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Comparing Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead

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ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD no more, as the play eminently rises to success.

A preview of Sydney Theatre Company’s latest production….

Sydney Theatre Company’s parody of Tom Stoppard’s the play within a play has been revived, as two of the most underrated characters in Hamlet take on the stage, channelling depth. Simon Phillips sails into the waters of the modern age with his innovative direction of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

It starts off wager by the flipping of a coin that seems to be one sided. The repeated flips result into a string of tails, as it is no way possible to land the coin on the same side for more than a dozen times, a hundred at that. Stoppard puts the absurd in theatre. Beguiled Guildenstern tries …show more content…

The efforts of Tim Minchin as Rosencrantz, and Toby Schmitz as Guildenstern, thrilling us with quips, puns and perplexing notions, has us hanging on to the edge of our seats.

In 1968, a Broadway run of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead had totalled to 420 performances, with eight previews, despite the play’s initial reception. A film adaptation of the play, which was directed by Stoppard, was also released in the 1990. However, Philips’s adept, modern manifestation of Stoppard’s work makes us wonder if he has found relief in interpreting what Stoppard had meant for the play.

Although the dialogue remains the same, the play starts off with the two in corporate wear, though not sleek enough to assume they both hold a high position. Leaning against a wall, flipping coins with seamless expressions which make it seem that it has been going on for quite some time. Sure enough, the audience may not know what to make of it as the beginning could turn out like the other original runs of the play. However, further into the act, we find that through the characterisation and setting, does the modernist approach seep in. Make what you think of it, but the pair are portrayed as con men out to get their childhood friend, or rather, the nephew of their boss,

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In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the minor characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern play supporting roles and are shunted to the side, not having much choice in their decisions and merely “moving” along with the decisions of other characters. However, in the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard, they are the central figures and echo Hamlet’s inner thoughts that aren’t shown during the play Hamlet. The coexistence of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Hamlet shows the futility of opposing fate and that the spectators, or the minor characters, are perpetually going to be “acting” and staring in on the stage of fate. Guildenstern and Rosencrantz as spectators is best illustrated when Guildenstern says to

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