Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

by Tom Stoppard

  GUIL: What?

  ROS (shouts): Beard! What’s the matter with you? (Reflectively.) The toenails, on the other hand, never grow at all.

  GUIL (bemused): The toenails never grow at all?

  ROS : Do they? It’s a funny thing—I cut my fingernails all the time, and every time I think to cut them, they need cutting. Now, for instance. And yet, I never, to the best of my knowledge, cut my toenails. They ought to be curled under my feet by now, but it doesn’t happen. I never think about them. Perhaps 1 cut them absent-mindedly, when I’m thinking of something else.

  GUIL (tensed up by this rambling): Do you remember the first thing that happened today?

  ROS (promptly): I woke up, I suppose. (Triggered.) Oh—I’ve got it now—that man, a foreigner, he woke us up——

  GUIL : A messenger. (He relaxes, sits.)

  ROS : That’s it—pale sky before dawn, a man standing on his saddle to bang on the shutters—shouts—What’s all the row about?! Clear off!—But then he called our names. You remember that—this man woke us up.

  GUIL : Yes.

  ROS : We were sent for.

  GUIL : Yes.

  ROS : That’s why we’re here. (He looks round, seems doubtful, then the explanation.) Travelling.

  GUIL : Yes.

  ROS (dramatically): It was urgent—a matter of extreme urgency, a royal summons, his very words: official business and no questions asked—lights in the stable-yard, saddle up and off headlong and hotfoot across the land, our guides outstripped in breakneck pursuit of our duty! Fearful lest we come too late!!

  Small pause.

  GUIL: TOO late for what?

  ROS : How do I know? We haven’t got there yet.

  GUIL : Then what are we doing here, I ask myself.

  ROS: YOU might well ask.

  GUIL : We better get on.

  ROS : You might well think.

  GUIL : We better get on.

  ROS (actively): Right! (Pause.) On where?

  GUIL : Forward.

  ROS (forward to footlights): Ah. (Hesitates.) Which way do we——(He turns round.) Which way did we——?

  GUIL : Practically starting from scratch. . . . An awakening, a man standing on his saddle to bang on the shutters, our names shouted in a certain dawn, a message, a summons . . . A new record for heads and tails. 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.

  ROS (alert, listening): I say ! I say

  GUIL : Yes?

  ROS : I can hear—I thought I heard—music.

  GUIL raises himself.

  GUIL : Yes?

  ROS : Like a band. (He looks around, laughs embarrassedly, expiating himself.) It sounded like—a band. Drums.

  GUIL : Yes.

  ROS (relaxes): It couldn’t have been real.

  GUIL : “The colours red, blue and green are real. The colour yellow is a mystical experience shared by everybody” demolish.

  ROS (at edge of stage): It must have been thunder. Like drums . . . By the end of the next speech, the band is faintly audible.

  GUIL : A man breaking his journey between one place and another at a third place of no name, character, population or significance, sees a unicorn cross his path and disappear. That in itself is startling, but there are precedents for mystical encounters of various kinds, or to be less extreme, a choice of persuasions to put it down to fancy; until— “My God,” says a second man, “I must be dreaming, I thought 1 saw a unicorn.” At which point, a dimension is added that makes the experience as alarming as it will ever be. A third witness, you understand, adds no further dimension but only spreads it thinner, and a fourth thinner still, and the more witnesses there are the thinner it gets and the more reasonable it becomes until it is as thin as reality, the name we give to the common experience. . . . “Look, look!” recites the crowd. “A horse with an arrow in its forehead! It must have been mistaken for a deer.”

  ROS (eagerly): I knew all along it was a band.

  GUIL (tiredly): He knew all along it was a band.

  ROS : Here they come!

  GUIL (at the last moment before they enter—wistfully): I’m sorry it wasn’t a unicorn. It would have been nice to have unicorns.

  The TRAGEDIANS are six in number, including a small BOY (ALFRED) . Two pull and push a cart piled with props and belongings. There is also a DRUMMER, a HORN-PLAYER and a FLAUTIST. The SPOKESMAN (“the PLAYER”) has no instrument. He brings up the rear and is the first to notice them.

  PLAYER : Halt!

  The group turns and halts.

  (Joyously.) An audience!

  ROS and GUIL half rise.

  Don’t move!

  They sink back. He regards them fondly.

