Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead

‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are searching for the end. No, not théir end, but the end of the play. They don’t know how they came here, or what they are supposed to do, or where the exit is. So they listen to the strange Hamlet-characters, hoping that one of them can show them their way out. Can you help Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to get a grip again?’

What speaks to me the most about Tom stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead (1966), is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s desperate and hopeless search for control over their situation. The harder they try, the less of a grip they seem to have on their reality.

In my adaptation of Stoppard’s play, I created a multisensory experience for my audience to convey Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s feelings of disorientation. Flute sounds would be heard from the other side of the room than the place where the character playing the instrument would enter, and when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern suddenly woke up on a ship, the audience would also find themselves in the dark unexpectedly, smelling the salty ocean air and hearing the sounds of the waves rolling and the winds in the sails.

We used a four-person-cape to create images such as the ship’s sails, and to lean into the comedic aspects of the play.