Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead By Tom Stoppard

About the Author • Czechoslovakian born in 1937 • Family moved to Singapore when concerns of Hitler invading increased • Family settled in England after World War II • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was first presented as a play at the Edinburgh Theater Festival in 1966 • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is Stoppard’s most famous work

Theater of the Absurd • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is an example of Theater of the Absurd (or Absurdist Theater). • Was a response to World War II • Written primarily by European playwrights in the 1950 s • “In a world that has become absurd theatre of the absurd is the most accurate reproduction of reality”

Prominent Influences • Related to, but not the same as, existentialism • Esslin cites William Shakespeare as an influence • Esslin saw the work of absurdist playwrights as giving artistic meaning to Albert Camus's philosophy that life is inherently without meaning

Characteristics of Theatre of the Absurd • Characters ask the questions: –Why are we here? –What happens after death? –Do we have control over our destiny? –Characters tend to be clown-like and helpless, with no sense of purpose

More Characteristics • The setting of the play is often featureless • Life is often portrayed as void of significance and the world is meaningless • Celebrates the breakdown of language and communication – Empty phrases prevent communication and destroy the sense of personal identity.

More Characteristics • Often the characters acknowledge the play and question the line between performance and reality • Deliberately baffles the audience – Usually lacks dramatic conflict and sequential plot • Shows the human condition as one of confusion and chaos • Explores the barrenness of life • Other Theater of the Absurd playwrights are: Eugene Ionesco, Harold Pinter, and Samuel Beckett.

Martin Esslin (from Absurd Drama) A Well-Made Play An Absurdist Play • Characters are well observed & convincingly motivated • Dialogue is witty & logically built up • Characters are hardly recognizable human beings, their actions are completely unmotivated. • Dialogue seems to have degenerated into meaningless babble

• Beginning-middleending clearly recognizable • It is primarily concerned to tell a story or illuminate an intellectual problem…It can thus be seen as a narrative or discoursive form of communication • Result : Final Message • DYNAMIC • It starts at an arbitrary point & seems to end as arbitrarily • It is intended to convey a poetic image os a complex pattern of poetic images; it is above all a poetic form • It conveys a central atmosphere • STATIC

• The action goes from point A to point B: we constantly ask ‘What’s going to happen next? ’ • Conditioned by clear , comforting beliefs, a stable scale of values, an ethical system in full working conditions • Action : gradual unfolding of a complex pattern. We ask ‘What is it that we are seeing? ’ • Absurdist playwrights no longer believe in the possibility of of a neat resolution: they express a sense of wonder , incomprehension, despair at the lack of cohesion and meaning they find in the world

• Politics • Religion • Implicit belief in the goodness & perfectibility of people • Unthinking acceptance of the moral & political status quo • Implicit idea that the world does make sense, reality is secure , all outlines clear, all ends apparent • There is no faith in the existence of a rational and well ordered universe • Sense of shock at the absense , the loss of any such clear & well defined system of beliefs & values

Topics for Discussion • Explore theme of death in both plays. • The Murder of Gonzago is the play within the play in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. What are the similarities and differences between the two plays? Why can’t Rosencrantz and Guildenstern grasp the true significance of the play? • Compare and contrast the characters of Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. • How does Hamlet’s identity struggle (in Hamlet) compare to the identity struggle of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (in R&G)? • Does Stoppard’s play pay homage to Hamlet, or does it ridicule it? • Identify the characteristics of Theater of the Absurd in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.