Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard

Zero to Well-Read

On the 60th anniversary of Tom Stoppard's 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,' hosts Jeff O'Neill and Rebecca Shinsky explore this absurdist

Key takeaways

• The play recontextualizes Hamlet's minor characters as protagonists, turning them into explorers of existential absurdity.

Main topics

• Tom Stoppard's literary legacy
• Absurdist theater and existentialism

Notable quotes

'Uncertainty is the normal state.'

Conclusion

The episode underscores how 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead' remains a vital,

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) This episode of Zero to Well-Read is sponsored by Thriftbooks.com. Today on the show, Tom Stoppard's wonderful play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. And I don't know if you've ever bought a play to read as a book, just as text, but this is a really fun place to start. You can get a 50th anniversary edition of the play, which I didn't even know existed, on thriftbooks.com. You can get it used for five, six bucks. You can get it new for about 14. And if you're the kind of person that likes to rack up counts for reading challenges or something. These count, and they're short, and you can finish it in a couple hours. But then also, add plays to your book collection. I think that's a really fun thing to do. I have a couple of Tom Stoppard plays. There's a bunch available on thriftbooks.com. I've been meaning to read the Hermione Lee biography for about 1,000 years at this point. Maybe not until I'm retired when I'm going to get to that. But you can go to thriftbooks.com and get the version of the play that you want. Thanks for them. for sponsoring this episode. Here we go. Speaker 2 (0:59) Hey, folks, it's a big moment here at Zero to Well-Read, and I'm here to tell you about a couple of things we're celebrating. First up, we're going to be marking the first anniversary of this podcast in September with more than a million downloads on conversations about dozens of the great books. That's huge. And Book Riot is turning 15 in October. A lot of things have changed in the 15 years that we've been doing this work, but one thing remains true. The independent media landscape is wild, and it's ever-changing. We're so proud that we've been able to build Book Riot and Zero to Well-Read without any corporate investments or publisher subsidies, and we couldn't be more grateful for the readers and the listeners like you who help make it possible through paid memberships. Right now, you can get 25 % off an annual membership to the Zero to Well-Read Patreon, which includes ad-free listening, early access to new episodes, and exclusive read-alongs and bonus content. Plus, you get the satisfaction of knowing you're supporting human creators who read all the books with our brains and who make everything you read, watch, and listen to by hand. There's no AI in any of our content. Go to patreon.com slash zero to well read to start your annual membership for 25 % off today. That's patreon.com slash zero to well read. Speaker 1 (2:21) Welcome to Zero to Well-Read, a podcast about everything you need to know about the books you wish you'd read. I am Jeff O'Neill. Speaker 2 (2:26) And I'm Rebecca Shinsky. This week, it is shenanigans all around as we explore Tom Stoppard's absurdist Hamlet spinoff. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead on the occasion of its 60th anniversary. A big day, especially for you, Jeff. You are a Stoppard stan, if ever I knew one. Speaker 1 (2:46) Do you know many Stoppard stans? I guess so. This is a little bit one for me. It is the 60th anniversary of the show. But when Tom Stoppard passed away relatively recently in old man years, as I am, I did a bunch of Stoppard reading. I think I was gushing to you about how much I love Stoppard. And you very gamely said, well, let's look at a Stoppard and figure out what to do. Their 60th anniversary is sort of nothing and something, which is also something you could say about the play itself. Totally. But it's a good way of getting into Stoppard. And as we'll talk about, it is the play that launched him into his Stoppard-ness. He became... Speaker 1 (3:23) I'm not a dramaturg by any stretch of the imagination, but even from what I know, one of, if not the leading light in English language theater, really from the moment this hit the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and then to the Old Vic and then to New York and Tony's and Oscars and Tom Starport, like one of the few playwrights where you could say, he wrote that movie you've heard of and maybe won an Academy Award for it or maybe was uncredited. We'll get onto all this. Really? And so is there another playwright? I mean, outside of musicals, that's a whole different, I don't think that's also on stage. But when it comes to playwright, playwrights, think to yourself, listener, name another one. Even if you didn't know Stoppard, name another one. It's not easy. And I'm not, like I said, I'm not well versed Speaker 2 (4:10) in Speaker 1 (4:10) this. A Speaker 2 (4:11) really interesting, varied. prolific career. The inside of my little paperback 50th anniversary edition of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the other works by Tom Stoppard takes up a whole page. He wrote so many things. And we do sneak previews of some of our titles for our Patreon members every month. We tell you a couple of the things that are coming up on the show because people like to read ahead. And a couple of people expressed surprise like, oh man, of all the 20th century