History Theatre / RosencrantzAndGuildensternAreDead

-->''We can show you rapiers!" ''Cue a man and woman fencing'' "Or rape!" ''Cue the woman jumping on the man's crotch.'' [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs "Or both!"]] ''Cue the woman raping the man while fencing another man.

** At least one production was presented back to back with 'Hamlet' - Hamlet ran for a few weeks first with R&C being the next play at the theatre. With the same cast. In the same roles. With the 'Shakespeare' scenes staged exactly the same way.
*** Sometimes in the late 80s, the Stratford, Ontario Shakespeare Festival ran Hamlet and R&C on alternate nights with the same cast. R&G's entrance in Hamlet had them flipping a coin.

* ShoutOut: The Player's definition of tragedy is a misquote of OscarWilde's definition of fiction in ''TheImportanceOfBeingEarnest''.
* ShowWithinAShow: ''The Murder of Gonzago''. The movie adaptation gets even worse about it -- we have the court watching ''The Murder of Gonzago'' as the characters of ''Gonzago'' are watching a puppet show ''for the same reason Hamlet staged all this in the first place.'' It's basically Hamlet Within Hamlet Within Hamlet. Within ''Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead''.

A 1966 play by TomStoppard. A PerspectiveFlip of ''{{Hamlet}}'', heavily inspired by ''WaitingForGodot''. The excellent 1990 film version (also directed by Stoppard) is best known. It stars GaryOldman as Rosencrantz, TimRoth as Guildenstern, and RichardDreyfuss as the Player.

* CaptainObvious: Act Two of the play begins in darkness. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern wake up and exchange a few lines. Cue sea noises, gulls, extensive outbreak of shouted [[BusmansVocabulary nautical jargon]] that goes on for some time. Until finally:

** Though there were periods of time when being hatless in public was considered an unthinkable faux pas.

The leads are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who were only [[ThoseTwoGuys minor characters]] in the [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespearean]] ''{{Hamlet}}''. Their dilemma: being minor characters, they were never granted much of a backstory, and as a result they have ''no memory'' of their lives. Including which of them is supposed to be which. They're utterly, hopelessly stuck in a WorldLimitedToThePlot: all they know, instinctively, are the lines they're meant to say to Hamlet and the rest of the cast. They're appropriately freaked out by this.

As in ''Hamlet'', they're called to visit their college friend Prince Hamlet, and they don't dare refuse because King Claudius did the asking. The whole play is about their lack of control of events, and their failures to know and remember things they ought to know. But just like King Claudius summoned them to talk to Hamlet, Hamlet has summoned a troupe of actors to influence King Claudius. The leader of that troupe (the Player) takes it upon himself to address Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in all their existential confusion, almost pushing them into awareness of the fourth wall -- but never quite beyond it.

* CaptainObvious: Act Two of the play begins in darkness. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern wake up and exchange a few lines. Cue sea noises, gulls, hurricane of [[BusmansVocabulary nautical jargon]] that goes on for some time. Until finally:

The leads are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who were only [[ThoseTwoGuys minor characters]] in the Creator/WilliamShakespearean {{Hamlet}}. Their dilemma: being minor characters, they were never granted much of a backstory, and as a result they have ''no memory'' of their lives. Including which of them is supposed to be which. They're utterly, hopelessly stuck in a WorldLimitedToThePlot: all they know, instinctively, are the lines they're meant to say to Hamlet and the rest of the cast. They're appropriately freaked out by this.

The leads are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who were only [[ThoseTwoGuys minor characters]] in the {{Shakespeare}}an {{Hamlet}}. Their dilemma: being minor characters, they were never granted much of a backstory, and as a result they have ''no memory'' of their lives. Including which of them is supposed to be which. They're utterly, hopelessly stuck in a WorldLimitedToThePlot: all they know, instinctively, are the lines they're meant to say to Hamlet and the rest of the cast. They're appropriately freaked out by this.

Real sections of ''{{Hamlet}}'' are inserted where appropriate.

* ButThouMust: A dramatic version. Whenever ''{{Hamlet}}'' kicks in, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern find themselves speaking the "right" lines, only to go back to being lost immediately afterwards.

* FollowThePlottedLine: Stoppard has great fun constructing his plot this way: however far off topic they seem to get, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern always find themselves slotted back into ''{{Hamlet}}''.

* GroundhogDayLoop: Explicitly invoked at the end. Even though Rosencrantz and Guildenstern [[spoiler: are dead]], they'll return as soon as the [[AuthorAvatar messenger]] calls. Unfortunately, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern both suffer from LaserGuidedAmnesia; only the Player has RippleEffectProofMemory.

* HeadsOrTails: They periodically flip a coin to make a decision, but it is established early on that the coin always lands heads up, as a symptom of YouCantFightFate. Until the one time it's tails.

* MediumAwareness: Kind of, almost. They ''know'' something funny is going on ("Heads... Heads... Heads...."), and one of them has a sneaking suspicion that it could be something like "We're just two minor characters in someone else's story."
** More attention called to this in stage productions. The characters spend the entire time on the stage while the rest of the play sweeps in and out, and their private musings between the two are often spent looking out across the audience or 'into the camera' as it were. In some versions one of them even spits into the audience.

* RippleEffectProofMemory: The Player, who knows perfectly well that he's been here before.
* ShoutOut: The Player's definition of tragedy is a misquote of OscarWilde's definition of fiction in ''{{The Importance of Being Earnest}}''.

* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: Shading into...

*** [[YourMileageMayVary Maybe.]] See GainaxEnding above.

* RapeAsComedy: In addition to HurricaneOfPuns:
-->''We can show you rapiers!" ''Cue a man and woman fencing'' "Or rape!" ''Cue the woman jumping on the man's crotch.'' [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs "Or both!"]] ''Cue the woman raping the man while fencing another man.

** Though Guildenstern's final line arguably puts it in a different context. He wants to know what he could have done to change the course of events, when he could have said "no". You are, of course, free to watch the play or movie all you like. He'll never say anything to change the evemts even if he lives the story a thousand times.

* ChekhovsLecture: Several

** Though Guildenstern's final line arguably puts it in a different context. He wants to know what he could have done to change the course of events, when he could have said "no". You are, of course, free to watch the play or movie all you like. He'll never say change it even if he lives the story a thousand times.

* ButThouMust - A dramatic version. Whenever ''{{Hamlet}}'' kicks in, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern find themselves speaking the "right" lines, only to go back to being lost immediately afterwards.

* ChekhovsLecture (several)

* {{Deconstruction}} - not just of ''{{Hamlet}}'' but of theater conventions in general.
* DownerEnding - It's in the title, so you know exactly how it's going to end.

* FanFiction (in a manner of speaking)
* FollowThePlottedLine - Stoppard has great fun constructing his plot this way: however far off topic they seem to get, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern always find themselves slotted back into ''{{Hamlet}}''.
* ForegoneConclusion - Believe it or not, [[spoiler: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern die.]]

* GainaxEnding - [[spoiler: Death? A time loop based on the play being played multiple times? Simply leaving the focus of the play? "Well, we'll know better next time. Now you see me, now you" *dissappears* ]]
* GroundhogDayLoop - Explicitly invoked at the end. Even though Rosencrantz and Guildenstern [[spoiler: are dead]], they'll return as soon as the [[AuthorAvatar messenger]] calls. Unfortunately, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern both suffer from LaserGuidedAmnesia; only the Player has RippleEffectProofMemory.

* HeterosexualLifePartners, despite what the {{Yaoi Fangirl}}s say.
** Actually, WordOfGod confirms the HoYay.

* LeaningOnTheFourthWall, shading into...

* MediumAwareness - Kind of, almost. They ''know'' something funny is going on ("Heads... Heads... Heads...."), and one of them has a sneaking suspicion that it could be something like "We're just two minor characters in someone else's story."

* {{Pinball Protagonist}}s - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

* PopculturalOsmosis - even people who haven't seen the play and know nothing of its contents are aware of it - and its leads
* {{Postmodernism}} - '''Yeah.''' Much of the play is a roundabout method of deconstructing the suspension of disbelief.
* RandomNumberGod - At the beginning of the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern flip a coin almost 90 times and it comes up heads each time. One of Guildenstern's proposed explanations is "divine intervention" God wants Rosencrantz (betting on heads) to win, or Guildenstern to lose. The subtext is that he's right, it ''is'' divine intervention: the ''author of the play'' wants the coins to come up heads over and over again.
* RapeAsComedy - In addition to HurricaneOfPuns:
--> "We can show you rapiers!" ''Cue a man and woman fencing'' "Or rape!" ''Cue the woman jumping on the man's crotch.'' [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs "Or both!"]] ''Cue the woman raping the man while fencing another man.''
* RequisiteRoyalRegalia - A rare case where we see the regalia ''come off'' after the king and queen are done having an audience.
* RippleEffectProofMemory - The Player, who knows perfectly well that he's been here before.
* ShoutOut - The Player's definition of tragedy is a misquote of OscarWilde's definition of fiction in ''{{The Importance of Being Earnest}}''.
* ShowWithinAShow - ''The Murder of Gonzago''. The movie adaptation gets even worse about it--we have the court watching ''The Murder of Gonzago'' as the characters of ''Gonzago'' are watching a puppet show ''for the same reason Hamlet staged all this in the first place.'' It's basically Hamlet Within Hamlet Within Hamlet.
** Within ''Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead''.

* {{Tragedy}} (Deconstructed)

* YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle - The death of [[spoiler: The Player.]]

** In fact its all over the place.

*** Oh it's worse than that. The silent play they see is actually in ''Hamlet'' as well where it serves as a prelude to ''The Murder of Gonzago''. Virtually all directors just leave it out because its such a nonsensical bit of writing (even Branaugh had it done in less than thirty seconds).

* HoYay - still there, though.
** There was a messenger. They were sent for. They woke up... together.
*** It's a cold, rainy, Northern Europe country ... ''during the Little Ice Age''. There's a reason the "Xdogs night" term was coined.
** "I don't feel like stretching my legs." "I could stretch them for you, if you like."
** Guil giving Ros a cuddle to cheer him up.
** The fact that their every conversation (that is not existential musings) makes them sound LikeAnOldMarriedCouple.
** The film especially accentuates this trope, with Ros constantly tugging on Guil's arm, trying to get his attention, agreeing with everything he says, throwing his arms around him, etc.
** Really, it's not surprising given the characters these two were [[WaitingForGodot based on.]]

* HeyitsthatGuy: [[HarryPotter Sirius Black]] and [[PulpFiction Pumpkin/Ringo]] are dead.

* JerkWithaHeartofGold: Guildenstern