Rosencrantz
Rosencrantz And Guildenstern
As Shakespeare’s Hamlet is recounted from
another point of view, in Tom
Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are
Dead, a new sense of witty comedy
is sprung forth from the classic play. In
all actuality, the play is classified
as a tragic comedy, because although
the dialogue and flow of the play is one of
a laid back comedy, the play does
end in death. It’s as though the two,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, put
off a sort of dumb vibe, I mean they can’t
even get their names straight. In
the end though, I would have to say that their
confusion is really the source
of most of their stupidity. In one instance,
Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern, play a question and answer type game to sharpen up
on their
skills for their upcoming encounter with Hamlet. In the Abbot
and
Costello, "Who’s on First" style, the two would throw out a series
of
questions, confusing both the reader and themselves. Not only was the
basis of
their questions comical, but also the manner in which they asked
them and scored
themselves in a tennis-like way. Following this completely
stupid question game
the two enacted a hypothetical encounter with Hamlet. It
almost took all of
Rosencrantz’s brain power just to understand the fact
that Guildenstern was
acting as Hamlet. The hilarious conversation ended up
in Rosencrantz arriving at
the following conclusion, "To sum up: your father,
whom you love, dies, you
are his heir, you come back to find that hardly was
the corpse cold before his
young brother popped onto his throne and into his
sheets, thereby offending both
legal and natural practice. Now why exactly
are you behaving in this
extraordinary manner?" In Act II, the lonesome
couple, encounter some an
acting group passing them by. In hope of a
performance, Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern were quite surprised as to what
the players had in mind. This scene
is sure to crack a few laughs wherever
it’s performed. Here the two
misunderstand what type of entertainment the
players have in store for them,
until he the head player suggests that they’d
probably enjoy themselves more
if they get involve. Finally, Guildenstern
realized what they were getting at
and clears up all the confusion with this
statement, "No enigma, no dignity,
nothing classical, portentous, only his—a
comic pornographer and a rabble of
prostitutes." These weren’t the only
examples of comedy in the play, but I
found that both of these were very
similar in the elements that made them funny.
In both cases, comedy was
the result of ironic and witty dialogue. The play in
general was funny, and I
it just goes to show how any story can change due to a
change in
perspective.