Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard

Author:Tom Stoppard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 1967-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

ACT THREE

Opens in pitch darkness.

Soft sea sounds.

After several seconds of nothing, a voice from the dark . ..

GUIL : Arc you there?

ROS : Where?

GUIL (bitterly): A flying start. . . .

Pause.

ROS : Is that you?

GUIL : Yes.

ROS : How do you know?

GUIL (explosion): Oh-for-God’s-sake!

ROS : We’re not finished, then?

GUIL : Well, we’re here, aren’t we?

ROS : Are we? I can’t see a thing.

GUIL : You can still think, can’t you?

ROS : I think so.

GUIL: YOU can still talk.

ROS : What should I say?

GUIL : Don’t bother. You can feel, can’t you?

ROS : Ah! There’s life in me yet!

GUIL : What are you feeling?

ROS : A leg. Yes, it feels like my leg.

GUIL: HOW does it feel?

ROS : Dead.

GUIL : Dead?

ROS (panic): I can’t feel a thing!

GUIL: Give it a pinch! (Immediately he yelps.)

ROS : Sorry.

GUIL : Well, that’s cleared that up.

Longer pause: the sound builds a little and identifies itself— the sea. Ship timbers, wind in the rigging, and then shouts of sailors calling obscure but inescapably nautical instructions from all directions, far and near: A short list:

Hard a larboard!

Let go the stays!

Reef down me hearties!

Is that you, cox’n?

Hel-llo! Is that you?

Hard a port!

Easy as she goes!

Keep her steady on the lee!

Haul away, lads!

(Snatches of sea shanty maybe.)

Fly the jib!

Tops’l up, me maties!

When the point has been well made and more so.

ROS : We’re on a boat. (Pause.) Dark, isn’t it?

GUIL : Not for night.

ROS: No, not for night.

GUIL : Dark for day.

Pause.

ROS: Oh yes, it’s dark for day.

GUIL : We must have gone north, of course.

ROS : Off course?

GUIL : Land of the midnight sun, that is.

ROS : Of course.

Some sailor sounds.

A lantern is lit upstage—In fact by HAMLET.

The stage lightens disproportionately—

Enough to see:

ROS and GUIL sitting downstage.

Vague shapes of rigging, etc., behind.

I think it’s getting light

GUIL : Not for night

ROS : This far north.

GUIL : Unless we’re off course.

ROS (small pause): Of course.

A better light—Lantern? Moon? . . . Light. Revealing, among other things, three large man-sized casks on deck, upended, with lids. Spaced but in line. Behind and above—a gaudy striped umbrella, on a pole stuck into the deck, tilted so that we do not see behind it—one of those huge six-foot-diameter jobs. Still dim upstage, ROS and GUIL still facing front.

ROS : Yes, it’s lighter than it was. It’ll be night soon. This far north. (Dolefully.) I suppose we’ll have to go to sleep. (He yawns and stretches.)

GUIL : Tired?

ROS : No . . . I don’t think I’d take to it. Sleep all night, can’t see a thing all day. . . . Those eskimos must have a quiet life.

GUIL : Where?

ROS : What?

GUIL : I thought you——(Relapses.) I’ve lost all capacity for disbelief. I’m not sure that I could even rise to a little gentle scepticism.

Pause.

ROS : Well, shall we stretch our legs?

GUIL : I don’t feel like stretching my legs.

ROS: I’ll stretch them for you, if you like.

GUIL : No.

ROS : We could stretch each other’s. That way we wouldn’t have to go anywhere.

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