Author: Tom Stoppard is a Brit who is still alive if I'm not mistaken. He's among the more famous British playwrites but I haven't heard of his other stuff myself.
Setting: Elsinore, a kingdom in Denmark. Also a boat, and nowhere.
Characters:
Rosencrantz is the lovable dummy of the play. He embodies the phrase "ignorance is bliss" perfectly; he is content, or even happy, since he isn't wasting time philosophizing.
Guildenstern, by contrast, is the grouchy one. He analyzes and theorizes about everything, often throwing around buzzwords incorrectly. He tries so hard to understand the world around him, yet is unable to. This makes him very anxious and irritable.
The Player is some omniscient/clairvoyant d00d that seems to exist in all realms of the play. He knows what is currently happening to R & G, as well as what will happen. He's also got some profound things to say about people with his explanations of the acting profession.
{Hamlet, Claudius, et. al. copypasted from Hamlet analysis}
Plot:
The play begins in limbo with a series of coin tosses, all landing heads-up. Guildenstern starts listing philosophies and probability laws and stuff. Memories form in their minds as they are necessary for plot advancement, I guess; past events aren't, but become when the present needs that they have been? Anyway the players come in and R doesn't get that they're offering prostitution and haha comedy. Now poof they're in Elsinore and Claudius mixes them up haha and they are briefed on their mission. Hamlet has transformed, inside and out, and they're to glean what afflicts him. G proposes they play the question game to rehearse their interrogation of Hamlet, but R is a goober and doesn't understand and haha and then he gets it and they get nowhere. Then real Hamlet comes, and they interrogate him, and also get nowhere. Rosencrantz, being the less self-absorbed of the two, noticed that they got their butts kicked while Guildenstern pretends that they figured stuff out. More stuff with players and then another Hamlet scene and then the players act out Hamlet and it's really meta and I don't know if either of them understands the significance of it. Then they're told to fetch Dead Polonius but they can't and now they're in barrels on a boat and so are the players because this is now
Tom and Jerry or something. R realizes their insignificance first and gets freaked out and explains it to G with another role play. G understands and now he's freaked out so they do the same role-play with the roles reversed as R tries to comfort him but the second time through they're being put to death instead of Hamlet and then pirates and more barrels and no more Hamlet. Then there's an exchange between R, G and the Players about death in which a few different views of it are expressed, and then R & G both disappear and the play ends. I really liked this play.
Style/voice: Stoppard uses very short, two-word sentences in quick back-and-forth exchanges between characters. It's as if most dialogue is a game of Questions, except with statements and no score and it's not a game. This makes the play pass very fast and it's a little confusing and you'll miss stuff if you aren't really paying attention. There is a boatload of repetition, often with conversations being repeated but with roles switched. I guess this adds to the identity confusion between R & G. There's low comedy all over the place with sex jokes aplenty. The profoundness of the play is only there if you're looking for it; it hides in the goofiness of the rest of the play. One of my quotes displays that rather nicely.
Symbolism: The wind symbolizes purpose in life, I guess. Nobody, except the player, knows which way it's going. The cointoss is predestiny.
Theme: Art is
artificial. It's got stuff about death, too, but I just really can't put it into anything short of a three-act extension of Hamlet.
Quotes:
R: Is there a choice?
G: Is there a God?
This quote made me laugh, but it's also one of the more bold examples of deep meanings of the play hiding in its goofiness. The play has a "There is no God" vibe in a few parts. Another one is the repeated allusion to the Lord's Prayer, where they make a joke of it, mocking the notion of a supreme deity.
Guildenstern: My - dear fellow!
Rosencrantz: How are you?
Guildenstern: Afflicted.
Rosencrantz: Really? In what way?
Guildenstern: Transformed.
Rosencrantz: Inside or out?
Guildenstern: Both.
Rosencrantz: I see. Not much new there!
This quote is like the above. It's funny, but also exemplifies R's character. He's the goofy one that doesn't try to get too deep into things, and he's happier for it. If R & G weren't meddling, delving too deep into this Hamlet business, they wouldn't have 'died'. except they would have because their sole purpose is to enact Hamlet but whatever I'm tired.
