https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rosencrantz_and_Guildenstern_Are_Dead<\/a>).<\/p>\nHere is how the play is described on the Samuel French, Inc., webpage: \u201cAcclaimed as a modern dramatic masterpiece, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead<\/em> is the fabulously inventive tale of Hamlet as told from the worm’s-eye view of the bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Shakespeare’s play. In Tom Stoppard’s best-known work, this Shakespearean Laurel and Hardy finally get a chance to take the lead role, but do so in a world where echoes of Waiting for Godot<\/em> resound, where reality and illusion intermix, and where fate leads our two heroes to a tragic but inevitable end.\u201d Indeed, one might describe the play as Hamlet<\/em> meets Waiting for Godot<\/em>.<\/p>\nStoppard is a brilliant and funny playwright. He was born in Moravia in Czechoslovakia, but his family fled the Nazis, and he ended up in Great Britain. He once described himself as a language nerd, and his plays are witty and inventive. R&G<\/em> was his first big success and is still arguably his best play. Among my favorites are The Real Inspector Hound, The 15-minute Hamlet, Jumpers, Travesties<\/em>, and Arcadia<\/em>. He was also the co-writer of Shakespeare in Love<\/em>.<\/p>\nMy introduction to R&G came in 1974. I was a freshman at Davidson. I had auditioned for the Fall production, A Servant of Two Masters by Goldoni, a really fun comedy in the style of commedia dell\u2019arte, but I had not been cast in any role despite having given, I thought, a pretty good audition. It did not occur to me, the incredibly dense 17 year old that I was, that I couldn\u2019t really be in a play and play soccer, with its road trips, at the same time.<\/p>\n
When the winter quarter started (the quarter system was 3 10-week terms during the regular year and a slightly shorter term in the summer), I was walking across campus when I ran into my Theater Appreciation teacher (I\u2019d taken the class in the fall), Dr. Joe Gardner. He stopped me and asked me if I were planning to audition for the winter production. I said that I hadn\u2019t thought about it. He asked me to consider doing so, and told me that I could find a copy of the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead<\/em>, on reserve in the library. He said, \u201cIf you read it and still aren\u2019t interested, that\u2019s fine. But I think you\u2019ll like it.\u201d<\/p>\nI found myself sitting in the comfy chairs in the library, which were right inside the main doors, laughing out loud. I\u2019m sure people were wondering what I was on, but the truth was I was on language, really clever, sparkling, funny language. So I auditioned, and Dr. Gardner gave me the role of Rosencrantz. It was a great experience, and I ended up majoring in theater (sort of), with Dr. Gardner as my major professor.<\/p>\n
Plays like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead<\/em> are not well known to the general public, but they should not be considered recondite either. If you ever see a production advertised where you can catch it, do so. Even if it\u2019s only a so-so production, the play is so good you\u2019ll still enjoy it. Oh, but the movie version (1990) is less than so-so.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The image is from the University of Utah Department of Theater: \u201cMark Fossen as Rosencrantz and Mark Macey as Guildenstern in ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD by Tom Stoppard. Directed by Jerry Rapier. Studio 115. Photo by Spencer Sandstrom.\u201d The scene is in the third act (it\u2019s a 3-act play), where Rosencrantz and Guildenstern find themselves on a boat, headed toward England.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paul Schleifer According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, recondite means \u201c1: difficult or impossible for one of ordinary understanding or knowledge to comprehend; 2 : of, relating to, or dealing with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2799,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2797\/revisions\/2799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}