Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom StoppardMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
One of my favorite plays during my pretentious adolescence was Waiting for Godot. So when my drama teacher handed me Rosencrantz and Guilderstern Are Dead and touted it as the "Shakespearean Godot" I was sold. However, and quite ironically, I never got past the first scene. I wasn't required to since we were only supposed to suggest a staging for the aforementioned scene and there was a bunch of other school reading I needed to tackle. I never forgot that first scene though, and even today I remember thinking myself very clever when I suggested using chocolate coins for the coin-tossing contest in it.
When I reached college, one of my favorite professors mentioned this play again, in the context of praising Shakespeare in Love. Back then, I didn't know Tom Stoppard had helped write the screenplay or that in addition to being a playwright he was also a Shakespeare scholar. I was considerably impressed, but once more, found myself short on time to dive into RGAD.
This year I've been working on my thesis, dedicated in part, to King Lear. I finally decided to finish the play so I could watch a couple of stagings of it and maybe talk about it in my thesis.
Usually, I despise Hamlet, for being a slow play centered on a protagonist who reminds me too much of every troubled intellectual dude you meet in college, who thinks he knows more than you and refuses to go to therapy. But I wasn't disappointed by Tom Stoppard.
I think what a lot of people forget about Shakespeare is how much humor was a part of his plays and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are full of humor. This play has in it that circus and vaudeville quality Waiting for Godot had. It doesn't forget it has to be entertaining.
I think there's a wonder in shining light to the inbetween places of great works of literature, of using canonical works as tools to write about our own preoccupations. A part of me still thinks it dreadfully CLEVER to use the predetermined nature of R&G's life in order to explore the meaninglessness of our own.
I hope I do get to use this text in my thesis and I hope to see the movie and other stagings of the play. My university professor always said plays should be seen and not read.
But mostly, I hope wherever he is, Alfred finally gets to use his skirt.
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