25th anniversary of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead premier in USA

For fans of Gary Oldman and Tim Roth



Gary Oldman as Rosencrantz
Tim Roth as Guildenstern
Richard Dreyfuss as The Lead Player
Iain Glen as Prince Hamlet (Now playing on Game of Thrones)
Ian Richardson as Polonius
Joanna Miles as Gertrude
Donald Sumpter as King Claudius
Sven Medvesck as Laertes

Tom Stoppard, first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 1966, and is considered one of the most successful graduate school projects in history. He imagined Hamlet as viewed by the minor and much abused characters , Guildenstern & Rosencrantz or is it Rosencrantz & Guildenstern. They are so unimportant that the major characters often forget which one is which.

For a hundred years most productions of Hamlet ended on Horatio's words
Now cracks a noble heart.—Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!—

Stoppard's play is based on the ambassador's line afterwards that is usually cut out as it ties up what is often considered an unimportant plot line.
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing, To tell him his commandment is fulfilled, That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.

I made some comments, but they made no sense as I think [?] the very video you show is scenes from 'Hamlet' in which R and G are present

The Stoppard play is in fact called 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead'

One thing cool about it is that you can recognize lines from 'Hamlet' as they go about this and that, perhaps passing a room with a scene going on that it makes sense they might hear

Quote: odiousgambit

I made some comments, but they made no sense as I think [?] the very video you show is scenes from 'Hamlet' in which R and G are present

Every scene in Hamlet that includes R&G is part of Stoppard's play. So, yes the scene from the movie is actually a scene from Hamlet.

I've seen it maybe four times. In the first production, the Hamlet scenes are done very dull, lifeless, and detached. It makes the in between dialogue seem more animated.

Quote: odiousgambit

One thing cool about it is that you can recognize lines from 'Hamlet' as they go about this and that, perhaps passing a room with a scene going on that it makes sense they might hear

It is the one thing certain about their reality, the lines they have in Hamlet. In fact the characters in Stoppard's play spend a lot of time wondering about predestination and randomness in the universe. They play athletic games and word games, and try to puzzle out what the motivations are of the primary characters.

R&G do not have any lines in the fifth act of Hamlet. But it is in that act that it is revealed that Hamlet conspired to have R&G executed in place of the intended victims, Hamlet and Laertes. It is at this point that Stoppard's play shifts into overdrive. R&G uncover the plot and are desperate to live. But Shakespeare has not given them any more lines, so their fate is permanently sealed, and they are doomed to vanish without anyone hearing from them again.

Quote: odiousgambit

The Stoppard play is in fact called 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead'

'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead' is a direct quote the final lines of the play. Since this portion of the play was almost always admitted for centuries as being too distracting to Hamlet's death, it is the ultimate indignity to R&G. Their eventual destiny is to unimportant to be included.


Before Stoppard wrote his play, R&G were a kind of tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum. Rosencrantz was chiefly remembered as being the mouthpiece that reflected Shakespeare's contempt for theater with troupes composed of children.

Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but there is, sir, an eyrie of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question and are most tyrannically clapp'd for't. These are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stages (so they call them) that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequills and dare scarce come thither.-Rosencrantz

I confess to seeking assistance

Quote: link

ROSENCRANTZ:
No, they’re busy and as excellent as ever. The problem is that they have to compete with a group of children who yell out their lines and receive outrageous applause for it. These child actors are now in fashion, and they’ve so overtaken the public theaters that society types hardly come at all, they’re so afraid of being mocked by the playwrights who write for the boys.

http://nfs.sparknotes.com/hamlet/page_112.html

Quote: odiousgambit

I confess to seeking assistance

If you watch "Playing Shakespeare", John Barton's teaching series with all the great actors of the RSC, they readily admit that no one knows all the archaic terminology of four hundred years ago. They struggle sometimes with the desire to update the language since they themselves would not know what the words mean.

So everyone must seek assistance.The phrase "cry out on the top of question" is completely archaic.

The fact that a group of child actors was taking London by storm in 1600 was documented. The city had a population of about 200,000 and many people did not want to see a play more than once. There was a struggle for some type of dignity, as the Globe was right next to a bear-baiting pit, a whorehouse, and a lot of places to drink. The extreme popularity of the child actors threatened the financial integrity of some of the playhouses.

In a traditional Hamlet production, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern dress alike and are similar looking and are often confused for one another. They never question authority, and Rosencrantz says that "people in authority" must be respected because when they fall, they drag down many ordinary people in the confusion.

Quote: ROSENCRANTZ (Modern summary and original speech)

Everyone tries to avoid harm, but the public figure demands even more protection. When a great leader dies he doesn’t die alone but, like a whirlpool, draws others with him. He’s like a huge wheel on the top of the highest mountain whose spokes touch the rim of ten thousand smaller things—when it falls down the mountain, every little object goes down with it. Whenever a king sighs, everyone groans.

The single and peculiar life is bound
With all the strength and armor of the mind
To keep itself from noyance, but much more
That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest
The lives of many. The cease of majesty
Dies not alone, but, like a gulf, doth draw
What’s near it with it. It is a massy wheel
Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortised and adjoined, which, when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.

So in the Stoppard play they look completely different from each other (often played by a white and a black actor), they question everything, and collect all kinds of information by spying. But they still die since that was their story as written by Shakespeare.

Their world is bizarre. Even the laws of probability don't seem to hold.