Rosencrantz

main: cup-of-chamomille

[nutmeg-cider]

my other half and i are trapped in someone else’s narrative and i need to [remembers that suicide jokes are counterproductive for my mental health] spend the rest of my life on boats

[nutmeg-cider]

hello rosencrantz & guildenstern are dead tumblr. i’ve arrived

[rosencats]

well they're not wrong

[nothatsabsurd]

Tom Stoppard

Tom Stoppard was originally born in  Czechoslovakia to the name  Tomas Straussler. He is Jewish and his family fled to Singapore on March 15th 1939 when the Nazis invaded, then again to India with his mother and brother, and then again to Yorkshire in 1946. He went to boarding school there and in Nottinghamshire. 

He never went to university, after his O levels he went straight to working as a journalist for The Western Daily press and the Bristol evening world, but felt he didn’t quite cut it as a journalist or reporter. He quit to become a playwright. He wrote his first full length play “A Walk On The Water”.

He continued living in Bristol until 1963 where he moved to London. He worked as a drama critic for Scene, an at the time new arts magazine; he often wrote in his pseudonym, William Boot, which he liked so much that he would frequently feature characters with the name boot (like Birdboot). He described it as “a critic completely competent with being innocently incompetent”. Which is very much so for Moon and Birdboot. 

[i-wanted-to-make-you-happy]

as i’ve mentioned, the thesis of my essay is basically that rosencrantz and guildenstern have the free will needed to escape the narrative of the play, but they fail to do so because of external factors.

one of the main factors, particularly for guil, is their need for directions. our protagonists don’t know what to do with themselves when there isn’t another character telling them what they’re “supposed to” do next. they both respond to this uncertainty with confusion, but guil in particular becomes very anxious when he doesn’t have directions.

in act 1, when they are trying to remember where they’re going and why, guildenstern gets stressed out by the fact that they have been left to their own devices: “We have not been . . . picked out . . . simply to be abandoned . . . set loose to find our own way. . . . We are entitled to some direction. . . . I would have thought.” guil seems somewhat aware that they have been “picked out” as the focus on the play, and therefore feels “entitled” to be given instructions on what to do.

guildenstern feels better knowing what will happen to them beforehand, even if it’s not going to be pleasant, because at least then he isn’t going in blind.

[i-wanted-to-make-you-happy]

rosencrantz’s fatal flaw is literally that he cares too much.

there are multiple points in the play when he tells guil that they should try doing something other than what they have been told they’re “supposed to” do, but guil is too scared to try it because he’s afraid of the uncertainty that would come with forging their own path.

so ros drops it and stays with guil. every time.

i truly think that ros could have escaped the narrative if he was by himself, but he WON’T because that would mean leaving guil, and he’s not going to do that.

guil values security (being sure of what he is meant to be doing and what will happen next), while ros values his relationships with other characters.

we see more evidence of these values in their reactions to realizing that the letter they’re carrying has instructions for hamlet to be killed.

guildenstern thinks that they should pretend that they never read the letter and give it to the king of england as planned. he is relieved to have a clear direction to go in.

rosencrantz is more troubled by the contents of the letter. he feels guilty about the idea of allowing hamlet to be killed, because they are his friends.

guil points out that they’ve only been TOLD that they’re hamlet’s friends, but they have no memory of their history together. ros still thinks it’s wrong. though he may not really know much about hamlet, he knows that he’s his friend, and he feels a sense of loyalty because of that.

[sparklyshakespeare]

the ophelia/rosencrantz doubled track that exists only in my mind and would require multiple scenes to be rewritten means so much to me

[thehamletdiaries]

wait say more I wanna hear about what this looks like

[taavicleric]

The *only* scenes they share are Act III, scenes 1&2, which is the Players Scene. I can't recall how much fiddling you'd have to do to make it work, but, the real weirdness is that R&G probably doubled as Gravediggers.

[thehamletdiaries]

This is a fun (and you know, tragic and heartbreaking; it's Hamlet)...

