Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead Summary

Tom Stoppard

• post-modern playwright and movie director (directed the movie adaptation)
• Theatre of the Absurd

Setting

• Unclear setting for most of the play
• Presumably outside, in Elsinore, and on a boat
• Abrupt scene changes with little or no transitions - Ophelia just comes running in to signal a change

Plot

Act One

• Guildenstern is flipping coins and keeps getting heads as Rosencrantz bets on it.  Guildenstern is questioning this phenomenon and explains it poorly while Rosencrantz simply accepts it but feels bad for Guildenstern losing so much money. - "A weaker man might be moved to re-examine his faith, if in nothing else at least in the law of probability."  "The law of probability, it has been oddly asserted, is something to do with the proposition that if six monkeys..."
• Rambling discussions from probability to toenails (courtesy of Rosencrantz) turns to trying to remember what happened.  Guildenstern is concerned by Rosencrantz' lack of memory.  Transition to talking about what brought them there. - "(tensed up by this rambling): Do you remember the first thing that happened today?"
• Conversation about the past, realize they have no idea where they're going - "We were sent for."  "That's why we're here...  Travelling."  "We are entitled to some direction.  ...I would have thought."
• Conversation about waiting for something unexpected and making it seem expected - "The more witnesses there are the thinner it gets and the more reasonable it becomes until it is as thin as reality, the name we give to the common experience..."
• Tragedians come!  Player makes references to prostitution for money but Rosencrantz misses it entirely.  Guildenstern gets it but gets horrified by the implications when Alfred is offered.  *Note: First time Rosencrantz confuses their names.  Rosencrantz finally gets it but Guildenstern offers a bet: heads vs. tails.  Then switch to another impossibility - doubling a number gets an odd number.  Offer of Alfred countered by offer of putting on a play.  End with reveal that the last coin was tails. - "We can give you a tumble if that's your taste, and times being what they are."  "It costs little to watch, and little more if you happen to get caught up in the action..."  "You and I, Alfred - we could create a dramatic precedent here."
• Ophelia runs by chased by Hamlet, reenact scene Ophelia describes in Hamlet.  Claudius and Gertrude enter; more misidentification.  Lines spoken from Hamlet.  Then Ros and Guil act melancholy and confused with some mixed metaphors.  Ros is frustrated with not remembering anything.  Guil tries to make him feel better and reasons things out. - "I want to go home."  "-over my step over my head body!"
• Discussion on what they have to do.  Talk about playing a game and getting "such thanks as fits a king's remembrance."  Trying to figure out their purpose.  Start a game of questions and have conversation at the same time.  Also trying to find themselves. - "What's your name when you're at home?"  "Consistency is all I ask!"
• Discussion of Hamlet followed by attempt to mimic how the conversation with Hamlet would go through question and answer.  Rosencrantz doesn't get it and still confuses their names.  Also more puns about Gertrude's incestuous marriage to Claudius. - "Oh!  You mean - you pretend to be him, and I ask you questions!"
• Hamlet actually enters, talking to Polonius.  Shift to scene with Hamlet and R and G.

Act Two

• Skip scene with Hamlet, jump to when Players arrive.  More confusion between Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
• Ros and Guil discuss the success of their conversation, or rather, lack of success. - "I think we can say he made us look ridiculous."  "He murdered us."  "Half of what he said meant something else, and the other half didn't mean anything at all."
• Discussion of directions in trying to figure out the direction of the wind to see if Hamlet is actually making sense.  Also trying to figure out their general direction.  Some sexual innuendos about licking toes? - "You won't find the answer written down for you in the bowl of a compass."
• More talk about fate and identity. - "Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace, to which we are...condemned."
• Ros plays a guessing game with Guil, and then it turns out that the coin he is hiding actually disappears.  Hamlet, Polonius, and Players interrupt the scene.  Ros, Guil, and the Players talk, first in puns, then in serious conversation.  Player complains about being left behind and gives an explanation of what actors are like and about being familiar with Elsinore. Then discuss Hamlet with the player. - "We're actors - we're the opposite of people!"  "I can come and go as I please."  "And I know which way the wind is blowing."
• Try to work out what's wrong with Hamlet, reference Ophelia and Ros and Guil are confused again; understand that Polonius in love with Ophelia.  Guil wants order.
• Discussion on death. - "Eternity is a terrible thought.  I mean, where's it going to end?"
• Ros tries to stay calm with jokes and gets impatient at the same time.  Keeps getting the opposite of what he wants; parade enters when he forbids people to enter.
• Another scene with the King and Queen.
• Ros and Guil discuss Hamlet again and Player reappears.  Ros and Guil get surrounded by Players and Ros freaks out.  Players start reenactment of dumbshow. - "We are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style."
• Interruption by Ophelia, Hamlet, Claudius, and Polonius.  Then retelling of Hamlet occurs with Player narrating. Another conversation about death and dying. - "Traitors hoist by their own petard? - or victims of the gods? - we shall never know!"  "It doesn't bring death home to anyone.... One day you are going to die."  "Audiences know what to expect, and that is all that they are prepared to believe in."  "It's just a man failing to reappear...  An exit, unobtrusive and unannounced."
• Ros and Guil wake up on and try to figure things out.  Claudius comes and sends them to find Hamlet.  Spend time debating whether or not to find Hamlet together or alone and what direction to go, end up going nowhere fast.  Try to use their belts to stop Hamlet but hopelessly impossible.  Try to shepherd Hamlet to Claudius but he walks away.  Claudius enters, asks where Hamlet is, and almost leaves before Hamlet is escorted on by luck.
• Suddenly Ros and Guil are taking Hamlet to England.  Lots of foreshadowing in discussion.  Talk about seasons.  Talk about wanting to know where they are. - "They'll have us hanging about till we're dead."  "The spring can't last for ever."  "I like to know where I am.  Even if I don't know where I am, I like to know that.  If we go there's no knowing."

