Tom Stoppard: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

ROS: Excuse me.

Pause. The PLAYER lifts his downstage foot. It was covering GUIL 'S Coin. ROSputs his foot on the coin. Smiles.

Thank you.

The PLAYER turns and goes. ROS has bent for the coin.

GUIL ( Moving out ) : Come On.

ROS: I say-that was lucky.

GUIL ( turning ) : What?

ROS: It was tails.

He tosses the coin to GUIL who catches It. Simultaneously a lighting change sufficient to alter the exterior mood into interior, but nothing violent. And OPHELIA runs On in some alarm, holding up her skirts-followed by HAMLET . OPHELIA has been sewing and she holds the garment. They are both mute. HAMLET , with his doublet all unbraced, no hat upon his head, his stockings fouled, ungartered and down-gyved to his ankle, pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other… and with a look so piteous, he takes her by the wrist and holds her hard, then he goes to the length of his arm, and with his other hand over his brow, falls to such perusal of her face as he would draw it… At last, with a little shaking of his arm, and thrice his head waving up and down, he raises a sigh so piteous and profound that it does seem to shatter all his bulk and end his being. That done he lets her go, and with his head over his shoulder turned, he goes out backwards without taking his eyes off her… she runs off in the opposite direction. ROS and GUIL have frozen. GUIL unfreezes first. He jumps at ROS .

GUIL: Come on!

But a flourish-enter CLAUDIUS and GERTRUDE , attended.

CLAUDIUS: Welcome, dear Rosencrantz… ( he raises a hand at GUIL while ROS bows- GUIL bows late and hurriedly ) … and Guildenstern. He raises a hand at ROS while GUIL bows to him-ROS is still straightening up from his previous bow and halfway up he bows down again. With his head down, he twists to look at GUIL, who is on the way up. Moreover that we did much long to see you, The need we have to use you did provoke Our hasty Sith nor th'exterior nor the inward man Resembles that it was. What it should be, More than his father's death, that thus hath put him, So much from th'understanding of himself, I cannot dream of. I entreat you both That, being of so young days brought up with him And sith so neighboured to his youth and haviour That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court Some little time, so by your companies To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather So much as from occasion you may glean, Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus, That opened lies within our remedy.

GERTRUDE: Good ( fractional suspense ) gentlemen. They both bow. He hath much talked of you, And sure I am, two men there is not living To whom he more adheres. If it will please you To show us so much gentry and goodwill As to expand your time with us awhile For the supply and profit of our hope, Your visitation shall receive such thanks As fits a king's remembrance.

ROS: Both your majesties Might, by the sovereign power you have of us, Put your dread pleasures more into command Than to entreaty.

GUIL: But we both obey, And here give up ourselves in the full bent To lay our service freely at your feet, To be commanded.

CLAUDIUS: Thanks, Rosencrantz ( turning to ROS Who is Caught unprepared, while GUIL bows ) and gentle Guildenstern ( turning to GUIL who is bent double ) .

GERTRUDE ( correcting ) : Thanks Guildenstern. ( turning to ROS , who bows as GUIL checks upward movement to bow to both bent double, squinting at each other ) … and gentle Rosencrantz ( turning to GUIL , both straightening up- GUIL checks again and bows again ) . And I beseech you instantly to visit My too much changed son. Go, some of you, And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.

TWO ATTENDANTS exit backwards, indicating that ROS and GUIL should follow.

GUIL: Heaven make our presence Pleasant and helpful to him.

GERTRUDE: Ay, amen' and our practices!

ROS and GUIL move towards a downstage wing. Before they get there, POLONIUS enters. They stop and bow to him. He nods and hurries upstage to CLAUDIUS . They turn to look at him.

POLONIUS: The ambassadors from Norway, my good lord, are joyfully returned.

CLAUDIUS: Thou still hast been the father of good news.

POLONIUS: Have I, my lord? Assure you, my good liege, I hold my duty as I hold my soul, Both to my God and to my gracious King; And I do think, or else this brain of mine Hunts not the trail of policy so sure As it hath used to do, that I have found The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy…

Exeunt-leaving ROS and GUIL .

ROS: I want to go home.

GUIL: Don't let them confuse you.

ROS: I'm out of my stop here– We'll soon be home and high-dry and home-I'll– It's all over my depth– –I'll hie you home and-

ROS: –Out of my head-

GUIL: –dry you high and-

ROS ( cracking, high ) : –Over MY step over my head bodyguard tell you it's all stopping to a death, it's boding to a depth, stepping to a head, it's all heading to a dead stop-

GUIL: ( the nursemaid ) : There!… and we'll soon be home and dry… and high and dry… ( Rapidly. ) Has it ever happened to you that all of a sudden and for no reason at all you haven't the faintest idea how to spell the word-"wife"-or "house"-because when you write it down you just can't remember ever having seen those letters in that order before… ?

ROS: I remember

GUIL: Yes?

ROS: I remember when there were no questions.

GUIL: There – –I Is that ways questions. To exchange one set for another is no great matter.

ROS: Answers, yes. There were answers to everything.

GUIL: You've forgotten.

ROS: ( flaring ) : I haven't forgotten-how I used to remember my own name-and yours, oh yes! There were answers everywhere you looked. There was no question about it –people knew who I was and if they didn't they asked and I told them.

GUIL: You did, the trouble is, each of them is… plausible, 38 without being instinctive. All your life you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the comer of your eye, and when something nudges it into outline it is like. being ambushed by a grotesque. A man standing in his saddle in the half-lit half-alive dawn banged on the shutters and called two names. He was just a hat and a cloak levitating in the grey plume of his own breath, but when he called we came. That much is certain-we came.

ROS: Well I can tell you I'm sick to death of it. I don't cam one way or another, so why don't you make up your mind.

GUIL: We can't afford anything quite so arbitrary. Nor did we come all this way for a christening. All that-preceded us. But we are comparatively fortunate; we might have been left to sift the whole field of human nomenclature, like two blind men looting a bazaar for their own portraits… At least we are presented with alternatives.

ROS: Well as from now

GUIL: –But not choice.

ROS: You made me look ridiculous in there.

GUIL: I looked just as ridiculous as you did.

ROS: ( an anguished cry ) : Consistency is all I ask!

GUIL: ( low, wry rhetoric ) : Give us this day our daily mask.

ROS: ( a dying fall ) : I want to go home. ( Moves. ) Which way did we come in? I've lost my sense of direction.

GUIL: The only beginning is birth and the only end is death-if you can't count on that, what can you count on? They connect again.

ROS: We don't owe anything to anyone.