Jonathan Terrington's Reviews > Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

-----------------------------------------------------------

Peasant 1: Did you hear? Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead?

Peasant 2: Really dead?

Peasant 1: Really dead.

Peasant 2: Really?

Peasant 1: Really, really.

Peasant 2: Really, really, really?

Peasant 1: Really, really, really.

Peasant 2: Really, really, really, really?

Peasant 1: Would you stop that? They're dead as dead can be - which is actually pretty dead.

Peasant 2: Pretty dead indeed.

Peasant 1: But they're not the pretty dead.

Peasant 2: Few are pretty when dead.

Peasant 1: To be sure.

Peasant 2: Was it murder?

Peasant 1: Oh yes, t'was a murder of a show. All the crowd demanded their money back indeed.

Peasant 2: And who could have done the dirty deed?

Peasant 1: Stop that, we're no minstrels to be finishing each others rhymes.

Peasant 2: Or cleaning up the other's crimes.

Peasant 1: I've half a mind to let you join Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, can't you see our audience is growing tired of such absurdity? Though absurdity may be our part (the peasants together) absurdity for a laugh quickly loses all sense of art.

Peasant 1: As I heard it, I believe that Hamlet may be to blame for the deaths of those two men. I heard that he replaced a letter - with instructions to kill him - with one bearing instructions for their death.

Peasant 2: Quite the rumour. Where did this original letter come from I wonder?

Peasant 1: Oh, that's quite easy to tell. It came from Claudius, Hamlet's dear uncle.

Peasant 2: So was said letter - of which we have not seen...

Peasant 1: Much as we have not seen Rosencrantz or Guildenstern...

Peasant 2: ...therefore a letter to put master Hamlet out of his funky misery?

(Enter Dr. John Watson and Sherlock Holmes)

John Watson: I say, Sherlock, we don't even belong in this type of fiction.

Sherlock Holmes: My dear Watson, you forget that this is now a murder mystery. And murder is quite within our realm of expertise.

Both Peasants: (turn to the audience) Aside from committing them we hope.

Watson: Then, I presume you have come to a decision about this case by now Holmes?

Holmes: Indubitably, my good fellow. The solution is rather obvious.

Watson: So it was Hamlet after all, his hands are certainly most guilty.

Holmes: Why of course not Watson. Don't be ridiculous. It was not Hamlet after all who initiated the beginnings of this murder.

Watson: Claudius then, it was his letter that sent two men to their dooms.

Holmes: Ah, Watson, you see but you do not observe.

Watson: Surely, you do not mean to insist that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are responsible for the deaths themselves?

Holmes: Try to keep up Watson, I said murder, and I meant murder. This is no suicide case, it is a murder following an attempted regicide, most foul.

Watson: Why then, Holmes, whatever the dickens could be the solution?

Holmes: There is clearly nothing more elusive to you Watson than an obvious fact. We are looking at a murder committed centuries ago, murder that continues to haunt the here and now. In several different worlds at this time, several versions of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are being murdered all over again. The true criminal - the one which remains as truth - is clearly the old bard himself. Mr William Shakespeare.

-----------------------------------------------------------

"We're tragedians you see. We follow directions - there is no choice involved. The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means."