Playbill Info

They don't know what's
expected of them - only
that they've been summoned
and that time is out of
joint. It's Shakespeare's
Hamlet as experienced
by its two most forgettable
characters; a saucy and
hilarious look at the human
predicament by contemporary
theatre's most dazzling
wordsmith.


River Run Centre, Guelph
in the intimate Co-operators Hall
Feb 19 - 22, 2009
and touring to the new:
Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts
Feb 26 - 28, 2009

The Play

When we first meet Rosencrantz and Guildenstern they know only that they’ve been summoned to the royal court and that time is mysteriously out of joint. Their brushes with other Hamlet characters, notably the tragic prince himself and the troupe of actors who rehearse The Murder of Gonzago to play before King Claudius, are the main incidents of the play. The dramatic action concerns their gradual realization that they themselves are “marked” for tragedy. The play’s title is taken from a line in Act Five, Scene Two of Hamlet:

1st Ambassador: 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.
Where should we have our thanks?

Stoppard’s Debut

It’s 1964. Fresh from a meeting with his literary agent, a twenty-seven year-old journalist, budding novelist and frequent drama critic dashes down the premise for a one-act farce: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet’s old school chums, arrive at the cliffs of Dover on their ill-fated mission to the English court and meet… King Lear!

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear never made it from page to stage (the author calls it a “terrible” play), but the idea of writing a play about the two attendant lords so curtly disposed of in Hamlet took hold. In 1965 the Royal Shakespeare Company optioned Tom Stoppard’s three-act comedy R & G are Dead for a year but failed to produce it. The project appeared to be stillborn when in 1966 a group of Oxford University students mounted the play at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The rest is theatrical history.

Ronald Bryden, influential critic for the Observer, greeted the play as “the most brilliant debut by a young playwright since John Arden’s… punning, far-fetched, leaping from depth to dizziness.” Kenneth Tynan, Literary Manager of the recently formed National Theatre of Great Britain (under the direction of Sir Laurence Olivier), read the review and secured the rights. The National’s production which opened at London’s Old Vic Theatre in April 1967 was a critical and commercial hit. Later the same year the play opened on Broadway to similarly enthusiastic plaudits and won the 1968 Tony Award for Best Play. R & G are Dead has since been produced in countless revivals around the world and been hailed as a modern classic. In 1990 it was adapted and directed by the playwright himself as an award winning feature film.

With his name established Tom Stoppard went on to become one of the most consistently successful and praised playwrights of the last forty years, winning no fewer than seven Best New Play awards between 1967 and 1997. His other titles include The Real Inspector Hound (1968), Jumpers (1972), Travesties (1974), The Real Thing (1982), Arcadia (1993) and The Invention of Love (1997).

Middle Photo: Tom Stoppard at the 2008 Tony Awards; Photo Credit: Reuters

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