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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
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This article is about Tom Stoppard's play.
For the 1990 film, see Rosencrantz &
Guildenstern Are Dead (film) .
This article is about the play. For the
characters from Shakepeare's Hamlet, see
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are
IBDB profile
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
is an absurdist, existentialist tragicomedy
by Tom Stoppard, first staged at the
Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966.[1] The
play expands upon the exploits of two
minor characters from Shakespeare's
Hamlet, the courtiers Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern. The action of Stoppard's play
takes place mainly 'in the wings' of
Dead
Shakespeare's, with brief appearances of
major characters from Hamlet who enact
fragments of the original's scenes. Between
these episodes the two protagonists voice
their confusion at the progress of events of
which—occurring onstage without them in
Hamlet—they have no direct knowledge.
Contents
[hide]

Grove Press, 1968 edition
Written by
Tom Stoppard
Characters
Rosencrantz
Guildenstern
The Player
Hamlet
Tragedians
King Claudius
Gertrude
Polonius
Ophelia
Horatio
Fortinbras
Soldiers, courtiers, and
musicians
Date premiered
26 August 1966
Place premiered
Edinburgh Fringe
Edinburgh, Scotland
Original language English
Subject
Genre
Tragic comedy
Setting
Shakespeare's Hamlet
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1 Sources
o 1.1 Title
2 Characters
3 Synopsis
4 Summary
o 4.1 Act One
o 4.2 Act Two
o 4.3 Act Three
5 Themes
6 Metatheatre
7 Notable productions
o 7.1 United Kingdom
o 7.2 Broadway and OffBroadway
o 7.3 Film adaptation
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External links
Sources
The main source of Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are Dead is Shakespeare's
Hamlet. Comparisons have also been
drawn to Samuel Beckett's Waiting For
Godot,[2] for the presence of two central
characters who almost appear to be two
halves of a single character. 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.
Title
The title is taken directly from the final
scene of Shakespeare's Hamlet. In earlier
scenes, Prince Hamlet ordered the deaths
of the two messengers Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern. By the end of Shakespeare's
play, Prince Hamlet, Laertes, Ophelia,
Polonius, King Claudius and Gertrude all
lie dead. An ambassador from England
arrives to bluntly report "Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are dead"(Hamlet. Act V,
Scene ii., line.411) and so they join all the
stabbed, poisoned, drowned key characters.
By the end of Hamlet, Horatio is the only
main figure left alive.
Characters
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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: a
pair of schoolmates and childhood
friends of Hamlet
The Player: a traveling actor
Hamlet: the Prince of Denmark
Tragedians: traveling with the
Player, including Alfred
King Claudius: the King of
Denmark, Hamlet's uncle and
stepfather
Gertrude: the Queen of Denmark,
and Hamlet's mother
Polonius: Claudius' chief adviser
Ophelia: Polonius' daughter
Horatio: a friend and schoolmate of
Hamlet
Fortinbras: the nephew of the King
of Norway
Soldiers, courtiers, and musicians
Synopsis
The play concerns the misadventures and
musings of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,
two minor characters from William
Shakespeare's Hamlet who are childhood
friends of the prince, focusing on their
actions with the events of Hamlet as
background. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Are Dead is structured as the inverse of
Hamlet; the title characters are the leads,
not supporting players, and Hamlet himself
has only a small part. The duo appears on
stage here when they are off-stage in
Shakespeare's play, with the exception of a
few short scenes in which the dramatic
events of both plays coincide. In Hamlet,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are used by
the King in an attempt to discover Hamlet's
motives and to plot against him. Hamlet,
however, mocks them derisively and
outwits them, so that they, rather than he,
are executed in the end. Thus, from
Rosencrantz's and Guildenstern's
perspective, the action in Hamlet is largely
nonsensically comical.
The two characters, brought into being
within the puzzling universe of Stoppard's
play by an act of the playwright's creation,
have generally interchangeable, yet
periodically unique, identities. Thus, the
two often confuse their own names, as do
the other characters when referring to
them. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are
portrayed as two clowns or fools in a world
that is beyond their understanding; they
cannot identify any reliable feature or the
significance in words or events. Their own
memories are not reliable or complete and
they misunderstand each other as they
stumble through philosophical arguments
while not realizing the implications to
themselves. They often state deep
philosophical truths during their
nonsensical ramblings, yet they depart
from these ideas as quickly as they come to
them. At times Guildenstern appears to be
more enlightened than Rosencrantz; at
times both of them appear to be equally
confounded by the events occurring around
them.
