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The audience files out.In every theatre, indoor or outdoor, large or small, there is a space where the imagination of the audience meets the literal stage. At some point, the curtains cease being curtains and become invisible; at some point, painted clouds cease being paint and become real; at some point, wooden boards cease being boards and become grass, or a road, or an ocean; at some point, a plywood set becomes a breathing world. At some point, in every theatre, the suggestion of something becomes the thing itself.Right at that point sit three people, or suggestions of people, half on grass and half onstage. A checked picnic blanket, or perhaps the suggestion of one, is spread out underneath them, weighed down by rocks, or the suggestions of rocks. Passing between the three picnickers is a bottle of wine, or perhaps the suggestion of one, and all three men are becoming progressively more and more drunk, or the suggestion of it. The men are Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and the Player. The lights are all out; it is intermission.The Player wipes his mouth. Let this be his character note: he feels older, and hollower, somehow. Perhaps he is saddened because he is someone who, either bravely or obstinately, refuses to understand why an audience might not laugh anymore. Perhaps he is saddened because he is insufficiently drunk after drinking sufficient alcohol. Perhaps he is saddened because he sits across from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who lean against each other to a degree that each would fall without the other there. Perhaps he is merely saddened because he isn’t the lead role. “I walked onto the stage because I wanted to live deliberately,” he starts, “And what am I? Dislikeable and drunk with two dead men.”“Dislikeable and drunk with two dead dudes,” Guildenstern corrects. “For the alliteration.”“We’re modern now,” Rosencrantz chimes in, triumphant, “So we can say it.”“And if you want to be more likeable,” Guil advises, “Perhaps you should stop marketing your services as sexual favours. It makes everyone uncomfortable.”“Not everyone,” says Rosencrantz cheerfully.Guildenstern side-eyes him. “Almost everyone, then.”“My issue with it is they’re too expensive,” Rosencrantz declares. “And Alf says you ought to add more women. I hear they’re half the human population, though,” he looks around as if spectres of the terrifying and unknown female gender will immediately begin to manifest, “You wouldn’t really know it. I think I’ve only met two women in my life.”“You’ve been one.”“In some versions, yes. It’s so hard to keep track; I’m always forgetting. It seems that we’re sometimes in one story and sometimes in another. Sometimes we’re in Hamlet--”“In Hamlet? God, no. The only person who’s been in Hamlet is Horatio, but honestly, I don’t know what he saw in him.”“I suppose I can,” says Rosencrantz thoughtfully. “You know, he did once love me. But that’s not what I was saying. I was saying that I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking--”“Oh, that’s new.”“--And I discovered that sometimes we’re in Hamlet’s story, and sometimes we’re in ours. I’ve figured that much out. There was one story--and it might not be the one you think, because the names were all different, and only we and the king died. Then that story was turned inside-out, then that one was, then that one was, and now we’re here, in denim instead of doublets. Everything is a rewrite, or a rewrite of a rewrite of a rewrite of a rewrite; there is nothing new under the sun, but thinking makes it so. Iterations of us have existed since twelve-hundred, and we’ve died every single time!” He passes the bottle. “Can’t we catch a break?”“You’re drunk,” the Player responds snippishly.“I’m drunk,” Ros echoes in disbelief. “I’m drunk? I’m dead! Does that mean anything to you?”“It means nothing,” says the Player, then seems to realise his error. Guildenstern pounces on it, of course.“Oh, nothing? We don’t have much nothing.”“In some versions--”“In some versions, yes. An audience is a fickle thing, seeking change but not too much of it; man delights them, and women too. So we can be gentlemen, or gentlewomen, or one one and the other the other, or both neither, or both both, and thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless, ad nauseum ad infinitum, borne ceaselessly back into the past. You know, I was wrong,” remarks Guil, no less soused than Ros or the Player. “I said ‘death isn’t,’ but death was. Is. Are. It’s many things all at once, all happening, just in a different order, like underwater or backwards, like sweet bells jangled, out of tune, or time, and harsh. Death isn’t isn’t. Death is--it just is--until it’s not, and when and where it’s not, we are onstage. Until the end of being. Because we’re Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and we die, and that’s enough.”“The end of being,” repeats Rosencrantz, pointing a finger into the air, “The real undiscovered country. We all return from death; night after night we do it; haven’t you seen the programs? We look different every time; my god, I don’t recognise myself. But then, I wouldn’t anyway.”“Or me,” Guildenstern confirms.“D’you think the undiscovered country might be England?”“I thought you just said it was the end of being.”“Well, England was, for us.”“So you’ve finally managed to believe in it, then. And no,” he says, irritated, “Because we’re here.”“Are we?”“Inasmuch as we are who we are.” “Thereby hangs a question.”“Don’t start.”“I wasn’t trying to play. Merely observing, remarking, if you will, descrying--”“Plan on finishing this sentence any time in the next century?”“That we,” Rosencrantz goes on grandly, unsure if this is a continuation of his thought or a new one, “Are things of shreds and patches. Ragged.”Guildenstern holds two fists out in front of him, looking at them as if he might see through them. “If I unclenched my hands, I’d fall apart.”“I’ll hold you so it doesn’t happen. Here.” Rosencrantz reaches out and takes Guil’s hand. “Touch.”Something is pressed between their palms; a cool piece of metal.