Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

The Player:
We're actors! We're the opposite of people!

The Player:
For a handful of coin I happen to have a private and uncut performance of "The Rape of the Sabine Women," or rather woman, or rather Alfred, and for eight you can participate.

The Player:
We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see.

Guildenstern:
Is that what people want?

The Player:
It's what we do.

Guildenstern:
All your life you live so close to truth it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye. And when something nudges it into outline, it's like being ambushed by a grotesque.

Rosencrantz:
Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect. You'd have a chance, at least. You could lie there thinking, "Well. At least I'm not dead.'

Rosencrantz:
Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one. A moment. In childhood. When it first occured to you that you don't go on forever. It must have been shattering, stamped into one's memory. And yet, I can't remember it.

Guildenstern:
I think I have it. A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself.

Rosencrantz:
Or just as mad.

Guildenstern:
Or just as mad.

Rosencrantz:
And he does both.

Guildenstern:
So there you are.

Rosencrantz:
Stark raving sane.

Rosencrantz:
Shouldn't we be doing something... constructive?

Guildenstern:
What did you have in mind? A short, blunt human pyramid?

Rosencrantz:
Do you think Death could possibly be a boat?

Guildenstern:
No, no, no... Death is "not." Death isn't. Take my meaning? Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not be on a boat.

Rosencrantz:
I've frequently not been on boats.

Guildenstern:
No, no... What you've been is not on boats.

Rosencrantz:
So, we've got a letter which explains everything.

Guildenstern:
You've got it!

Rosencrantz:
I thought you had it.

Guildenstern:
I do have it.

Rosencrantz:
You have it?

Guildenstern:
You've got it!

Rosencrantz:
I don't get it!

Guildenstern:
You haven't got it?

Rosencrantz:
I just said that.

Guildenstern:
I've got it.

Rosencrantz:
Oh, I got it!

Guildenstern:
Shutup!

Rosencrantz:
Right.

Rosencrantz:
I don't believe in it anyway.

Guildenstern:
What

Rosencrantz:
England

Guildenstern:
Just a conspiracy of cartographers then.

Guildenstern:
We're still finding our feet.

The Player:
I should concentrate on not losing your head.

Guildenstern:
He's never known anything like it! But then, he has never known anything to write home about, so this is nothing to write home about.

Guildenstern:
If this is our destiny, then that was his, and if there are no explanations for us, let there be none for him.

Rosencrantz:
What are you playing at?

Guildenstern:
Words. Words. They're all we have to go on.

Guildenstern:
Rosencrantz?

Rosencrantz:
What?

Guildenstern:
Guildenstern?

Rosencrantz:
What?

Guildenstern:
Don't you discriminate at ALL?

The Player:
Why?

Guildenstern:
Ah, why?

Rosencrantz:
Exactly!

Guildenstern:
Exactly what?

Rosencrantz:
Exactly why?

Guildenstern:
Exactly why what?

Rosencrantz:
What?

Guildenstern:
Why?

Rosencrantz:
Why what exactly?

Guildenstern:
WHY IS HE MAD?

Rosencrantz:
I DON'T KNOW!

The Player:
The old man thinks he's in love with his daughter.

Rosencrantz:
Good God. We're out of our depths here.

The Player:
No, no, no! He hasn't got a daughter! The old man thinks he's in love with his daughter.

Rosencrantz:
The old man is?

The Player:
Hamlet... in love... with the old man's daughter... the old man... thinks.

Rosencrantz:
Ah.

The Player:
Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go, when things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get.

The Player:
We are tragedians, you see? We follow directions. There is no choice involved. The bad end unhappily, the good, unluckily. That is what tragedy means.

Guildenstern:
Whose serve?

Rosencrantz:
Err...

Guildenstern:
Hesitation! Love... one.

Rosencrantz:
Whose go?

Guildenstern:
Why?

Rosencrantz:
Why not?

Guildenstern:
What for?

Rosencrantz:
Foul! No synonyms! One... all.

Guildenstern:
What in God's name is going on?

Rosencrantz:
Foul! No rhetoric! Two... one.

Guildenstern:
What does it all add up to?

Rosencrantz:
Can't you guess?

Guildenstern:
Were you addressing me?

Rosencrantz:
Is there anyone else?

Guildenstern:
Who?

Rosencrantz:
How would I know?

Guildenstern:
Why do you ask?

Rosencrantz:
Are you serious?

Guildenstern:
Was that rhetoric?

Rosencrantz:
No.

Guildenstern:
Statement! Two all. Game point.

The Player:
We can do rapiers... or rape... or both!

Rosencrantz:
What's the matter with you today?

Guildenstern:
When?

Rosencrantz:
What?

Guildenstern:
Are you deaf?

Rosencrantz:
Am I dead?

Guildenstern:
Yes or no?

Rosencrantz:
Is there a choice?

Guildenstern:
Is there a God?

Rosencrantz:
Foul! No non sequiturs! Three... two, one game all.

Guildenstern:
What's your name?

Rosencrantz:
What's yours?

Guildenstern:
You first.

Rosencrantz:
Statement! One... love.

Guildenstern:
What's your name when you're at home?

Rosencrantz:
What's yours?

Guildenstern:
When I'm at home?

Rosencrantz:
Is it different at home?

