Tom Stoppard - Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

HAMLET enters upstage, and pauses, weighing up the pros and cons of making his quietus. ROS and GUIL watch him.

ROS: Nevertheless, I suppose one might say that this was a chance… One might well… accost him… Yes, it definitely looks like a chance to me… Something on the lines of a direct informal approach… man to man… straight from the shoulder… Now look here, what's it all about… sort of thing. Yes. Yes, this looks like one to be grabbed with both hands, I should say… if I were asked…. No point in looking at a gift horse till you see the whites of its eyes, etcetera. ( He has moved towards HAMLET)

ROS: Excuse me. but his nerve fails. He returns.) We're overawed, that's our trouble. When it comes to the point we succumb to their personality…

OPHELIA enters, with prayerbook, a religious procession of one.

HAMLET: Nymph, in thy orisons; be all my sins remembered.

At his voice she has stopped for him, he catches her up.

OPHELIA: Good my lord, how does your honour for this many day?

HAMLET: I humbly thank you-well, well, well. They disappear talking into the wing.

ROS: It's like living in a public park!

GUIL: Very impressive. Yes, I thought your direct informal approach was going to stop this thing dead in its tracks there. If I might make a suggestion-shut up and sit down Stop being perverse.

ROS ( near tears ) : I'm not going to stand for it!

A FEMALE FIGURE , ostensibly the QUEEN , enters. ROS march up behind her, puts his hands over her eyes and says with a desperate frivolity.

ROS: Guess who?!

PLAYER ( having appeared in a downstage corner ) : Alfred!

ROS lets go, spins around. He has been holding ALFRED , in his robe and blond wig. PLAYER is in the downstage corner still. ROS comes down to that exit. The PLAYER does not budge He and ROS stand toe to toe. The PLAYER lifts his downstage foot. ROS bends to put his hand on the floor. The PLAYER lowers his foot. ROS screams and leaps away.

PLAYER ( gravely ) : I beg your pardon.

GUIL ( to ROS) : What did he do?

PLAYER: I put my foot down.

ROS: My hand was on the floor!

GUIL: You put your hand under his foot?

ROS: I-

GUIL: What for?

ROS: I thought– ( Grabs GUIL . ) Don't leave me!

He makes a break for an exit. A TRAGEDIAN dressed as a KING enters. ROS recoils, breaks for the opposite wing. Two cloaked TRAGEDIANS enter. ROS tries again but another TRAGEDIAN enters, and ROS retires to misstate. The PLAYER claps his hands matter-of-factly.

PLAYER: Right! We haven't got much time.

GUIL: What are you doing?

PLAYER: Dress rehearsal. Now if you two wouldn't mind just moving back… there… good… ( TO TRAGEDIANS) Everyone ready? And for goodness' sake, remember what we're doing. ( TO ROS and GUIL : ) We always use the same costumes more or less, and they forget what they are supposed to be in you see… Stop picking your nose, Alfred. When Queens have to they do it by a cerebral process passed down in the blood… Good. Silence! Off we go!

PLAYER-KING: Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart

PLAYER jumps up angrily.

PLAYER: No, no, no! Dumbshow first, your confounded majesty! ( To ROS and GUIL : ) They're a bit out of practice, but they always pick up wonderfully for the deaths-it brings out the poetry in them.

GUIL: How nice.

PLAYER: There's nothing more unconvincing than an unconvincing death.

GUIL: I'm sure.

PLAYER claps his hands.

PLAYER: Act One-moves now.

The mime. Soft music from a recorder. PLAYER - KING and PLAYER - QUEEN embrace. She kneels and makes a show protestation to him. He takes her up, declining his head upon her neck. He lies down. She, seeing him asleep, leaves him.

GUIL: What is the Dumbshow for?

PLAYER: Well, it's a device, really-it makes the action that follows more or less comprehensible; you understand, are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style.

The mime (continued) –enter another. He takes off the SLEEPER's crown, kisses it. He has brought in a small bottle of liquid. He pours the poison in the SLEEPER's ear, and lei him. The SLEEPER convulses heroically, dying.

ROS: Who was that?

PLAYER: The King's brother and uncle to the Prince.

GUIL: Not exactly fraternal

PLAYER: Not exactly avuncular, as time goes on.

The QUEEN returns, makes passionate action, finding the KING dead. The POISONER comes in again, attended by others (the two in cloaks) . The POISONER seems to console with her. The dead body is carried away. The POISONER woos the QUEEN with gifts. She seems harsh awhile but in the end accepts his love. End of mime, at which point, the wait of a woman in torment and OPHELIA appears, wailing, closely followed by HAMLET in a hysterical state, shouting at her, circling her, both misstate.

HAMLET: Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad! She falls on her knees weeping. I say we will have no more marriage! ( His voice drops to include the TRAGEDIANS , who have frozen. ) Those that are married already ( he leans close to the PLAYER - QUEEN and POISONER , speaking with quiet edge ) all but one shall live. ( He smiles briefly at them without mirth, and starts to back out, his parting shot rising again. ) The rest shall keep as they are. ( As he leaves, OPHELIA tottering upstage, he speaks into her ear a quick clipped sentence. ) To a nunnery, go.

He goes out. OPHELIA falls on to her knees upstage, her sobs barely audible. A slight silence.

PLAYER-KING: Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart

CLAUDIUS enters with POLONIUS and goes over to OPHELIA and lifts her to her feet. The TRAGEDIANS jump back with heads inclined.

CLAUDIUS: Love? His affections do not that way tend, Or what he spake, though it lacked form a little, Was not like madness. There's something In his soul o'er which his melancholy sits on Brood, and I do doubt the hatch and the Disclose will be some danger; which for to Prevent I have in quick determination thus set It down: he shall with speed to England.

Which carries the three of them- CLAUDIUS , POLONIUS , OPHELIA -out of sight. The PLAYER moves, clapping his hands for attention.

PLAYER: Gentlemen! ( They look at him. ) It doesn't seem to be coming. We are not getting it at all. ( To GUIL : ) What did think?

GUIL: What was I supposed to think?

PLAYER ( To TRAGEDIANS) : You're not getting across!

ROS had gone halfway up to OPHELIA ; he returns.

ROS: That didn't look like love to me.

GUIL: Starting from scratch again…

PLAYER ( to TRAGEDIANS) : It was a mess.

ROS ( to GUIL) : It going to be chaos on the night

GUIL: Keep back-we're spectators.

PLAYER: Act Two! Positions!

GUIL: Wasn't that the end?

PLAYER: Do you call that an ending?-with practically everyone on his feet? My goodness no– over your dead body.

GUIL: How am I supposed to take that?

PLAYER: Lying down. ( He laughs briefly and in a second has never laughed in his life. ) There's a design at work in all art surely you know that? Events must play themselves out aesthetic, moral and logical conclusion.