Rosencrantz And Guildenstern are Dead
Action summary:Act One
pp10-14: Coin-tossing. Guil's speculations on the laws of nature and probability.
pp14-16: Ros's first ruminations on death. How they were 'sent for' discussed. Guil's comment about the unicorn???
pp17-26: Arrival of the players; 'decadence'; Ros and Guil show confusion over their own identities; player runs through the repertoire; comments on the state of the theatre and of times in general; offers a performance the nature of which descends to pornography with participation (they are so desparate for money - but one feels, even more desperate for an audience).
Guil refuses indignantly, but Ros shows some interest (p21, bottom), detaining them for a moment before becoming indignant himself; the players bet with Ros and Guil, who take advantage of the incredible run of heads and a cheap trick to fleece the troupe of all their money.
The player offers Alfred once again but Guil is not interested.
The players prepare to give a performance.
Ros discovers the last coin tossed (which the player refused to bet on) was tails.
Ros and Guil caught up in the action of Hamlet.
They witness Hamlet's silent confrontation of Ophelia, (as told by Ophelia to Polonius).
Before they can escape, they are being addressed by Claudius and have to take their roles...
pp27-28: Ros and Guil given their assignments as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Hamlet.
pp29-39: Hamlet scene fades to Ros and Guil. What will they do now? Ros fearful that this all leads to death. Ros remains panic stricken while Guil tries to comfort, re-assure. (Throughout the play it is Guil who tries to use reason and logic, but Ros who is always much closer to the truth in his instinctive reactions).
Guil tries to get some focus on what they're supposed to do. Leads to parody of elements of Hamlet, the questions game, followed by the attempt at role-play. Shows Ros and Guil's confusion and uncertainty here but their roles are discriminated: Guil is more the leader, initiator; exasperated with Ros's stupidity.
The role-play gives a more extended parody of Hamlet, concluding with Ros's bald summary (p38, top).
Ros and Guil trapped in Hamlet once again (notice how each time they try to escape...). Act One ends with Hamlet's first greeting of them...
Act Two
pp40-45: Hamlet (continuation of previous scene, but with its middle sections cut, up to Hamlet's exit with Polonius.
Ros and Guil despondent over their failure to get anything sensible out of Hamlet; they analyse it like a sporting contest along the lines of their earlier game of question and answer - 'He murdered us' (pun!! prolespsis!!).
More parody of Hamlet in Ros's summary. - Leads to futile discussion of the wind-direction, ostensibly in an attempt to establish Hamlet's sanity, but which itself loses direction.
Guil's speech about the Chinese philosopher; the certainty of determinism vs chaos. In the meantime Ros becomes disoriented, indulges in some metadramatic by-play with the audience 'Fire!'.
Ros's coin routine (in which the coin seems to disappear) ff by entry of Hamlet, Polonius and the Player.
Ros replies to Hamlet.
pp45-50: Ros and Guil mock the player, followed by the player's long and eloquent complaint at Ros and Guil for leaving them - deprived of an audience: 'We'reactors - we're the opposite of people!'.
Contrast between the player and Ros and Guil; the player is more familiar with the court, warns Ros and Guil; advises them on how to deal with uncertainty.
Similarity between Ros and Guil's predicament and that of an actor without a script or adequate direction
'We don't know how to act.
PLAYER Act natural...(!)
Philosophical discussion leads to the question of Hamlet's madness - more parody of Hamlet as the player, Guil and Ros seem to improvise; their script degenerates into alliterative theatre sports leading to Ros's 'Stark raving sane'.
Player leaves, Ros and Guil in a mood of uncertainty and ennui - they've lost the plot...
pp50-55: Ros's meditations about death 'Life in a box is better than no life at all'; eternity: his jokes - desparation: tries to prevent what turns out to be the next entry of Hamlet.
Guil finally picks up Ros's line and thinks of death for the first time.
Extract from Hamlet . Ros and Guil observe, but do not hear, Hamlet'To be, or not to be...' soliloquoy.
Another brief extract from Hamlet. Ros and 's Guil quite disconcerted by all the entrances, their discomfiture leading to...
pp55-61: Vaudeville gag (Alfred in drag), return of the player; rehearsal of the Mousetrap play from Hamlet (this rehearsal interrupted by the real?? Hamlet and Ophelia, then by Claudius, Polonius and Ophelia - which distracts the actors making them audience for a moment (in the meantime of course there are Ros and Guil, and us...a hierarchy of audiences, like Cantor's infinities)).
Rehearsal continues. In the course of its rehearsal (and through the comments of the player - which once again make an amusing parody of Hamlet) The Murder of Gonzago swallows its host play, to the extent of showing the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, as two spies wearing identical coats to Ros and Guil.
In a sublime but hilarious joke on the human condition, Ros and Guil fail to recognise their fate, though they are troubled by the resemblance:
(PLAYER (To GUIL): Are you familiar with this play?
GUIL: No.)
pp61-63: Guil and the player discuss death; without death the actor (esp an Elizabethan one!) could not live - but Guil is beginning to realise death is real. He struggles to define 'real' in a sense that is different from 'convincing'( - an argument which leads to the scene in Act Three where Guil tries to kill the player 'In earnest', but the player only dies 'in jest' - thereby foiling his attempt to reach any reality beyond the illusion...)
In the meantime the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are mimed, to applause from Ros.
Blackout.
Sounds of the King interrupting Hamlet's play. Lights up on Ros and Guil - leads into...pp
63-68: Ros and Guil's next instructions (as per Hamlet) to 'seek him out'.
Keystone Cops carry-on between Ros and Guil, culminating in the trouser-dropping and leading in to 'sponge' dialogue with Hamlet and scene with Claudius, and Hamlet's capture (but interrupted by more stage clowning see s.d. on p67).
pp68-end Ros and Guil prepare to take Hamlet to England.
Guil meditative - poetic...brief extract in which Hamlet talks to the soldier; mood is quiet, but Ros and Guil full of uncertainty, their speech brief and perhaps poignant.
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