Guildenstern:
What home?

Rosencrantz:
Haven't you got one?

Guildenstern:
Why do you ask?

Rosencrantz:
What are you driving at?

Guildenstern:
What's your name?

Rosencrantz:
Repetition! Two... love. Match point.

Guildenstern:
Who do you think you are?

Rosencrantz:
Rhetoric! Game and match!

Player King:
Audiences know what they expect and that is all they are prepared to believe in.

Ambassador from England:
The sight is dismal. And our affairs from England come too late. The ears are senseless that should give us hearing, to tell him his commandment is fulfilled. That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.

Rosencrantz:
Let me get it straight. Your father was king. You were his only son. Your father dies. You are of age. Your uncle becomes king.

Guildenstern:
Yes.

Rosencrantz:
Unusual.

Guildenstern:
Undid me.

Rosencrantz:
Undeniably.

Guildenstern:
He slipped in.

Rosencrantz:
Which reminds me...

Guildenstern:
Well, it would.

Rosencrantz:
I don't want to be personal.

Guildenstern:
Common knowledge.

Rosencrantz:
Your mother's marriage.

Guildenstern:
He slipped in.

Rosencrantz:
His body was still warm!

Guildenstern:
So was hers.

Rosencrantz:
Extraordinarily...

Guildenstern:
Indecent.

Rosencrantz:
Hasty.

Guildenstern:
Suspicious.

Rosencrantz:
Makes you think.

Guildenstern:
Don't think I haven't.

Rosencrantz:
And with her husband's brother!

Guildenstern:
They *were* close.

Rosencrantz:
She went to him...

Guildenstern:
Too close.

Rosencrantz:
For comfort.

Guildenstern:
It looks bad.

Rosencrantz:
Adds up.

Guildenstern:
Incest to adultery.

Rosencrantz:
Would you go so far?

Guildenstern:
Never!

Rosencrantz:
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 pops onto his throne and into his sheets, thereby offending both legal and natural practice. Now... why exactly are you behaving in this extraordinary manner?

Guildenstern:
I can't imagine.

Rosencrantz:
Do you want to play questions?

Guildenstern:
How do you play that?

Rosencrantz:
You have to ask a question.

Guildenstern:
Statement. One - Love.

Rosencrantz:
Cheating.

Guildenstern:
How?

Rosencrantz:
I haven't started yet.

Guildenstern:
Statement. Two - Love.

Rosencrantz:
Are you counting that?

Guildenstern:
What?

Rosencrantz:
Are you counting that?

Guildenstern:
Foul. No repetition. Three - Love and game.

Rosencrantz:
I'm not going to play if you're going to be like that.

Player:
Events must play themselves out to aesthetic, moral and logical conclusion.

Guildenstern:
And what's that, in this case?

Player:
It never varies — we aim at the point where everyone who is marked for death dies.

Guildenstern:
Marked?

Player:
Between "just desserts" and "tragic irony" we are given quite a large scope for our particular talent. Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go when things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get.

Guildenstern:
Who decides?

Player:
Decides? It is written.

Rosencrantz:
Did you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it?

Guildenstern:
No.

Rosencrantz:
Nor do I, really. It's silly to be depressed by it. I mean, one thinks of it like being alive in a box. One keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead, which should make all the difference, shouldn't it? I mean, you'd never know you were in a box, would you? It would be just like you were asleep in a box. Not that I'd like to sleep in a box, mind you. Not without any air. You'd wake up dead, for a start, and then where would you be? In a box. That's the bit I don't like, frankly. That's why I don't think of it. Because you'd be helpless, wouldn't you? Stuffed in a box like that. I mean, you'd be in there forever, even taking into account the fact that you're dead. It isn't a pleasant thought. Especially if you're dead, really. Ask yourself, if I asked you straight off, "I'm going to stuff you in this box. Now, would you rather be alive or dead?" Naturally, you'd prefer to be alive. Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect. You'd have a chance, at least. You could lie there thinking, "Well. At least I'm not dead. In a minute somebody is going to bang on the lid, and tell me to come out." [bangs on lid] "Hey, you! What's your name? Come out of there!"

Guildenstern:
I think I'm going to kill you.

Rosencrantz:
A man speaking sense to himself is no madder than a man speaking nonsense not to himself.

Guildenstern:
We cross our bridges when we come to them, and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.

Guildenstern:
No, no, no... you've got it all wrong... you can't act death. The fact of it is nothing to do with seeing it happen — it's not gasps and blood and falling about — that isn't what makes it death. It's just a man failing to reappear, that's all — now you see him, now you don't, that's the only thing that's real: here one minute and gone the next and never coming back — an exit, unobtrusive and unannounced, a disappearance gathering weight as it goes on, until, finally, it is heavy with death.

Guildenstern:
There must have been a time, in the beginning, when we could have said – no. But somehow we missed it.

The Player:
We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.

The Player:
There we were—demented children mincing about in clothes that no one ever wore, speaking as no man ever spoke, swearing love in wigs and rhymed couplets, killing each other with wooden swords, hollow protestations of faith hurled after empty promises of vengeance—and every gesture, every pose, vanishing into the thin unpopulated air. We ransomed our dignity to the clouds, and the uncomprehending birds listened. Don't you see?! We're actors—we're the opposite of people!