتر از پیش، خشکیده ام، و تپشی در کار نیست؛ هیچ اندرزی را، به فرزندان خویش نیز، نمیگویم؛ چون: «زندگی آتشگهی دیرنده پا برجاست؛ گر بیفروزیش، رقص شعله اش در هر کران پیداست»؛ پس هر کدام از ما باید خود زندگی کنیم؛ و از زندگی خویشتن خویش پاسخ رازها را بیاموزیم؛ جهان به گستردگی بینش مردمان بگذشته ها و امروزیان و آیندگان نیز هست

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 27/12/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

This is SUCH a brilliant play! You absolutely need to read this if you liked Hamlet. Actually, you need to read this if you hated Hamlet, too. Just read this after Hamlet and you're guaranteed to have lots of fun. Although it parallels Waiting for Godot in many respects, I found Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to be finer in humour and character construction; but then again, this one also has Shakespeare in addition to being overtly metatheatrical, which I think is quite hard to beat.

ROS: To sum up: your father, whom you love, dies, you are his heir, you come back to find that hardly was the corpse cold before his young brother popped on to his throne and into his sheets, thereby offending both legal and natural practice. Now, why exactly are you behaving in this extraordinary manner?

GUIL: I can't imagine. (Pause.)

This re-read could not have come at a better time deep in the midst of existential crisis #522. This is the clever tragicomic meta-play of two minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet. They are summoned, they bumble about, they play questions, they are entirely confounded by the hubbub surrounding the "much transformed" Prince of Denmark, and then they are sent to their feeble deaths as demanded by the grand scheme of the play. While the dialogue and physical antics of Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and the Tragediens are comical and laden with puns, the play serves as a philosophical musing on life, the futility of it, and the cruel haphazard nature of creation (and death). But... um... all in good fun of course.

I can't imagine this being particularly interesting reading if you haven't read Hamlet or if you don't enjoy pointless witticisms and humor in the absurd.

The play always leaves me thinking that maybe we're all just minor characters summoned from nothing to pass the time idly waxing philosophic and idiotic while we wait to fulfill our minor role after which we make our sad, pathetic exit without applause or encore. But... um... in a fun(ny) way, I promise you...

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.

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, written by Tom Stoppard, was first performed in a shortened version in August 1966. When it opened in London in 1967, it catapulted Stoppard into the front ranks of modern playwrights. The plot is supposedly simple: the play of Hamlet seen not through the eyes of Hamlet or Claudius or Ophelia or Gertrude, but a worm's-eye view of the tragedy seen from the standpoint of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The blurb on the back of book says that "it is very funny, very brilliant, very chilling; it has the dus of thouht about it and the particles glitter excitingly in the the theatrical air."

Um. Okay. If Clive Barnes from The New York Times says so. But you couldn't tell by my reading. I'm afraid I didn't see any humor in it. I can't say that I thought it was all that brilliant. In fact, it was almost entirely one great big "HUH???" for me. I don't get it. I'm well acquainted with Hamlet and, yes, I do get the bits of the actual play that are sprinkled here and there....but overall everything that had to do with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern made very little sense to me. Their dialogue was very vague and elliptical. Maybe this is one of those plays that do better if seen than read. I certainly hope so, because I can't say that I've gotten anything out this reading--except another candle on my Birth Year Reading Challenge Cake. One star....maybe less.

GUIL: Do you like plays?

ROS: Plays?

GUIL: Plays.

ROS: I like playing--

GUIL: Do you?

ROS: --although I don't like players.

GUIL: A healthy dose of competition, I suppose?

The PLAYER KING enters, climbing out of a barrel.

PLAYER KING: No, he means me.

GUIL: Ah, what sport do you play?

PLAYER KING: I play all sports, why do you ask?

ROS: I find him insufferable.

GUIL: Ah, big words.

ROS: Word play.

GUIL: Play word.

PLAYER KING (interrupting their inevitable spiral into word play): I call heads.

ROS: There's three of us though. If you call heads--

GUIL: And I call tails--

ROS: Then what do I call?

PLAYER KING: Call the King of England, perhaps?

ROS: Ah. Is he on the heads or tails side?

GUIL: Heads, I'd imagine.

ROS (to the PLAYER KING): Then what are you playing?

PLAYER KING: The edge, I suppose.

All three men muse over this.

GUIL: I'll take these odds

ROS: I will too.

GUIL takes out a coin, flips it, and lets it fall on the floor. It lands on the edge of the coin, balancing on its sides.

GUIL: What are the odds?

ROS: What are the odds?

PLAYER KING: What do I win?

GUIL: Well, another round, I suppose.

ROS: Neither heads nor tails--(to the PLAYER KING) does this mean the middle was your bet?

GUIL: Fortune is a strumpet.

yo read this overly caffeinated to go into another realm

England is simply a conspiracy of cartographers

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

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