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Product Description
Product Description
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a play which, as it were, takes place in the wings of Hamlet, and finds both humour and poignancy in the situation of the ill-fated attendant lords. The National Theatre production in April 1967 made Tom Stoppard's reputation virtually overnight. Its wit, stagecraft and verbal verve remain as exhilarating as they were then and the play has become a contemporary classic.
'One of the most original and engaging of post-war plays.' Daily Telegraph
About the Author
Tom Stoppard was born in 1937 in Czechoslovakia. His early years were spent in Singapore, India and, from 1946, England, after his mother married an officer in the British Army. Leaving school at seventeen, Stoppard worked as a reporter in Bristol, before moving to London to work as a theatre critic and feature writer. During this period he began to write plays for radio and for the stage and published his only novel, Lord Malquist and Mr Moon. His first major success, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, was produced in London in 1967 at the Old Vic after critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Festival. Subsequent plays include Enter a Free Man, The Real Inspector Hound, Jumpers, Travesties, Night and Day, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (with Andre Previn), After Magritte, Dirty Linen, The Real Thing, Hapgood, Arcadia, Indian Ink, The Invention of Love, the trilogy The Coast of Utopia and Rock 'n' Roll. His radio plays include If You're Glad, I'll Be Frank, Albert's Bridge, Where Are They Now?, Artist Descending a Staircase, The Dog It Was That Died and In the Native State. Work for television includes Professional Foul and Squaring the Circle. His film credits include Empire of the Sun, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which he also directed, Shakespeare in Love (with Marc Norman) and Enigma.$$$In August 2002 the Royal National Theatre in London premièred Stoppard's trilogy - Voyage, Shipwreck and Salvage - three sequential self-contained plays that comprise The Coast of Utopia.
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First Sentence
TWO ELIZABETHANS passing the time in a place without any visible character. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
TWO ELIZABETHANS passing the time in a place without any visible character. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you know your HAMLET and you know your WAITING FOR GODOT, this will be one of the most engaging pieces of theatre you have ever seen or read. It is simply a sensational bit of writing: funny, erudite, challenging, obtuse etc etc. If however you dont know those two other texts, then you're in trouble. As I was, the first time I saw this.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead is an intriguing exercise in the theatre of the absurd. It is comic, touchingly focussed on the two characters (although we can assume they are actually very much a single thing) and also serious, poetic and brilliant. Nowhere else in Stoppard's work or in a great deal of texts is there such a gloriously successful mix of the absurd and the sensitive; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's meditations on life, death, drama, existentialism and Hamlet are for the most part excellent pieces of writing on their own. To have them within the framework of this readable and ultimately very funny piece of drama just confirms my belief that Tom Stoppard is one of the most important and underrated writers we have.
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This play is often compared to "Waiting For Godot", most unfairly in my view, as Stoppard's early masterpiece is, above all else, brilliantly funny. Not in the way of an ironic, navel-gazing comedy about the horror of life, but in the way that makes the audience laugh out loud with genuine laughter.
Actually, of course, it IS about the horror of life, and of modern life at that, many of the greatest comedies have a tragic undercurrent, think of Sir Toby's "Chimes at midnight" speech giving texture and shadow to the sunny japes of "Twelfth Night", or of Woody Allen's best films, hovering over the line of comedy and neurotic bathos ("The Purple Rose of Cairo"..."Radio Days".)
Here, the early speech about a man who sees a unicorn sets a tone of lonely wistfulness that the blatant failures of the protagonists to match up to the epic events unfolding around them, obvious even to the duo themselves, continues throughout the play.
An odd effect of seeing only snippets of "Hamlet" is to make that work seem a real action packed epic. In reality, perhaps, "Hamlet" itself is very similar to "Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead", the heroes of both prove in the end, despite endless talking and dithering, indecisive and inadequate.
Stoppard's work is an updating of Shakespeare's, and a comment on the modern world, in that his heroes are not given the redeeming power of poetry. For them, the unicorn is always a deer...with an arrow in its head....
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
witty and modern
I has just begun to read this new book for a while, and it's impressive, witty, and modern. Besides, some post-modernism elements shine behind the lines.
Published 20 days ago by Charles
An original and powerful take-off on Shakespeare
This is certainly one of the most original and powerful adaptations of Shakepseare ever written. Plays should be seen and not just read, so get the DVD, too. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Alfredo Hamill
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are inconsistent
I wavered about giving Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead just three stars. The beginning and the ending are great examples of postmodern theatre, but much of the middle of the... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Oracle
In a tragedy even minor characters die
Screen plays serve several purposes; when the follow the film closely you get to slowdown and have time to savor the nuances. Read more
Published on 31 Mar 2010 by bernie
The most boring play I have read
My first reaction to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead was a yawn. After the power of Empire of the Sun and the sheer brilliance of Hamlet (both of which I had just read for... Read more
Published on 10 Jun 2005
We're actors! We're the opposite of people!
I am playing the part of The Player in the school production of R+G, and am absolutely loving this play - funny, clever and with an easy introduction to Hamlet. Read more
Published on 24 Nov 2004 by V. Thompsett
A souffle - all air, no substance
Often compared with 'Waiting for Godot,'a play which it self-consciously uses as a template, this has none of the profundity or resonance of Beckett. Read more
Published on 7 Sep 2004 by ocfc
Fab! Fab! Fab!
It's funny, it's thought provoking, and it's so much fun to read. Probably more enjoyable if you're familiar with Shakespeare's Hamlet. Read more
Published on 20 Mar 2002 by "zabina"
One of Stoppard's finest moments
A fantastic play, displaying Stopppard's talents to the most, Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead takes two minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet and shows their activities... Read more
Published on 10 Dec 2001
Excellent thought provoking comedy!!
I love this play!! The humour is quite absurd but actually seems to be fitting into today's style of comedy more and more. It reminds me very much of comedy series' today. Read more
Published on 5 Nov 2000
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