Ros puts a hand into his purse, then both hands behind his back, then holds his fists out. Guil taps one fist. Ros opens it to show a coin. He gives it to Guil. He puts his hand back into his purse. Then both hands behind his back, then holds his fists out. Guil taps one. Ros opens it to show a coin. He gives it to Guil. Repeat. Repeat. Guil getting tense. Desperate to lose. Repeat. Guil taps a hand, changes his mind, taps the other, and Ros inadvertently reveals that he has a coin in both fists.
Guil: You had money in both hands. Ros(embarrassed): Yes. Guil: Every time? Ros: Yes. Guil: What’s the point of that? Ros(pathetic): I wanted to make you happy. /End ID]
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is a play that makes me feel so overwhelmingly Something because like. They’re characters that in Hamlet are so minor and so inseparable that everyone, including themselves, keeps getting their names mixed up because it doesn’t matter which is which. They have no memories because they’re so minor that they don’t have a backstory. They’re bounced from scene to scene, knowing the lines for their conversations with no clue how they know, vaguely aware of their own status as minor in the story of Hamlet, and yet they are the main characters of their small, confusing, ridiculous, comedically tragic story. They are destined not just to die, but to die and live over and over in the endless cycle of their tiny, off-screen tragedy. It drives me actually insane
And then there’s the fact that Guildenstern spends the entire play asserting that real death isn’t any amount of drama or fake blood or falling down, it’s just a person being there until they’re not, and it cannot be acted— and that’s how their deaths are the realest ones in Hamlet in some ways, because they’re there until they’re not. Because the last thing Rosencrantz does is walk offstage and the last thing Guildenstern does is disappear, because they don’t act death, and it’s so— [rips my hair out]
Also this part
LIKE HOW DO YOU LOOK AT THIS AND NOT FEEL SOME KIND OF FUCKING WAY!!!! MARKED FOR DEATH! IT IS WRITTEN!
THE STORY OF HAMLET IS THE BOAT! THEIR MOVEMENT CONTAINED IN A LARGER ONE THAT CARRIES THEM!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I maintain that the best hamlet is the hamlet that sits on the top deck of the boat drinking cocktails.
[ID: Several excerpts from the play.
Image 1: (Pause) ROS: Shouldn’t we be doing something - constructive? GUIL: What did you have in mind?… A short, blunt human pyramind..?
Image 2: PLAYER: It never varies - we aim at the point where everyone who is marked for death dies. GUIL: Marked? PLAYER: Between “just desserts” and “tragic irony” we are given quite a lot of scope for our particular talent. Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go when things have got about as bad as they reasonably get. (He switches on a smile.) GUIL: Who decides?
Image 3: PLAYER (switching off his smile): Decides? It is written.
Image 4: (One by one the players emerge, impossibly, from the barrel, and form a casually menacing circle round ROS and GUIL who are still appalled and mesmerised.) GUIL (quietly): Where we went wrong was getting on a boat. We can move, of course, change direction, rattle about, but our movement is contained within a larger one that carries us along as inexorably as the wind and current…
Image 5: GUIL: Our names shouted in a certain dawn… a message… a summons… there must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said - no. But somehow we missed it. (He looks round and sees he is alone.) Rosen-? Guil-? (He gathers himself.) Well, we’ll know better next time. Now you see me, now you- (And disappears.)
oh god it must feel insane to play guildenstern every night and say that line at the end “There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said–no. But somehow we missed it. Well, we’ll know better next time.” Like an audience only has to see it play out once but as that actor every single night for months you have to watch this character re-forget and make the same choices and fight against the same tide towards the inevitable conclusion and swear that there’s a way to do it differently next time. rinse repeat.
oh god it must feel insane to play guildenstern every night and say that line at the end “There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said–no. But somehow we missed it. Well, we’ll know better next time.” Like an audience only has to see it play out once but as that actor every single night for months you have to watch this character re-forget and make the same choices and fight against the same tide towards the inevitable conclusion and swear that there’s a way to do it differently next time. rinse repeat.
oh god it must feel insane to play guildenstern every night and say that line at the end “There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said–no. But somehow we missed it. Well, we’ll know better next time.” Like an audience only has to see it play out once but as that actor every single night for months you have to watch this character re-forget and make the same choices and fight against the same tide towards the inevitable conclusion and swear that there’s a way to do it differently next time. rinse repeat.
oh god it must feel insane to play guildenstern every night and say that line at the end “There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said–no. But somehow we missed it. Well, we’ll know better next time.” Like an audience only has to see it play out once but as that actor every single night for months you have to watch this character re-forget and make the same choices and fight against the same tide towards the inevitable conclusion and swear that there’s a way to do it differently next time. rinse repeat.
And now I’m thinking of Hermes from Hadestown, singing this part every night:
“‘Cause here’s the thing: To know how it ends / And still begin to sing it again / As if it might turn out this time – / I learned that from a friend of mine.”
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