Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead [Paperback]

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Deadis one of the most enduring and frequently performed plays of contemporary theater and has firmly established itself in the dramatic canon. Acclaimed as a modern masterpiece, it is the fabulously inventive tale ofHamletas told from the worms-eye view of the bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Shakespeares play. In Tom Stoppards best-known work, this Shakespearean Laurel and Hardy finally get a chance to take the lead role, but do so in a world where echoes ofWaiting for Godotresound, where reality and illusion intermix, and where fate leads our two heroes to a tragic but inevitable end. Revised and reissued to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the plays first performance, this definitive edition includes a new introduction and previously unpublished ancillary material.

Praise forRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead:

A masterpiece, not unlike Shakespeares plays; its artfully, imaginatively written, multidimensional, and hilarious.New Yorker

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. . . has proved its sturdiness and power to endure . . . It is, after all, the most performed, most studied, most earnestly analyzed and strenuously anatomized of all Mr. Stoppards plays: the foundation of his international career and the inevitable starting point for anyone wanting to appreciate him.Benedict Nightingale,New York Times

A coruscatingly brilliant, endlessly thought-provoking masterpiece.Wall Street Journal

In makingRosencrantz and Guildenstern. . . Stoppard mixed the poetic melodrama of Shakespeare with the doom-laden minimalism of Samuel lC&