After the two characters witness a
performance of The Murder of Gonzago—
the story within a story in the play
Hamlet—they find themselves on a boat
taking prince Hamlet to England with the
troupe that staged the performance. They
are intended to give the English king a
message telling him to kill Hamlet.
Instead, Hamlet discovers this and
switches the letter for another, telling the
king to kill Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
During the voyage, the two are ambushed
by pirates and lose their prisoner, Hamlet,
before resigning themselves to their fate
and presumably dying thereafter.
Major themes of the play include
existentialism, free will vs. determinism,
the search for value, and the impossibility
of certainty. As with many of Tom
Stoppard's works, the play has a love for
cleverness and language. It treats language
as a confounding system fraught with
ambiguity.
Summary
Act One
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 reader 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.
A troupe of Tragedians arrive and offer the
two men a show. They seem capable only
of performances involving bloodbaths. The
next two scenes are from the plot of
Hamlet. The first, involving Hamlet and
Ophelia, takes place off-stage in the
Shakespeare. The second is taken directly
from Hamlet, and is Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern's first appearance in that play.
Here the Danish king and queen, Claudius
and Gertrude, ask the two to discover the
nature of Hamlet's recent madness. The
royal couple demonstrate an inability to
distinguish the two courtiers from one
another, as indeed do the characters
themselves to their irritation.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern attempt to
practice for their meeting with the Prince
by one pretending to be Hamlet and the
other asking him questions, but they glean
no new information from it. The act closes
with another scene from Hamlet in which
they finally meet the Prince face to face.
Act Two
The act opens with the end of the
conversation between Rosencrantz,
Guildenstern, and Hamlet. Guildenstern
tries to look on the bright side, while
Rosencrantz makes it clear that the pair
had made no progress, that Hamlet had
entirely outwitted them.
The Player returns to the stage. He is angry
that the pair had not earlier stayed to watch
their play because, without an audience,
his Tragedians are nothing. He tells them
to stop questioning their existence because,
upon examination, life appears too chaotic
to comprehend. The Player, Rosencrantz,
and Guildenstern lose themselves in yet
another illogical conversation that
demonstrates the limits of language. The
Player leaves in order to prepare for his
production of the "Murder of Gonzago,"
set to be put on in front of Hamlet and the
King and Queen.
The royal couple enters and begins another
short scene taken directly from Hamlet:
they ask about the duo's encounter with the
Prince, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
inform them about his interest in the
Tragedians' production. After the king and
queen leave, the partners contemplate their
job. They see Hamlet walk by but fail to
seize the opportunity to interview him.
The Tragedians return and perform their
dress rehearsal of The Murder of Gonzago.
The play moves beyond the scope of what
the reader sees in Hamlet; characters
resembling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
are seen taking a sea voyage and meeting
their deaths at the hands of English
courtiers, foreshadowing their true fate.
Rosencrantz doesn't quite make the
connection, but Guildenstern is frightened
into a verbal attack on the Tragedians'
inability to capture the real essence of
death. The stage becomes dark.
When the stage is once again visible,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern lie in the
same position as had the actors portraying
their deaths. The partners are upset that
they have become the pawns of the royal
couple. Claudius enters again and tells
them to find where Hamlet has hidden
Polonius' corpse. After many false starts
they eventually find Hamlet, who leaves
with the King.
Rosencrantz is delighted to find that his
mission is complete, but Guildenstern
knows it is not over. Hamlet enters,
speaking with a Norwegian soldier.
Rosencrantz decides that he is happy to
accompany Hamlet to England because it
means freedom from the orders of the
Danish court. Guildenstern understands
that wherever they go, they are still trapped
in this world.
