(B) Hamlet/Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead/Waiting for Godot (Shakespeare, 1600/Tom Stoppard, 1967/Samuel Beckett, 1948) Grade: A
I thought it would be fun to engage in a literary version of six degrees of separation. Well, in this case, it is only three. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead is to Hamlet what Spaceballs is to Star Wars. Sort of... Stoppard takes the classic Shakesperean tragedy about action vs. inaction, oedipus complex, advantageous murder, etc. and switches the POV to minor characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet’s childhood friends. The play is amusing because these minor characters are never fully developed, which provides Stoppard with much dramatic license. In other words, these men together don’t form a full person, and everyone mixes them up, including Rosencrantz and Guildenstern themselves. The two are subject to the events that occur (no free will) and talk circles about their situation, never getting anywhere. Stoppard’s late ’60s play is often compared to Waiting for Godot, another play about existentialism. Similar set-up: two men wait for Godot, a metaphor for God or the meaning of life. Are we subject to the events in our lives or do we control them? It’s existentialism vs. the schools of thought on rationalism and positivism (see Voltaire’s Candide). All v. interesting ... for philosophy. I feel pretentious now.