playwrights, you know, there's Arthur Miller, there's Tennessee Williams, on and on. It's interesting that y'all are starting with Stoppard. And for us, it is... Mostly because we wanted an excuse to talk about Stoppard and the 60th anniversary is convenient. But I do think you can really make the case, especially if you divide early 20th century and late 20th century. He was arguably the most significant English language playwright of the second half of the 20th century leading into 21st century and did also write some very well-known movies, or at least one very well-known movie. Speaker 1 (5:10) Yeah. And, you know, with Beckett and... Miller and Tennessee Williams, like early to mid-century and beyond. But most of them, they're done writing by the time Stoppard comes to fore. And I think if anything, he takes the baton out of that tradition. Less Miller, less Americans and more Brits and not even Brits, but Waiting for Godot, which we'll talk about, I think is the most obvious antecedent. We could have started there. We do get some questions from time to time. Why haven't you done this yet? The order in which we're doing these things is not a ranking. We're not going from 1 to 10,000 saying this is the order of zero to well-read score or conenity or whatever. We're trying to do a mix. We're trying to have fun. So I think there's sort of... Clearly, Shakespeare is not the same as something Shakespeare is based on. But that's another reason for us to do it is because then it connects to something else we've talked about, which is Hamlet. And Hamlet is one of Speaker 2 (6:01) the Speaker 1 (6:02) canonical events. I've got Spider-Man on the brain because it's coming out this weekend. One of the canon events in Western literary culture is Shakespeare. And then to see the long arm of his influence. And then he's influenced by Shakespeare. clearly, as all playwrights in English kind of have to be, or at least even by negation are influenced by Shakespeare if they're doing something else, but then building on it, exploring some piece of it. It's really fascinating to see. I hope this is a fun entry for people. I'll talk about some of my other favorites, Stoppard as well, and how his career changed a little over time. I am not a scholar. I am a fan. A stan is the right way to put it. I've read most, not most, I've read much of Stoppard, but not all, and I don't have... I don't have my same game when it comes to some of the novels and prose that we have talked about over time, especially if I had a chance to teach it at some point. That's a very easy leg up for me to have some experience. I'm not as good. Maybe I'm as good. You let me judge. Maybe I'm equally bad in both. I don't feel quite as comfortable in theatrical history. So I will be approaching this. More like I just love this and I find it fascinating rather than I know really how to connect its tendrils to things that came before or after the world that it's in. Yeah. Speaker 2 (7:16) We could do worse for alternate taglines of this show than we're not scholars, we're stans. Yes. Speaker 1 (7:21) I Speaker 2 (7:22) think. And folks, if you have questions about how the show gets put together, about our work here or our broader work at Book Riot or really anything you're curious about as you're listening, we are going to be doing a big mailbag episode for the show's first anniversary in September. Send us your questions, work-related, book-related or not. What do you want to know if we're hanging out having a cup of coffee together at zerotowellreadatbookriot.com? Speaker 1 (7:46) Yeah. Also, if you'd like to join us on one of our membership tiers. That's where you get access to read-alongs, early ad-free episodes, and some other bonus content. Go to patreon.com slash zeal2allred. And if you have a quick moment to rate and review the show, Spotify, Apple, maybe there's other places you encounter the pod that you can rate and review it, that'd be happy as well. We have kind of a fun 1,000 ratings goal on Apple Podcasts. I think as of this morning, we're up to 878. So, you know, 120-some-odd away at around 900. So maybe in a couple episodes, we'll start talking about ideas for... A little something extra or a spin to put on the ball to get us to a thousand there. Okay, Rebecca, maybe the shortest synopsis of all time. Hard to imagine a shorter synopsis of what this is about. Speaker 2 (8:30) And it was one of the harder ones to write because of the nature of the material. So here we go. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Minor players get main character syndrome because Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who are peripheral figures in Shakespeare's Hamlet, take center stage in this play. They're sent on a mission to find out why Hamlet is down in the dumps. Spoiler alert, his uncle killed his dad and married his mom. That'll do it. And Rosencrantz and Guildenstern end up along the way pondering the meaning of life and their places in the universe. Kind of. They also play word games and ponder logic puzzles of their own creation, all while the action of Hamlet is happening around them. Most of it's offstage, but sometimes the worlds overlap, and they occasionally wander into the scene confused by what has been going on in their absence. Not that they're any less confused by what happens in their presence. These are not the sharpest tools in the shed, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but they're having a great time. Speaker 1 (9:29) Yeah, it's so fascinating to think of the scene of the scene because we spend the first chunk of the play with them flipping a coin. And it's come up. I love your