  Perfect! A lucky thing we came along.

  ROS : For us?

  PLAYER : Let us hope so. But to meet two gentlemen on the road—we would not hope to meet them off it.

  ROS : No?

  PLAYER : Well met, in fact, and just in time.

  ROS : Why’s that?

  PLAYER : Why, we grow rusty and you catch us at the very point of decadence—by this time tomorrow we might have forgotten everything we ever knew. That’s a thought, isn’t it? (He laughs generously.) We’d be back where we started —improvising.

  ROS : Tumblers, are you?

  PLAYER : We can give you a tumble if that’s your taste, and times being what they are. . . . Otherwise, for a jingle of coin we can do you a selection of gory romances, full of fine cadence and corpses, pirated from the Italian; and it doesn’t take much to make a jingle—even a single coin has music in it.

  They all flourish and bow, raggedly.

  Tragedians, at your command.

  ROS and GUIL have got to their feet.

  ROS : My name is Guildenstern, and this is Rosencrantz.

  GUIL confers briefly with him.

  (Without embarrassment.) I’m sorry— his name’s Guildenstern, and I’m Rosencrantz.

  PLAYER : A pleasure. We’ve played to bigger, of course, but quality counts for something. I recognized you at once

  ROS : And who are we?

  PLAYER : —as fellow artists.

  ROS : I thought we were gentlemen.

  PLAYER : For some of us it is performance, for others, patronage. They are two sides of the same coin, or, let us say, being as there are so many of us, the same side of two coins. (Bows again.) Don’t clap too loudly—it’s a very old world.

  ROS : What is your line?

  PLAYER : Tragedy, sir. Deaths and disclosures, universal and particular, denouements both unexpected and inexorable, transvestite melodrama on all levels including the suggestive. We transport you into a world of intrigue and illusion . . . clowns, if you like, murderers—we can do you ghosts and battles, on the skirmish level, heroes, villains, tormented lovers—set pieces in the poetic vein; we can do you rapiers or rape or both, by all means, faithless wives and ravished virgins— flagrante delicto at a price, but that comes under realism for which there are special terms. Getting warm, am I?

  ROS (doubtfully): Well, I don’t know. . . .

  PLAYER : It costs little to watch, and little more if you happen to get caught up in the action, if that’s your taste and times being what they are.

  ROS : What are they?

  PLAYER : Indifferent.

  ROS : Bad?

  PLAYER : Wicked. Now what precisely is your pleasure? (He turns to the TRAGEDIANS .) Gentlemen, disport yourselves.

  The TRAGEDIANS shuffle into some kind of line.

  There! See anything you like?

  ROS (doubtful, innocent): What do they do?

  PLAYER : Let your imagination run riot. They are beyond surprise.

  ROS : And how much?

  PLAYER: TO take part?

  ROS : To watch.

  PLAYER : Watch what?

  ROS : A private performance.

  PLAYER: HOW private?

  ROS : Well,
there are only two of us. Is that enough?

  PLAYER : For an audience, disappointing. For voyeurs, about average.

  ROS : What’s the difference?

  PLAYER : Ten guilders.

  ROS (horrified): Ten guilders

  PLAYER : I mean eight.

  ROS : Together?

  PLAYER : Each. I don’t think you understand—

  ROS : What are you saying?

  PLAYER : What am I saying—seven.

  ROS : Where have you been!

  PLAYER : Roundabout. A nest of children carries the custom of the town. Juvenile companies, they are the fashion. But they cannot match our repertoire . . . we’ll stoop to anything if that’s your bent. . . .

  He regards ROS meaningfully but ROS returns the stare blankly.

  ROS : They 11 grow up.

  PLAYER (giving up): There’s one born every minute. (ToTRAGEDIANS .) On-ward!

  The TRAGEDIANS start to resume their burdens and their journey, GUIL stirs himself at last.

  GUIL : Where are you going?

  PLAYER : Ha-alt!

  They halt and turn.

  Home, sir.

  GUIL : Where from?

  PLAYER : Home. We’re travelling people. We take our chances where we find them.

  GUIL : It was chance, then?

  PLAYER : Chance?

  GUIL: YOU found us.

  PLAYER : Oh yes.

  GUIL: YOU were looking?

  PLAYER : Oh no.

  GUIL : Chance, then.

  PLAYER : Or fate.

