“You know, Alfred, we could create a dramatic precedent here.”
The Tragedians appear
“Aha! All in the same boat then!”
“To a nunnery go!”
“I have influence!”
“Something you have heard of Hamlet’s… transformation.”
Player: Time’s being what they are.
Rosencrantz: And what are they?
Player: Indifferent.
Rosencrantz: Bad?
Player: Wicked.
“They arrive and present themselves to the English king. The English king… but where is the prince?”
“On the knowing of this contents, without delay of any kind, should those bearers, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, be put to sudden death.”
“We’re actors, we’re the opposite of people!”
“We ransomed ourselves to the clouds and the uncomprehending birds listened!”
“Good gentlemen, give him further edge/ And drive his purpose into these delights.”
“He shall with speed to England.”
“Not exactly avuncular as time goes on.”
“Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain!”
“The only beginning is birth and the only end is death. If you can’t count on that what can you count on?”
“Alfred!”
“There must have been a time when we could have turned back.”
“So shall you hear of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts…”
“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Where should we have out thanks?”
“You look alright to me. I don’t think they’re very particular in England.”
The cast and directors of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Back row left to right: junior Evelyn Chedekel (North), sophomore Isaac Chapin (South), senior Rebecca Sarin (South), senior Fin Grafe (North), sophomore Aviva Fidler (South), junior Elijah Lawrence (South, senior Jaehun Lee (South), senior Emily Ecker (North). Front row left to right: senior Abby Lass (South), junior Ariel Hirschhorn (South), junior Daisy Hutter (North), junior Katy Ronkin (South), junior Jennifer Kang (South), junior Constantine Foehl (South), sophomore John Stembridge (South)
“Love? His affections to not that way tend.”
“Pirates!”
“Gentlemen disport yourselves!”
“We pledged our identities, secure in the conventions of our trade; that someone would be watching. And then, gradually, no one was.”
Guildenstern: What are you doing here?
Player: Traveling.
“Traitors hoist by their own petard, or victims of the goods? We shall never know!”
“Dramatic….. pauses!”
“It must be indicative of something.”
“My god, I thought I saw a unicorn!”
“Follow him, friends. We’ll hear a play tomorrow.”
“You are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. That’s enough.”
“For an audience, disappointing. For voyeurs, about average.”
“I say we will have no more marriage!”
“Those that are married already, all but one shall live.”
“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”?
Rosencrantz: England, I don’t believe in it!
Guildenstern: Just a conspiracy of cartographers?
“I should have Hamlet’s head cut off!”
“It ends when all those who are marked for death die.”
“I did, I did, you’re quicker than your friend!”
“But since there are so many of us, the same side of two coins!”
“I say, I say, a band!”
“Tragedy, sir!”
“The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means.”
“A weaker man might be moved to re-examine his faith, if in nothing else at least in the law of probability.”
“O, woe is me/ T’have seen what I have seen, see what I see!”
Guildenstern: You’ve been here before.
Player: And I know which way the wind is blowing.
“The Murder of Gonzago!”
“Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart…”
“Out of the void, a sound!”
“They don’t like the odds.”
“What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?”
Rosencrantz: How are you?
Guildenstern: Afflicted!
“He shall with speed to England.”
“When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.”
“It costs little to watch, and little more if you happen to get caught up in the action.”
“Your lines will be cut to dumbshows!”
“Let your imagination run riot, they are beyond surprise.”
“Hamlet is not himself.”
“Tragedians, sir, at your command!”
“Oh yes, we have no control. Tonight we play to the court. Or the night after. Or to the tavern. Or not.”
“Are you familiar with the play?”
“Act one moves now!”
“What’s he doing?”
“Thou still hast been the father of good news.”
Claudius: Thanks Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.
Gertrude: Thanks Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.
“Do you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it?”
“Battles at the skirmish level!”
“Not exactly fraternal.”
“That great baby there is not yet out of swaddling clouts.”
“Go seek him out; speak fair and bring the body to the chapel.”
“He knew all along it was a band.”
“Who do you think you are?”
“A slaughterhouse, eight corpses all told.”
“O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!”
“My excellent good friends!”
“Heads I win.”
“Usurpation then.”
“Think in your head, now, think of the most private, secret, intimate thing you have ever done secure in the knowledge of its privacy…”
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, October 2016. Directed by Emily Ecker and Abby Lass