straight thoughts or miscellaneous. I'm not going to spoil that for you here, anyone else for here in a minute. But they're flipping heads, coins against each other, sort of waiting for something to happen. And we get a sense that they sort of have winked into existence. They don't know where they are. They don't know really they've come from. We'll find out later. They're trying to figure out what time of day it is. And there's a lot of really fun stuff. I've never seen this in a theater, but I'd love to, where they're trying to figure out where the sun is. And they're like looking around what you understand to be the theater. And they don't know where it is. It's backstage and front stage. And there's all this, not quite breaking the fourth wall, but like pushing on it pretty hard. But then they sort of wake up to, they get called into the actual play of Hamlet. And there's big chunks of the Hamlet text and they play their roles. I think it's every scene that they're in is actually in the play, if I've done my math correctly. And that sort of pulls them to action. They're learning as kind of about their existence from these texts. And then they jump back out and they're trying to figure out what to do. And we're going to get into straight thoughts. And what it's about is going to be much more interesting for us than the synopsis, because what it is is an excuse for Stoppard to play with Shakespeare, with language, with... theatricality, with ontology, with mortality, all these sort of brainy kinds of things that he's interested in. And it is, as he calls it, he's in his show-off stage. I have this a little bit. This is his first thing. He's making a name for himself. It's kind of like early Sorkin. If you remember early Sorkin, like this is operating a different level than this. Great comp. But it's like sports night. It's like, I've got all this in me and I really want to prove myself. And look what I can do, which is exciting. And I think it can be maybe intentionally distracting, but then punctuated within all the play and the farce and the clowning. There are moments of transcendent beauty within it that kind of comes as a left hook when they've been sort of in Muhammad Ali and dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee. And I'm interested in that. I'll have more to say about that. But that's part of the experience here as well is. Speaker 2 (11:49) This episode is sponsored by Vinted. It happens every season. The weather starts to change, and when I'm in my closet looking for something to wear, I find things I haven't worn or even thought about in a year. Even though I genuinely liked them at one point, there's just a moment where I have to get real with myself and admit that having them take up space in my closet isn't doing anybody any good. And that's where Vinted comes in. Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app that makes it really simple to sell clothes you're ready to part with and make some extra money in the process. Listing on Vinted is quick and easy, and once something sells, Vinted creates the prepaid shipping label for you. And here's the part that really motivates me to actually get those clothes out of the closet and... listed on Vinted. Vinted has no seller fees, so you keep everything you earn. The Vinted app is also free to download, and I just love the idea of turning things that I'm not wearing into a little extra spending money and making some room in my closet while I'm at it. If your closet could use a reset as summer turns to fall, give Vinted a try. See what's hiding in your closet? You might be surprised how much you can earn. Download the Vinted app for free to start listing with no seller fees, and for a limited time, there's no free shipping in the US. That's V-I-N-T-E-D. Speaker 3 (13:07) Today's episode is brought to you by the Death of an Artist podcast. In February 2024, celebrated children's book author and illustrator Petra Mathers and her husband, photographer Michael Mathers, mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members to let them know that they had died on their own terms in their own home before age could take that choice away from them. In Death of an Artist, journalists Leon Nathick and Alice Gregory set out to interview everyone who got one of Petra and Michael's letters as one married couple trying to understand another. Through intimate conversations with Petra and Michael's friends and family, they weave a portrait of a community grappling with the circumstances of their loved one's deaths and examining their own relationships to aging, grief, mortality, and the friends they thought they knew. Format-wise, Death of an Artist stands out. There's zero narration. The whole season is just the voices of people who knew them caught between grief, anger, and even admiration. Find Death of an Artist wherever you get podcasts. And thanks again to the Death of an Artist podcast for sponsoring this episode. Speaker 3 (14:20) Today's episode is brought to you by Canopy. Stream smarter, use your library card. Now, if you are listening to a Book Riot podcast, you most likely know the wise adage, having fun's not hard when you've got a library card. We're in the era of streaming. And once again, libraries are stepping up, partnering with who they need to partner with to get us what we need, which is streaming. TV shows, movies. Use your library card to stream thousands of movies and TV shows for free. Free 99. OK, on the Canopy app. Now, when I say Canopy app, it's Canopy spelled with a K. All you need is a library card and Canopy to access popular movies and TV shows on your smart TV, tablet, phone or