  GUIL : Yours or ours?

  PLAYER : It could hardly be one without the other.

  GUIL : Fate, then.

  PLAYER : Oh yes. We have no control. Tonight we play to the court. Or the night after. Or to the tavern. Or not.

  GUIL : Perhaps I can use my influence.

  PLAYER : At the tavern?

  GUIL : At the court. I would say I have some influence.

  PLAYER : Would you say so?

  GUIL : I have influence yet.

  PLAYER : Yet what?

  GUIL seizes the PLAYER violently.

  GUIL : I have influence!

  The PLAYER does not resist, GUIL loosens his hold.

  (More calmly.) You said something—about getting caught up in the action——

  PLAYER (gaily freeing himself): I did!—I did!—You’re quicker than your friend. . . . (Confidingly.) Now for a handful of guilders I happen to have a private and uncut performance of The Rape of the Sabine Women—or rather woman, or rather Alfred——(Over his shoulder.) Get your skirt on, Alfred——

  The BOY starts struggling into a female robe.

  . . . and for eight you can participate.

  GUIL backs, PLAYER follows.

  . . . taking either part.

  GUIL backs.

  . . . or both for ten.

  GUIL tries to turn away, PLAYER holds his sleeve.

  . . . with encores——

  GUIL smashes the PLAYER across the face. The PLAYER recoils, GUIL stands trembling.

  (Resigned and quiet). Get your skirt off, Alfred. . . .

  ALFRED struggles out of his half-on robe.

  GUIL (shaking with rage and fright): It could have been—it didn’t have to be obscene. . . . It could have been—a bird out of season, dropping bright-feathered on my shoulder. . . . It could have been a tongueless dwarf standing by the road to point the way. . . . I was prepared. But it’s this, is it? No enigma, no dignity, nothing classical, portentous, only this —a comic pornographer and a rabble of prostitutes. . . .

  PLAYER (acknowledging the description with a sweep of his hat, bowing; sadly): You should have caught us in better times. We were purists then. (Straightens up.) On-ward.

  The PLAYERS make to leave.

  ROS (his voice has changed: he has caught on): Excuse me!

  PLAYER : Ha-alt!

  They halt.

  A-al-l-fred!

  ALFRED resumes the struggle. The PLAYER comes forward.

  ROS : You’re not—ah—exclusively players, then?

  PLAYER : We’re inclusively players, sir.

  ROS : So you give—exhibitions?

  PLAYER : Performances, sir.

  ROS : Yes, of course. There’s more money in that, is there?

  PLAYER : There’s more trade, sir.

  ROS : Times being what they are.

  PLAYER : Yes.

  ROS : Indifferent

  PLAYER : Completely.

  ROS : You know I’d no idea

  PLAYER: NO

  ROS : I mean, I’ve heard of—but I’ve never actually

  PLAYER: NO.

  ROS : I mean, what exactly do you do?

  PLAYER : We keep to our usual stuff, more or less, only inside out. We do on stage the things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit being an entrance somewhere else.

  ROS (nervy, loud): Well, I’m not really the type of man who— no, but don’t hurry off—sit down and tell us about some of the things people ask you to do

  The PLAYER turns away.

  PLAYER : On-ward!

  ROS : Just a minute!

  They turn and look at him without expression.

  Well, all right—I wouldn’t mind seeing—just an idea of the kind of— (Bravely.) What will you do for that? (And tosses a single coin on the ground between them.)

  The PLAYER spits at the coin, from where he stands.

  The TRAGEDIANS demur, trying to get at the coin. He kicks and cuffs them back.

  On!

  ALFRED is still half in and out of his robe. The PLAYER cuffs him.

  (ToALFRED :) What are you playing at?

  ROS is shamed into fury.

  ROS : Filth! Disgusting—I’ll report you to the authorities— perverts] I know your game all right, it’s all filth!

  The PLAYERS are about to leave, GUIL has remained detached.

  GUIL (casually): Do you like a bet?

  The TRAGEDIANS turn and look interested. The PLAYER comes forward.

  PLAYER : What kind of bet did you have in mind?

  GUIL walks half the distance towards the PLAYER, stops with his foot over the coin.

  GUIL : Double or quits.

  PLAYER : Well. . . heads.

