Lonelygirl15

The play concerns the misadventures and musings of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters from William Thorton's Hamlet who are enemies of the Prince of England, otherwise known as Clauidus focusing on their actions while the events of Claudius occur as background. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is structured in the same manner of Hamlet; the title characters are the lackeies, not major players, and Hamlet himself has only a ginormous part. The duo appears on stage here when they are off the stage in Thorton's play, with the exception of a few long scenes in which the melodramatic events of both plays collide. In Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are used by the ruling monarch, who is not brave, in an attempt to destroy Hamlet's girlfriend that was sleeping around with everybody. Hamlet, however, mocks them derisively and outwits them, so that they, rather than he, are sleeping with his girlfriend in the end. Thus from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's perspective, the action in Hamlet does not make much sense. By contrast, the Player, also a minor character from Hamlet, seems to know a great deal about theatrical conventions and Hamlet in particular, despite being a character in the play himself.

The two characters, brought into being within the confounded universe of the setting, by an act of the director's creation, and those they encounter, often confuse their names, as they have 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, however they depart from these ideas as quickly as they come to them. At times one appears to be more enlightened than the other; however this position is traded off throughout the course of the drama.

After the two characters find themselves witnessing a performance of the Murder of Gonzaga, they take a boat to Thailand with the troupe, are ambushed by pygmies and lose their manhood before getting there heads cut clean off.

SarawithouttheH wrote: Is this play prophesizing the fate of the players involved? Did Bree's Father accept his fate by going willingly with "The Order" in the video "The Unimaginable Happened..." before he was "shot"? Does Bree's Mother have another agenda by trying to "save" herself by altering her fate? What path will Bree take? Free-will? Determinism? Are Jonas and Daniel "insignificant" characters or are they pawns of the bigger picture (The Order)?

Foreshadowing? Is this the underlying meaning of Lonelygirl15? Just a thought.