browser. Stream for free with no ads. No ads, girl. Where are Speaker 2 (15:11) you getting Speaker 3 (15:11) no ads? Where are you getting no ads for free? Okay. Thanks to your public library. Visit Kanopy, again with a K, .com to find a library near you and stream for free today. Again, that's K-A-N-O-P-Y.com. Get into it. There are shows for you to watch. No ads. Thank me later. And thanks again to Kanopy, which lets you stream smarter, not harder, with your library card. Speaker 1 (15:39) You're kind of getting used to the farce and the clowning and the play. And then there'll be this soliloquy about what it's like to be dead or how the past works or the passage of time. that I find quite moving. And then I think as Stoppard's career continues, he gets more and more mature. I'll say here in a minute that he marks 1982 as a watershed moment for him where he sheds the desire or is feeling like he's shedding the desire to show off and prove that he's smart and can write a clever play, to look for emotion, to look for social commentary, to look for things outside of the world of the stage, especially in the play The Real Thing. But here, this is... precociousness at its core. And you probably will not read a more precocious first play than this in your life. I'd be surprised if you did. Speaker 2 (16:26) Yeah, it is his best known work. It won a ton of awards. He won the Tony for Best Play. He would go on to win that same Tony for Best Play four more times in his career. This won the London Theatre Critics Award for Best New Play, the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright. And like, It's also just maddening and wonderful. He was 29 when this opened. So truly a young man in a show-off stage of his career, and he certainly did have something to show off. As you were just saying, there's not a whole lot. happens here. You definitely need some kind of familiarity with Hamlet to really appreciate all that's going on. But I do think the silliness and fun and then the surprise of those moments of depth that happen in and around the silliness and fun can still land if you're not a Hamlet scholar, which certainly neither of us is. But we've got an episode on Hamlet if you want to go all in on that. You can go back in the feed. It feels like this really wonderful Rorschach test. Stoppard has fed into letting us all just interpret this play for ourselves. He's refused to validate any particular reading of it. At the 50th anniversary, he said, for 50 years now, on being asked what Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead is about, I have stood pat on quote, it's about two courtiers at Elsinore. I wasn't insensitive to being I wasn't insensitive to more suggestive possibilities, but I took the view that every subjective response had its own validity. No interpretations endorsed, none denied. Rebecca, I think I'm going to cry. Speaker 1 (17:58) How beautiful for that for someone like me who likes to spin out interpretation of possibility. You're my boy, Tom. Speaker 2 (18:04) Let's not get ahead of ourselves. This could mean all kinds of things. I Speaker 1 (18:09) love it. Speaker 2 (18:09) And he just exists in that place of letting it stand. It was really well received by critics in addition to all of the award-giving bodies. The original New York Times review written by Clive Barnes calls it a very funny play about death and a worm's eye view of tragedy, which is just a great quote. It's really good. Barnes also says, in one bound, Mr. Stoppard is asking to be considered as among the finest English-speaking writers of our stage, for this is a work of fascinating distinction. Speaker 3 (18:41) You Speaker 2 (18:42) can't really do better than that for summing up why and how Rosencrantz and Guildenstern has become so important. Speaker 1 (18:47) I think you can feel, and Clyde Barnes' review is interesting, that being asked to be considered, you can feel the asking in the Stoppard. You can feel the want to be seen as... talented. And, you know, I think that kind of bravado probably is necessary if you're going to do a play like this, where you're taking, it's not a critique of Hamlet or Shakespeare, like it's not that it is a love letter, but also a building on look what else I can do. I am not limited by Shakespeare. I'm going to use it as a launching pad to try to do something else. And that takes some, that takes some guts. And if you can feel the gutsiness of it, that's part of the same times. The ones I view as tragedies are really interesting because this is something that later artists would come, well, Kurosawa and then George Lucas being inspired by Kurosawa to have sort of a side character be our entree into a grander story like R2-D2 and C-3PO and Star Wars Kurosawa. Like this is one, I don't know that I have a name for this particular tactic. of coming in with a secondary character, maybe even tertiary in the case of the droids, and then them being our entree into this wider world. So we're learning alongside of them. We don't start from the throne, I'm saying. We're starting from the people who are trying to get into the throne room and they got something they're trying to say. In this case, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern together, I think we can use them interchangeably. That's something that the play kind of does winningly. I don't know that there are top 12 Shakespeare characters that matter. Speaker 2 (20:46) No. the bulk of those, they're switching to the POV of another significant character in the text. Speaker 1 (20:53) So Speaker 2 (20:53) I was trying at dinner last night to think about like, okay, what other minor characters