1. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead Though They Still Talk Quite a Bit

2. Tom Stoppard Hes still alive (or at least he was as of yesterday) Born in Czechoslovakia in 1937. His family stayed one step ahead of the Nazis and moved to Singapore but were forced to move to India ahead of the Japanese invasion. Wound up living in England.

3. More Stoppard R and G is his most well known play, though he has written a gazillion others. It was his first important work, first performed in 1966. Stoppard was just 29. His most widely known screenplay is Shakespeare in Love. (won an Oscar) Other screenplaysBilly Bathgate, Brazil, The Human Factor, Empire of the Sun

4. Sources of R and G Hamlet (duh) Waiting for Godothe is a big fan of Beckett. Much of the humor in the play comes from his tribute to Godot. If you had not read Godot, you would miss a lot in this play. Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein20 th century Austrian philosophermore about him later, but note all the discussion in the play about language, logic, and free will vs. determinism. He also alludes to some modern paintings and other works of art.

5. Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band Safe as Milk This play has elements of absurdism but Stoppard has a different take on it than Beckett. Stoppard seems to be amused by transforming other texts for his own use. There is a lot of humor in this play, but for some of it you have to read the stage directions and visualize the action.

6. Stoppards Opinion of the Play He says the plot is about two bewildered innocents. He says he wrote it to entertain a roomful of people with the situation of R and G in Elsinore. He says R and G doesnt embody any particular philosophy and that one doesnt write a play and hide something in it to see if people can find it at all.

7. More To me R and G is a play about two Elizabethan courtiers at a castle, wondering whats going on. Thats what its about. Says having people looking for meaning in his plays is like going through customs and having the agent, come up with all manner of exotic contraband like truth and illusion, the nature of identity, what I feel about life and death. I hate to admit the stuff is there, but I cant for the life of me remember packing it.

8. Further on the Same Point one is the beneficiary and victim of ones subconscious: that is, of ones personal history, experience and environment.