  GUIL raises his foot, the PLAYER bends. The TRAGEDIANS crowd round. Relief and congratulations. The PLAYER picks up the coin, GUIL throws him a second coin.

  GUIL : Again?

  Some of the TRAGEDIANS are for it, others against.

  GUIL : Evens.

  The PLAYER nods and tosses the coin.

  GUIL : Heads.

  It is. He picks it up.

  Again.

  GUIL spins coin.

  PLAYER : Heads.

  It is. PLAYER picks up coin. He has two coins again. He spins one.

  GUIL : Heads.

  It is. GUIL picks it up. Then tosses it immediately.

  PLAYER (fractional hesitation): Tails.

  But it’s heads, GUIL picks it up. PLAYER tosses down his last coin by way of paying up, and turns away, GUIL doesn’t pick it up; he puts his foot on it.

  GUIL : Heads.

  PLAYER : No!

  Pause. The TRAGEDIANS are against this.

  (Apologetically.) They don’t like the odds.

  GUIL (lifts his foot, squats; picks up the coin still squatting; looks up): You were right—heads. (Spins it, slaps his hand on it, on the floor.) Heads I win.

  PLAYER: NO.

  GUIL (uncovers coin): Right again. (Repeat.) Heads I win.

  PLAYER: NO.

  GUIL (uncovers coin): And right again. (Repeat.) Heads I win.

  PLAYER: NO!

  He turns away, the TRAGEDIANS with him. GUIL stands up, comes close.

  GUIL : Would you believe it? (Stands back, relaxes, smiles.) Bet me the year of my birth doubled is an odd number.

  PLAYER: Your birth !

  GUIL : If you don’t trust me don’t bet with me.

  PLAYER :
Would you trust me?

  GUIL: Bet me then.

  PLAYER : My birth?

  GUIL : Odd numbers you win.

  PLAYER : You’re on

  The TRAGEDIANS have come forward, wide awake.

  GUIL : Good. Year of your birth. Double it. Even numbers I win. odd numbers I lose.

  Silence. An awful sigh as the TRAGEDIANS realize that any number doubled is even. Then a terrible row as they object. Then a terrible silence.

  PLAYER : We have no money.

  GUIL turns to him.

  GUIL : Ah. Then what have you got?

  The PLAYER silently brings ALFRED forward, GUIL regards ALFRED sadly.

  Was it for this?

  PLAYER : It’s the best we’ve got.

  GUIL (looking up and around): Then the times are bad indeed.

  The PLAYER starts to speak, protestation, but GUIL turns on him viciously.

  The very air stinks.

  The PLAYER moves back, GUIL moves down to the footlights and turns.

  Come here, Alfred.

  ALFRED moves down and stands, frightened and small.

  (Gently.) Do you lose often?

  ALFRED: Yes, sir.

  GUIL : Then what could you have left to lose?

  ALFRED : Nothing, sir.

  Pause, GUIL regards him.

  GUIL : Do you like being . . . an actor?

  ALFRED : No, sir.

  GUIL looks around, at the audience.

  GUIL: YOU and I, Alfred—we could create a dramatic precedent here.

  And ALFRED, who has been near tears, starts to sniffle.

  Come, come, Alfred, this is no way to fill the theatres of Europe.

  The PLAYER has moved down, to remonstrate with ALFRED, GUIL cuts him off again.

  (Viciously.) Do you know any good plays?

  PLAYER : Plays?

  ROS (coming forward, faltering shyly): Exhibitions. . . .

  GUIL: I thought you said you were actors.

  PLAYER (dawning): Oh. Oh well, we are. We are. But there hasn’t been much call

  GUIL : You lost. Well then—one of the Greeks, perhaps? You’re familiar with the tragedies of antiquity, are you? The great homicidal classics? Matri, patri, fratri, sorrori, uxori and it goes without saying——

  ROS : Saucy——

  GUIL : —Suicidal—hm? Maidens aspiring to godheads——

  ROS : And vice versa——

  GUIL : Your kind of thing, is it?

  PLAYER : Well, no, I can’t say it is, really. We’re more of the blood, love and rhetoric school.

  GUIL : Well, 1’ll leave the choice to you, if there is anything to choose between them.

  PLAYER : They’re hardly divisible, sir—well, I can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and I can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and I can do you all three concurrent or consecutive, but I can’t do you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory—they’re all blood, you see.