Act Three
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern find
themselves on a ship that has already set
sail. The audience is led to believe that the
pair has no knowledge of how they got
there. At first, they try to determine
whether they are still alive. Eventually,
they recognize that they are not dead and
are on board a boat. They remember that
Claudius had given them a letter to deliver
to England. After some brief confusion
over who actually has the letter, they find it
and end up opening it. They realize that
Claudius has asked for Hamlet to be killed.
While Rosencrantz seems hesitant to
follow their orders now, Guildenstern
convinces him that they are not worthy of
interfering with fate and with the plans of
kings. The stage becomes black and,
presumably, the characters go to sleep.
Hamlet switches the letter with one he has
written himself, an act which takes place
off stage in Hamlet.
The pair discovers that the Tragedians are
hidden ('impossibly', according to the stage
directions) in several barrels on deck. They
are fleeing Denmark, because their play
has offended Claudius. When Rosencrantz
complains that there is not enough action,
pirates attack. Hamlet, Rosencrantz, and
Guildenstern and the Player all hide in
separate barrels. The lights dim.
When the lights come on again, Hamlet
has vanished (in Hamlet it's reported that
he was kidnapped by pirates from the
ship). Rosencrantz and Guildenstern panic,
and re-read the letter to find that it now
calls for them to be put to death instead of
the prince. Guildenstern cannot understand
why he and Rosencrantz are so important
as to necessitate their executions.
The Player tells Guildenstern that all paths
end in death. Guildenstern snaps and draws
the Player's dagger from his belt, shouting
at him that his portrayals of death do not
do justice to the real thing. He stabs the
Player and the Player appears to die.
Guildenstern honestly believes he has
killed the Player. Seconds later, the
Tragedians begin to clap and the Player
stands up and brushes himself off,
revealing the knife to be a theatrical one
with a retractable blade. The Tragedians
then act out the deaths from the final scene
of Hamlet.
The lighting shifts so that Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are the only ones visible.
Rosencrantz still does not understand why
they must die. Still, he resigns himself to
his fate and his character disappears.
Guildenstern wonders when he passed the
point where he could have stopped the
series of events that has brought him to this
point. He disappears as well. The final
scene features the last few lines from
Shakespeare's Hamlet. The Ambassador
from England announces that Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern are dead.
Themes
Absurdity
The story underlines the
irrationality of the world in
multiple instances. Stoppard
emphasizes the randomness of the
world. In the beginning of Act One,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern bet
on coin flips and Rosencrantz wins
with heads ninety-two times in a
row. Guildenstern creates a series
of syllogisms in order to interpret
this phenomenon, but nothing truly
coincides with the law of
probability. The impossible
becomes possible through
exploiting the minimal chance of a
coin flip turning up heads ninetytwo times in a row. The action is
absurd, but possible. This incident
demonstrates the absurdity of
humans basing many of their
actions on the probability or
likelihood of an event to happen.
The random appearances of the
other characters, which often
confuses the title characters,
contributes to the same idea.[3]
Art vs. Reality
The players help demonstrate the
conflict between art and reality.
The world in which Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern live lacks order.
However, art allows people that
live in this world, as Stoppard hints
that we do, to find order. As the
Player says, "There's a design at
work in all art." Art and the real
world are in conflict. The Player is
overjoyed to find Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern because his art, his
control, is nothing without an
audience. Yet this art angers
Guildenstern to the point where he
strikes the Player because this
theater makes it seem as if there are
definite answers to all of
Guildenstern's philosophical
questions. Of course, there are no
answers in reality. In order to reach
out to the only reality he can be
sure of, Guildenstern exclaims, "No
one gets up after death-there is no
applause-there is only silence and
some second-hand clothes, and
that's death." The tension created
by this theme is that the audience is
watching or reading a play; the
author comments on the ultimate
lack of order in the world by
presenting the audience with an
ordered medium.[4] Stoppard also
uses his characters to comment on
the believability of theater. While
Guildenstern criticizes the Player
for his portrayal of death, he
believes the Player's performance
when Guildenstern thinks he has
stabbed him with a knife.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
believe exactly what the actors
want them to believe. However,
Stoppard complicates the idea that
people believe what they expect
because he never shows the deaths
of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
The reader expects this event to
come, but it never does. By
extension, the reader should not
believe that the pair dies; the reader
is expected to accept that they are
literary figures that live on today.[3]
In another scene, Rosencrantz
screams out "Fire!", ostensibly to
call attention to a real fire in the
actual theater in which the play is
being performed, but laughs it off
as a reason why there should be
limits to free speech, and thus
blurring of the line between action
in the play and action in real life.
