Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead – Tom Stoppard

Kykladon Street Theatre – Lefteris Vogiatzis

First Performance: February 12, 2024

The performance was restaged from October 12, 2024, to January 5, 2025.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, former classmates of Hamlet, are summoned by King Claudius to the palace to distract the melancholic prince with amusements in order to uncover the dark secret tormenting his soul. During their mission, the two innocent courtiers accompany Hamlet to England, carrying a sealed letter that orders his immediate execution. Hamlet replaces the letter with another, instructing the English King to execute them instead. Days later, the English ambassador enters the palace and announces: “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.”

The play by Oscar-winning Sir Tom Stoppard premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1966 and is considered one of the most significant and innovative comedies in contemporary global theatre. Here, arguably the greatest modern British playwright after Pinter presents two ordinary men as collateral damage, scapegoats of a political game that sweeps and crushes everything in its path.

Written with lightning-fast prose, brilliant humor, sharp political and existential messages, and a bitter finale, the play is a modern articulation of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, adapted to more recognizable political and social conditions, while simultaneously casting the imposing shadow of Shakespeare’s masterpiece Hamlet.

This work reverses the archetypal story of Shakespeare for the first time, shifting the focus from power to the margins, creating an unparalleled tragicomedy in which all of Hamlet’s characters take part, with provocative dialogue that awakens the audience’s mind.