Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard

Rating - 4: worth reading multiple times (buy it)

When I was younger, I loved this play for its comedic elements almost exclusively. I can now appreciate its tragic qualities and the sense of life it conveys. This is a better version of Waiting for Godot, one with more appeal for audiences even if perhaps less for world-weary philosophers.

Two minor characters from Hamlet get their own play. R&G are hapless pawns, caught in events beyond their comprehension. Everything seems to be beyond their comprehension: what is going on, what they are supposed to be doing, what the point of it all is, or even which of them is which. Life runs from confusion to boredom to amusement to despair, all carried along by fate and outrageous fortune.

R&G is a tragicomedy, or perhaps theatre of the absurd. I am told that a "tragicomedy" had been used to describe a serious play with a happy ending (Antigone lives!), but I mostly hear it used for dark comedies that generally end badly if at all. The overall sense is that life is horrible and things will not go well, but mood is surprisingly upbeat despite that. We laugh and joke on our path through death and despair.

That can be hard on an audience. I cite Godot as the best contrast: it essentially has the same characters as old men, waiting for something to happen to them. There is chatter that is sometimes play and often explores ideas without really going anywhere. R&G is better because it is more watchable. There is more humor and less tragedy, which is ironic given that the cast of Hamlet ends up dead, while the cast of Godot is still standing there (and always will). There are more events in R&G, more things for the audience to latch on to, and those events are familiar if you know Hamlet, which you should.

R&G are not just waiting for things to happen to them. Not just waiting: they are often hoping that someone will come along and make something happen. Then things happen, and R&G hope they will stop happening, until they feel bored and lonely at center stage and go back to waiting. R&G are not the masters of their fate.

The humor is good. Mr. Stoppard has given Guildenstern some wonderful little monologues that touch on the profound but founder on the absurd. Guildenstern takes turns being straight man with Rosencrantz, his unphilosophical complement. I am at a loss for how to describe good comedy. The play has several varieties of irony, innuendo, confusion, patter, odd events, and straight-up jokes.

After all, when you are a minor character, you need to take events with a bit of humor. You are sent for, and out of nowhere you appear to play a small part before being shuffled off the stage. With any luck, you can perform your little role well without disturbing or being disturbed by the big events.

You have nothing to go on except what they tell you, which you may not listen to, and really why should you believe them anyway? They lie to you all the time for their own reasons or simply for their own amusement. R&G are trapped in text, words words words, and language promises a path to understanding while mostly leading them astray. Questions are a game that help them pass the time; questions are their purpose in the play, to draw information from a Hamlet who equivocates when not being nonsensical; questions are all they have of their purpose in life, strange and short lives that seem entirely beyond their control. They try to cling to words that disappear instantly into silence.

They never do find out which is which. The script dictates that the verbose one is Guildenstern, but that is never substantiated in the play (either Hamlet or R&G). It is a point of confusion for them, and the audience has no reason to conclude who gets which name. The names are just two more misleading words lost in the ether, unable to help them establish their identities.

You could spend a long while exploring any of the points they raise. How about the Player's contention that it is the existence of observers that gives their actions meaning? He is talking about actors, but he means you. Guildenstern points to the three colors of light, which are the only things we see directly. He wonders if that makes yellow a hallucination, a notion that extends to seeing anything. Rosencrantz is somehow the one to give the most extensive exploration of a subject, and he manages to take every side of the question in a cheerful, rambling monologue on death.

I conclude with a note on the blocking. R&G are always on-stage. You are always on-stage in your life, even if larger events are pushing you towards the wings. Events come to you even if you are the one going to them. Like the Player, you start on stage and you are always in costume, and there is only one way out for you.

Amazon link
the film version

You get two bonus points for every uncited Hamlet allusion you noticed in the review.