Limits of Language
Some of the conversations in the
play indicate the author's belief that
language places a limit on what
people can express. The characters
must confine their feelings within
the boundaries of words. Stoppard
mocks language in sequences
where the characters fail to express
what they are thinking because
words cannot exactly capture their
thoughts. Instead, they appear
ridiculous.
Insignificance
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern often
feel as if they are unable to make
any choices that will actually have
an impact on their lives. They
acknowledge that they must act at
the random whims of the other
characters, but do not make any
effort to fight this lack of control.
Stoppard manifests this theme in
his transitions between scenes.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern do
not choose to move from setting to
setting, but they appear in a new
place without deciding to go there.
For instance, they move from the
woods with the Tragedians into the
castle to a conversation with the
king and queen without actually
saying they want to enter Elsinore.
When deciding whether to bring
Hamlet to England, Rosencrantz
concludes that they might as well
continue on the path on which they
are already. Stoppard criticizes this
passivity. The title characters are
able to make a life-changing
decision when they discover that
their letter contains an order to kill
Hamlet. Instead, they decide to do
nothing and the result is their
deaths.[3]
Metatheatre
Metatheatre is a central structural element
of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are
Dead. Metatheatrical scenes, that is, 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 & Guildenstern are
characters from Hamlet itself, Stoppard’s
entire play can be considered a piece of
metatheatre. However, this first level of
metatheatre is deepened and complicated
by frequent briefer and more intense
metatheatrical episodes; see, for example,
the Players’ pantomimes of Hamlet in Acts
2 and 3, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern’s
obsessive role-playing, and the Player’s
"death" in Act 3. Bernardina da Silveira
Pinheiro observes that Stoppard uses
metatheatrical devices to produce a
"parody" of the key elements of
Shakespeare’s Hamlet that includes
foregrounding two minor characters
considered "nonentities" in the original
tragedy.[5] Pinheiro notes that Stoppard
alters the focus of Hamlet’s "play-withina-play" so that it reveals the ultimate fate
of the tragicomedy’s anti-heroes,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. However,
this alteration ultimately culminates in an
absurdist anti-climax that runs counter to
the effect of "The Mousetrap" in Hamlet,
which effectively reveals the guilt of the
King. While Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
confront a mirror image of their future
deaths in the metadramatic spectacle
staged by the Players, they fail to
recognize themselves in it or gain any
insight into their identities or purpose.[5]
Notable productions
United Kingdom
The play had its first incarnation as a 1964
one-act, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Meet King Lear. The expanded version
under the current title was first staged at
the Edinburgh Festival Fringe August 24,
1966 by the Oxford Theatre Group. The
play debuted in London with a National
Theatre production directed by Derek
Goldby and designed by Desmond Heeley
at the Old Vic. It premiered on April 11,
1967 with John Stride as Rosencrantz,
Edward Petherbridge as Guildenstern,
Graham Crowden as the Player, and John
McEnery as Hamlet. [6]
Broadway and Off-Broadway
The Royal National Theatre production of
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had a yearlong Broadway run from October 9, 1967
through October 19, 1968, initially at the
Alvin Theatre, then transferring to the
Eugene O'Neill Theatre on January 8,
1968. The production, which was
Stoppard's first on Broadway, totalled eight
previews and 420 performances.[1] It was
directed by Derek Goldby and designed by
Desmond Heeley and starred Paul Hecht as
the Player, Brian Murray as Rosencrantz
and John Wood as Guildenstern. The play
was nominated for eight Tony Awards, and
won four: Best Play, Scenic and Costume
Design, and Producer; the director and the
three leading actors were nominated for
Tonys, but did not win.[7] The play also
won Best Play from the New York Drama
Critics Circle in 1968, and Outstanding
Production from the Outer Critics Circle in
1969.