So at the beginning of Act III, if you cut Claudius telling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to leave them, you can then have them join Claudius and Polonius in spying on the entire get thee to a nunnery scene, and then on top of that when they come out of hiding and Polonius is dismissively like "we heard it Ophelia, no need to talk about it" you could do so much and so many different things with a silent interaction between Rosencrantz and Ophelia....possible acknowledging at that point that they don't really know each other then but she's clearly so upset and he can go sort of hesitantly at first put his arm around her; offering her a comfort no one else is.

And of course you can ramp up their interactions during the play within a play scene; particularly with the audience assembling for the play within the play, before Hamlet goes over to Ophelia and could be talking to Rosencrantz and effectively take her away from him.

You could also potentially insert Ophelia into the play upon the pipe scene, the same way you can easily keep Horatio in all of it rather than having him coming off and on (and side point the idea of having them both be in that scene is fascinating) - and the core of that scene is really the sparing match between Hamlet and Guildenstern so then you just have Rosencrantz with Ophelia (and, imo, Horatio sort of on Hamlet's "side") of the stage hovering there not knowing what to do being like "wtf is going on".

And then at that point if you've created some sort of (frankly platonic or romantic - either works) relationship between Ophelia and Rosencrantz you don't need to have her in the scenes of Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern, trying to get Hamlet to tell them where Polonius's body is - the emotions of that in that kind of performance will speak for themselves.

And then actually arguably the saddest thing would just to have them not interact again (also ngl I can't think how you'd do that because you can't have a sort of "goodbye" moment because whilst Rosencrantz is just leaving, Ophelia is already going to know her dad is dead and her mental state is going to be a whole thing that would make doing that as just a brief moment quite hard to make work).

But something you could do - and actually of all the things here this would make the most text editing to have them be discussed in parallel, but, and generally I prefer Ophelia to die off stage, but I've always liked the idea of showing on an upper balcony or that sort of space the moment when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern realise they are going to be killed and are dragged off to the gallows; and you could do that alongside a similar image or Ophelia on the riverbank ready to jump into the water.

Idk, just some drabbles of thoughts...I'd love to hear more of yours if you're happy to share (no pressure though, ofc!).

[sparklyshakespeare]

THIS IS INCREDIBLE!! YOU ARE BRILLIANT!! this is so much more than i could have ever dreamed!!!! i just want to play both ophelia and rosencrantz and thought let’s knock out two birds with one stone and double them, but you turned it into something FABULOUS and gorgeously written!!!!! this is just perfection!!!!!

[thehamletdiaries]

Completely forgot I ordered this but it's here and it's great.

It's from here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1492805684/hamlet-book-cover-poster-modern-cover

[rosencats]

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

[leona-florianova]

When you are waiting for Godot, but Rosencrantz and Guildenstern arrive instead.

[benvoolioo]

life in a box is better than no life at all ig  

(inspired by this post)

[rosencats]

Rosencrantz

[paysomeonetopaysomeone-deactiva]

now that i think about it. rosencrantz and guildenstern were literally just two guys. not like horatio, who stuck to hamlet against all odds and actively made himself a part of the narrative, and not like fortinbras, who wanted a part in everything but got a little too late.

rosguil were just… never part of any of this. they did what they did because the king asked them to, and what were they supposed to do? say no to him? did they know what was in the letters? did they believe that finding out what the matter with hamlet was, even behind his back, would maybe help their childhood friend? they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and their “betrayal” really wasn’t betrayal at all. they were. literally just two people.

[crystallizedtwilight]

whoops

[rosencats]

Rosencrantz (made with AI)

[castletouchedbystarlight-deacti]

Here's Hamlet! It's smaller than the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern piece, but with more detail. (Plus, I did a big Laertes one at the same time!)

[castletouchedbystarlight-deacti]

It's been a long time since I posted and I'm sorry. Here's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to make it batter. In a new art style that I'm slowly trying to revitalize after a few years of nothing but anime characters. (I'm currently working on Hamlet himself. Hopefully I'll get that out sooner because I'm NOT going all out with backgrounds like I did here! But can you blame me here, my boys deserve something more than what they get in the play!)