Act Three

• Wake up in the dark, talk about how to know if one is alive.  Signs of being on a ship.  Guil misunderstands "land of the midnight sun."  Discussion on time and location.  Guil mentions being unable to disbelieve anything.
• Discuss containedness of being on a boat.  Also freedom.  Guil trying to work out their situation.  Repeated lines between Ros and Guil.
• Game between Ros and Guil where Guil keeps getting the coin.  Guil getting nervous because he thinks it a repeat of never ending situation.  Discussion about money and similarity between the two again.
• Ros starts freaking out.  Guil comforts him.  Tells him the situation.and start looking for the letter.  Discussion on believing in England  and death.  They act out the conversation with the king and discover that Hamlet is to be decapitated.
• Guil works through the morality of it.  Ros feels bad.  Hamlet hears about it.  Ros still trying to work out the situation.  In the dark of that night, Hamlet replaces the letter.
• Ros still trying to figure everything else.  Guil hears the pipe, recognize people coming.  Ros sent to identify source, finds the Players.
• Discuss the situation with why the Players are there.  King is angry so they stowed away.  Discuss betting on certainties.  Guil discusses their lack of restrictions.  Hamlet shows distaste for the audience.  Back to discussing Hamlet and Ros and Guil repeat each other again.  Show similarities between Hamlet and the Player.
• Pirates interrupt.  Leap into barrels to hide.  Player mourns Hamlet after he disappears.  Determines that Hamlet is dead.  Guil is nervous about not having Hamlet, the Player is interested in the set of their ways and relaxes.  Ros tries to keep Guil talking and happy.  More acting between the two.  Realize the change in the letter.
• Player gets all of the other people out, discuss death with Ros and Guil.  Guil gets angry and tries to kill the Player, who acts dead but comes back. - "No one gets up after death."  "If there are no explanations for us, then let there be none for him."
• Players act out all of the deaths at the end of Hamlet.  Guil and Ros keep talking, and Players disappear.  Ros wishes he could stay alive, but then accepts it and disappears.  Guil looks for him, then seems to expect to move on. - "Couldn't we just stay put?  I mean no one is going to come on and drag us off...."  "We've done nothing wrong!  We didn't harm anyone.  Did we?"  "I don't care.  I've had enough."
• Play ends with the final scene between Ambassador and Horatio in Hamlet.

Characters

Rosencrantz

• terrible memory
• often confused and childlike
• innocent to mature - seems to go through puberty
• cares about others and has good intentions - "We're his friends."
• often confused with Guildenstern - literally doesn't know his own name

Guildenstern

• similar to Rosencrantz
• tries to apply knowledge but often wrong - "The law of probability, it has been oddly asserted, is something to do with the proposition that if six monkeys..."
• more aware of the situation and comes up with ideas
• impatient and uncomfortable with the situation; dislikes being lost
• philosophical

Player King

• Believes in the power of acting and doing what his audiences want
• Accepting of the situation and is more aware of his surroundings
• Beliefs on death counter that of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Other Characters

• Hamlet: Does not show complex motivation; seems less heroic
• Alfred: boy in the Player group; often targeted in sexual jokes for low humor
• Claudius and Gertrude: Establish similarities between Ros and Guil; mainly just say lines

Style and Voice

Point of View

• Play so written in third person
• Pretty extensive glimpses into characterization at times
• Variety of philosophical opinions

Tone

• Humorous and immature at times - sex jokes
• Mocks Shakespeare and focuses on the princely characters
• Mocks theater - breaking the fourth wall and scorning the audience

Imagery

• Very descriptive stage directions provide some image of characters' actions
• Not much imagery in describing scenes or set up of the stage
• Focus remains on characters' words and actions

Symbolism

• Coins - Chance/luck vs. Fate
• Player's Music - Arrival of unexpectedness, usually negative
• Compass/Wind - general directionless and aimless situation of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Themes

• Death is nothingness. - Characters die dramatically in acting, but death is just nothingness, the final disappearance of the characters.
• Fate is inescapable. - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern try to "go against" the plot that Shakespeare set for them but are lost.  The Player accepts the situation and knows where he is and what is going on.  It is impossible to escape from fate.  One must simply accept it and move on.