Summary:
It is a rollicking day in purgatory, when two English gentlemen by the name of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (although no one can be sure which is which) are sitting on stage, tossing coins. It soon becomes clear that the world in which they abide doesn't work by the rules of most other places, as each successive coin toss comes up heads, over and over and over and over and over again. We quickly learn what little there is to know about the state of our protagonists, (most notably that they were sent for), and then they are overtaken on the road by a troupe of players, who offer rather salacious services. Guildenstern is offended, Rosencrantz intrigued, and poor Alfred is offered up like a piece of meat.
Then we are given our first scene from
Hamlet, where Rosencrantz and Guildenstern slide effortlessly into Shakespearean language when talking to Claudius and Gertrude, who give them the token lines and provide a purpose for them. Hamlet has been transformed, they say. Discover what ails him and draw him on to pleasures. Our protagonists are excited by the new development, and more than pleased to have a reason for existing and a cause to work towards, although it is clear that they could use a little instruction in terms of how to enact it. They practice, a little, playing a cyclical and unbelievably deep game of questions with each other, and proving definitively that neither of them is sure whose name is whose. This, of course, is completely inadequate preparation for their first tete a tete with Hamlet, who makes himself look like a massive jerk by stringing along the two men who, while they were ratty spies in the play
Hamlet, are now the center of our sympathies.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are aware that Hamlet has played them, giving their own account of the encounter in terms of the questions game. Then they lose the sun, and cannot determine the direction of the wind. There is a brief, coin tossing interlude, and then the Player reappears, to determine their progress with Hamlet, and to berate the pair for abandoning the actors to perform without an audience, claiming that it ruined their own sense of reality. Guildenstern, somehow recognizing the Player's comfort with the dual reality that our protagonists are struggling with, begs the Player for some answers, and gets none. The Player then helps them hash out Hamlet's weaknesses, in a way that makes it very clear that Hamlet is not meant to be mad.
The Player departs, and Rosencrantz has a long, foreshadowy monologue about death that deeply upsets Guildenstern. Then Claudius and Gertrude intrude, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern bluff their way through another scene from Hamlet, insisting that they know of Hamlet's troubles. There is an interesting entrance and exit of
Hamlet and Ophelia's confrontation, and then the Players reappear to rehearse. The play they give is an obvious pantomime of
Hamlet that goes up to what is shown in the play, only to be interrupted by the end of Hamlet's verbal abuse of Ophelia. The player's rehearsal continues afterward to extend to the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern themselves, prompting an anxious retaliation from Guildenstern about the true nature of death.
Once the arguing over death is done, Claudius commands the two to seek out Hamlet, since Hamlet has slain Polonius. They fail to secure him, and lie to Claudius, only to have Hamlet appear on cue, and then depart with Hamlet to England.
This is yet another death fakeout, where Rosencrantz and Guildenstern awake in total darkness on a boat, unsure of where they are precisely, but are at least relieved to know where they are going. Yet again they lose the sun, and their sense of time, but they are bolstered by the idea of their purpose as it was stated within Hamlet. They practice once more, this interaction with the King of England, and in their haste, open the letter and learn that Hamlet is to be put to death. They argue, then, about what to do. Rosencrantz's naivete wanting to spare a declared friend, and Guildenstern's desperate need for control of his life insisting that nothing be changed. Despite it all, though, Hamlet switches the letters. The next day, the Players make an appearance as stowaways, as do the magical plot device pirates. Hamlet escapes, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern must go on alone, and they once again discover the change of letters.
The Player insists that they die, and this angers Guildenstern so much that he attempts to slay the Player with his own knife-- a fake actor's knife that doesn't wound him at all. Slowly, though, all characters vanish but Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Rosencrantz gives up and leaves Guildenstern alone, and Guildenstern is quick to follow, but the play does not end with their exit from the stage. Instead, it ends as Hamlet does, with Horatio's noble speech and the slightly eerie music of the Players.
Relevant Characters:
Rosencrantz:
Rosencrantz is the heart to Guildenstern's head. He is naive, worldly, and above all else, practical. While Guildenstern attempts to talk his way in and around their various problems, Rosencrantz is capable of cutting through issues with startling finesse, even if his character's actions tends more toward the 'bumbling fool' type. Rosencrantz understands more than he thinks he does, but the real crux of his persona is his lack of worry. He can't remember whose name is whose, but it doesn't bother him the way it does Guildenstern. His responses to stresses are more openly emotional, especially when he gets worried- he will cry, and express a desire to return 'home'-- wherever home may be.
Guildenstern:
Guildenstern should not be mistaken for the unfeeling half of the pair. He tends to be hasty, anxious, and makes valiant attempts at being cerebral. Occasionally his words cut Rosencrantz, but Guildenstern is not removed from all feeling. Quite the opposite- all the anxiety of the play rests on him to express, try as he might to hide it. It is Guildenstern who has several monologues about the permanence of death, and all of his extended attempts to explain the laws of the universe around them grow increasingly frantic, and have an air of desperation about them. Guildenstern is almost abandoned by Rosencrantz's apathy, and is the only one left to worry and question the bizzarre state of affairs that results form being side characters in a notable work.