A 1971 college production was
coincidentally also the first college
performance by later-acclaimed
Shakespearean actor Richard Hauenstein.
He played Guildenstern, with David
Massey as Rosencrantz and Jack Harris as
the Player King. The production was
directed by West Hill.
A revival in Burbank, California during the
early 1980s featured Matthew Faison as
Guildenstern and Lane Davies as
Rosencrantz.
The play had a 1987 New York revival by
Roundabout Theatre at the Union Square
Theatre,[1] directed by Robert Carsen and
featuring John Wood as the Player,
Stephen Lang as Rosencrantz and John
Rubinstein as Guildenstern. It ran for 40
performances from April 29 to June 28,
1987.
Several times since 1995, the American
Shakespeare Center has mounted
repertories that included both Hamlet and
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, with the
same actors performing the same roles in
each; in their 2001 and 2009 seasons the
two plays were "directed, designed, and
rehearsed together to make the most out of
the shared scenes and situations".[8]
Film adaptation
Main article: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern
Are Dead (film)
The play was adapted for a film released in
February 1990, with screenplay and
direction by Stoppard. The motion picture
is Stoppard's only film directing credit:
"[I]t began to become clear that it might be
a good idea if I did it myself--at least the
director wouldn't have to keep wondering
what the author meant. It just seemed that
I'd be the only person who could treat the
play with the necessary disrespect."[9] The
cast included Gary Oldman as
Rosencrantz, Tim Roth as Guildenstern,
Richard Dreyfuss as the Player, Joanna
Roth as Ophelia, Ian Richardson as
Polonius, Joanna Miles as Gertrude,
Donald Sumpter as Claudius, and Iain Glen
as Hamlet.
References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
^ a b c Michael H. Hutchins
(14 August 2006). "A Tom
Stoppard Bibliography:
Chronology". The Stephen
Sondheim Reference Guide.
http://www.sondheimguide.com/St
oppard/chronology.html. Retrieved
2008-06-23.
^ Jim Hunter (2000). Tom
Stoppard: Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are dead, Jumpers,
Travesties, Arcadia. Macmillan.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id
=ohoJihItGSoC.
^ a b c Garrett Ziegler
(2008). "Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern Are Dead: Themes,
Motifs & Symbols". SparkNotes.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/rose
ncrantz/themes.html. Retrieved
2008-06-23.
^ Ian Johnston (10 April
1997). "Lecture on Stoppard,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are
Dead". Johnstonia.
http://www.mala.bc.ca/~Johnstoi/in
troser/stoppard.htm. Retrieved
2008-06-23.
^ a b Pinheiro, Bernardina da
Silveira; Resende, Aimara da
Cunha, ed. (2002). "Stoppard’s and
Shakespeare’s Views on
Metatheater". Foreign Accents:
Brazilian Readings of Shakespeare.
Newark, DE: University of
Delaware Press. pp. 185, 194.
ISBN 0874137535.
http://books.google.com/books?id=
P7yxUiVthVkC&pg=PA185.
Retrieved 2008-06-24.
^ Michael Berry (24 May
2004). "Rosencrantz &
Guildenstern Are Dead". Michael
Berry's Web Pages.
http://www.sff.net/people/mberry/r
osen.htp. Retrieved 2008-06-23.
7.
^ "Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern Are Dead Tony
Award Info". BroadwayWorld.
2008.
http://www.broadwayworld.com/to
nyawardsshowinfo.cfm?showname
=Rosencrantz%20and%20Guildens
tern%20Are%20Dead. Retrieved
2008-06-23.
8.
^ Warren, Jim. "Director's
Notes". American Shakespeare
Center.
http://www.americanshakespearece
nter.com/v.php?pg=153. Retrieved
2009-06-20.
9.
^ Los Angeles Times
Further reading

Stoppard, Tom (1967). Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern are Dead.
London: Faber and Faber.
OCLC 228670971.
External links
Theatre portal
Wikiquote has a collection of
quotations related to:
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Are Dead
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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are
Dead at the Internet Broadway
Database
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are
Dead at the Internet Off-Broadway
Database
A Tom Stoppard Bibliography:
Chronology at sondheimguide.com.