Junior year of high school my philosophy teacher chose the absurdist, existentialist play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, by Tom Stoppard, as one of our selected readings for the semester. I was so obsessed with it at the time that I actually stole it from the high school library. Looking back on this, I am seriously wondering which hallucinagens I was on at the time that caused me to think, of all of the books in that library, what I could not make it another day without that one. I suppose it is fitting, however. I did quite a few odd things back then, but I digress. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a 60′s expansion of the Shakespearean classic Hamlet, focusing on two extremely minor characters, the courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, childhood friends of the Prince. Below is the Wikapedia synopsis of the play:

The play concerns the misadventures and musings of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet who are childhood friends of the Prince, focusing on their actions with the events of Hamlet as background. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is structured as the inverse of Hamlet; the title characters are the leads, not supporting players, and Hamlet himself has only a small part. The duo appears on stage here when they are off-stage in Shakespeare’s play, with the exception of a few short scenes in which the dramatic events of both plays coincide. In Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are used by the King in an attempt to discover Hamlet’s motives and to plot against him. Hamlet, however, mocks them derisively and outwits them, so that they, rather than he, are killed in the end. Thus, from Rosencrantz’s and Guildenstern’s perspective, the action in Hamlet is largely nonsensically comical.


The two characters, brought into being within the puzzling universe of Stoppard’s play by an act of the playwright’s creation, often confuse their names, as they have generally interchangeable, yet periodically unique, identities. They are portrayed as two clowns or fools in a world that is beyond their understanding; they cannot identify any reliable feature or the significance in words or events. Their own memories are not reliable or complete and they misunderstand each other as they stumble through philosophical arguments while not realizing the implications to themselves. They often state deep philosophical truths during their nonsensical ramblings, yet they depart from these ideas as quickly as they come to them. At times Guildenstern appears to be more enlightened than Rosencrantz; at times both of them appear to be equally confounded by the events occurring around them.


After the two characters witness a performance of The Murder of Gonzago – the story within a story in the play Hamlet – they find themselves on a boat taking prince Hamlet to England with the troupe that staged the performance. During the voyage, they are ambushed by pirates and lose their prisoner, Hamlet, before resigning themselves to their fate.

Earlier this year rumors of a remake of R&G filtered across the internet. This intrigued me, especially when it when I heard it involved vampires. This week Blood Disgusting released the information that Jordan Galland’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Undead will be getting some sort of theatrical run on April 16, 2010, though the details of how extensive a run it will be are still unknown. According to B-D:

In the film an out of work lothario, Julian Marsh (Jake Hoffman), scores a break as the director of an off-Broadway play. The play is a bizarre adaptation of Hamlet written by a pale Romanian (John Ventimiglia) who is actually a master vampire. A perfect combination of low-brow humor and high-brow aesthetics, this comedy/horror film follows an eccentric cast of characters to explain the connection between Hamlet, the Holy Grail, and some very sexy vampires. The film was scored by Sean Lennon, son of the legendary Beatle.

Also featured was the below trailer for the film. For more information on the film visit www.undeadflick.com.

Tags: existentialism, Horror, humor, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Undead, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard, vampire movie, vampires

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 at 12:11 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.