The Player: The only one of the Tragedians with lines, the Player has the air of knowledge about them. As much as he attempts to guide Rosencrantz and Guildenstern through the play, he spends an equal amount of time abandoning them and allowing them to make bumbling mistakes. He shows no kindness towards them, but there is a strange sort of sympathy that obviously provokes him into helping them. They tend to reject his advice, Guildenstern especially, due to the nature of his work as an actor/pimp, and this clearly pricks the Player's pride. Still, he is shown to be the most adept at living in a half world, with his fake deaths and his knowledge of the future as shown by the play the tragedians themselves put on.
All the other characters with significant lines are carryovers from Hamlet.
Style
Most dramatic works have no narrative voice, which is what makes Stoppard's work so interesting. At points in R&G, the stage directions are so involved that not only is the play incomprehensible if you cannot follow them while reading (I recall one moment in my annotations going ARE THEY UPSTAGE OR DOWNSTAGE THIS IS NECESSARY INFORMATION) but the play reads like a novel sometimes. Even when the stage directions are very direct, often there will be instructions for one character embedded in the lines of another character, causing dialogue mixups, confused pauses, and a lot of chaos; which I think is exactly what Stoppard wanted. The meta!commentary that gets directed in first read throughs adds yet another level to the dramatic matryoshka created by having a play about two characters in a play that end up watching a play about the play they're in that the play they're in is based off of, and works towards Stoppard's attempts to create a feel of chaotic meaninglessness.
Stoppard leans on a lot of symbolism to make his points about life and drama and Shakespeare, including but not limited to the sun as it stands in for their lives as well as an absent God they cannot locate, the constant repetition of the idea of 'heads' to remind the audience that reality is merely collective acceptance, and the music that always accompanies the Tragedians and the transition between Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's side world and the world of
Hamlet.
What always has to make things absurdist, however, is the sense that nothing was truly accomplished.
R&G is rife with circular conversations, dialogue repeated word-for-word from previous encounters, and a sense in the end that the curtain will rise on another Rosencrantz and Guildenstern the next day, which makes their noble deaths entirely meaningless in the end. Another element of absurdism that
R&G has is the feeling of anxiety, but interestingly enough, this anxiety is concentrated completely in Guildenstern's character, making it stand out against the more experienced Player, and the unfluttered Rosencrantz. This localization of the anxious nature of humanity not only makes it stand out, but reinforces the running joke of the play- that no one, not even themselves, can tell Rosencrantz and Guildenstern apart. By giving them distinct personalities, Stoppard gives them an identity separate from their name, but by switching actors mid-play and never having a completely correct introduction, an audience that is anything less than alert will not only miss who is who and be forever confused, but have a sense of guilt for not being able to tell between two obviously different men.
This all, of course, furthers my working thesis that Stoppard had a grudge against his audience.
Quotes
- Ros: "Life in a box is better than no life at all"
- This quote is Rosencrantz in a nutshell. While he understands the nature of his existence, as one that is trapped not only within the confines of a narrative he doesn't understand, but a different box on the stage, and perhaps even a third paper box with covers on either side, he has at least pretended to accept it. This whole monologue in which Rosencrantz mulls over death evokes the idea that this, for him, is indeed the moment in childhood in which one realizes one won't live forever. It encompasses, essentially, a lot of the different spectrums under the microscope in this play, that of differing realities, that of the permanence of death, and that of the growth from childhood into adulthood.
- Player: "Audiences know what to expect, and that is all that they are prepared to believe in"
- Stoppard is completely inconsiderate of his audience, or rather, considerate of ways to make his audience uncomfortable. From having a character shout "Fire!" to constantly reminding the audience that yes, they are a group of people watching two men in costume prance about the stage, Stoppard intends audiences to be one step removed, and this quote quite effectively pushes people away from their immersion in the happenings on stage. This, too, also addresses the idea of what is truly 'real', especially when taken in conjunction with the Player's fake death much later on. Is acting truly authentic, if it is only what people expect anything to look like? Can anyone still living truly act out death? After all, they've never experienced it, as Guildenstern is about to explain to us.
- Guil: ". . . Death is not anything. . . death is not. . . It's the absence of presence, nothing more . . . the endless time of never coming back. . . "
- This definition of death as a permanent exit plays into the dramatic (as in, theater) aspects of R&G. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern never leave the stage, in all the play thus far. There are blackouts and costume shifts, but never do they truly make an exit to the wings- until Rosencrantz leaves Guildenstern, and Guildenstern follows. Since this exit and lack of return has been defined for us as death, true death, it gives the moment weight and poignance, and gives an odd sense of finality to a play where reality is questioned so often, and the cyclical nature of everything is frequently confirmed. Such an ending, then, feels to the audience like a real ending-- but that feeling itself causes them to question what has actually transpired in the play, and leaves them once again with a sense of incompleteness and a massive, unanswered question.
Theme:
