Customer Reviews

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

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Tom Stoppard makes you think here. He intends for you to be unsure about your reality. He does it quite masterfully in fact.

When we are first introduced to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, they are two very confused individuals as they don't know what really is going on; more so when they encounter the player and his tribe of wanton actors. The whole idea of identity and self confuses them because they're not sure of any and everything, they think that everything is just a joke.

It doesn't help that they then find themselves in Castle Hamlet where they've been summoned to determine if Hamlet is crazy or not. Once again, even there they play the fools because they're confused, even after running into the Player again, who knows these people and still goes around being his confusing self, by not being all that colloquially sound.

Further confusing is the way everyone else views Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, they see the two as geniuses who will be the hero's of the hour; Hamlet see's them as companions in his quest to find the truth about his father's murder. They are pulled in two different directions, and because of this, they further question the whole meaning of existence, especially eternity, because they don't understand the implications of Hamlet's rants and raves.

To me, the whole meaning of existence in relation with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern means that we have to question the very idea of what it means to live, to breath, and to be in relation to one another.

Tom has a great way of modernizing an idea; one needs to pay attention to what's going on around them--or else.
By expanding on these two dum-witted charecters from Hamlet, Stoppard delves back into Shakespeare'n time with a great question to life--do we really no what is going on or are we just along for the ride?
Well Done!