“Why,” Guildenstern asks, extricating his fingers from his friend’s and picking it up, “Have you given me a ring?”The Player snorts.“Well, why?”The Player snorts again, more loudly, as if he’s making a point of it this time. “Isn’t it obvious?”Guil thinks. “A ring is a circle,” he says, puzzled.“Yes,” the Player replies.“A circle has no beginning and no end.”“Yes.”“It’s a loop.”“Yes.”“Like a noose.”“I think you’re going in the wrong direction,” says Rosencrantz helpfully.Guildenstern backtracks. “It’s a loop. We,” he gestures to himself and Ros, “Live in a loop. We’re different every night. There might be a different blocking, a different inflection, a sigh where one had not sighed before--a comma--a hesitation before plunging forward; there might be a different set or a different stage, but we will never get a different story. We’re always moving toward the same end; it’s inverse sensitive dependence, chaos theory run backwards, a reversal of nature, a perfect scientific impossibility.”“More impossible than--”“Than ninety-three heads and one tails,” Guil finishes glumly. He spins the ring between two fingers, then realises the side it lands on doesn’t matter.“Give up on science,” the Player advises. “There are fewer things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”“Oh?” snaps Guildenstern, irked. “Fewer things? Then what is out there?”“The truth.”“Bold of you to presume that truth exists.”“Bold of you to presume England does.” “We died there,” points out Rosencrantz; “I think we’d know.”“If you died there, why are you here?”“You tell us.”“Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” the Player says with false modesty. “It would break the rules.”“Tell us,” Rosencrantz presses. “Tell us the truth.”“Don’t pursue truth,” the Player advises. “It’s so dreadfully finite. There’s rarely space for it on the stage, and when there is, it isn’t fun. In my experience, it’s best to be one or two letters away from the truth. ‘My dear Rosencrantz,’ you called your friend. ‘Dear.’ Change one letter of that, and you’d have reached the ending of your show much sooner, but it wouldn’t have been fun.”Rosencrantz and Guildenstern ponder this. Ros, at least, seems unable to puzzle it out.“So back to loops and circles,” the Player prompts; “We were finally getting nowhere.”“We live in a loop,” Guildenstern repeats.“Yes.”“Every night, the lights go up. Then we perform; we enter, we exit, and after a certain number of exits, we don’t enter again. Then the lights go down, and we forget it, so the next night we do it all again. And die again,” he adds, “Like a noose. Why did you say I was going in the wrong direction? I’ve figured it out.”“No, you haven’t,” says Rosencrantz, and he looks distressed. “Go back again.”“A ring is a circle. A circle has no beginning and no end. It’s a loop. Our story has no beginning and no end, and we live in our story; therefore, we live in a loop. Therefore, we live in a circle; therefore, we live in a ring; and for that reason, you would like me to wear one.”“No,” says Rosencrantz, sadder now. “No.”There’s a long pause. Guildenstern shifts his foot. Rosencrantz shifts away.“Are you asking me to marry you?” Guil finally asks.“It is legal now, in some countries we’ve performed in.”“Why?”“Why is it legal?”“Why are you asking me to marry you?”“That’s in iambic pentameter,” the Player points out.“Seventy-six love,” Rosencrantz says.“What?”“One-love. Two-love. Seventy-six-love.”“Sixty-nine-love. Four-hundred-twenty-love,” the Player adds.“For god’s sake,” says Guildenstern, finally fed up, “Could you shut up?”“I wouldn’t shut up for god’s sake, but I might for the devil’s.”“That sentence,” Rosencrantz informs him, “Was not as clever as you thought it was.”There is an odd distance between him and Guildenstern now, enough space that it appears as though one of them has not hit his mark just right. “I don’t think you understand.”“I’ve always understood you.”“I’ve always thought so.”Guildenstern runs the numbers. “One, two, seventy-six. Multiply them, and you get--”“No,” says Rosencrantz coldly.Guildenstern thinks and again comes up empty. He looks into his friend’s face. Rosencrantz’s eyes are downcast, his shoulders hunched. Some way or another, he has gotten ahold of the ring, and is now looking through it as if the world were different colors on the other side.“Think the way he would,” the Player suggests, low and quiet, into Guildenstern’s ear. Let this be Rosencrantz’s character note: where Guildenstern is rational, dry, and empirical, Rosencrantz is irrational, effusive, and theoretical. Let this be Guildenstern’s character note: where Rosencrantz is irrational, effusive, and theoretical, Guildenstern is rational, dry, and empirical. This is not a simple dichotomy, nor does it always hold true; it’s not like these men are two sides of one coin. Unless, of course, they are. Guildenstern holds no script and therefore does not know what to say, so he says what he thinks: “The one tails is more unnerving than all the heads put together.”This, at least, gets Rosencrantz at least to pay attention to him.“‘Put your heads together,’ there’s the phrase,” he continues, “But nothing positive on tails, just turning tail and running.”“So no head?” Rosencrantz asks, wry.“What?”“There’s another phrase. I think it’s new.”“Where did you get it?”“We accumulate them, you know; Ancient Rome still lies beneath modern Rome, unexcavated. Rome wasn’t built in a day and it wasn’t buried in one, but over time it got paved on, paved over. Other people have written new lines for us. We could practically say anything now.”“Is it,” Guildenstern asks carefully, looking toward the Player, “Allowed?”“Not usually.”“Why is now different?”The Player shrugs. “The curtain’s down. Look over that way; you can almost see it.Rosencrantz squints. Guildenstern doesn’t bother.“And when it goes back up?”“You say whatever line you left off on.”Spontaneously, Rosencrantz stands. “Will we remember this tomorrow?”“At the next performance? No.”He sits. “Have we had this conversation before?”The Player shrugs again.“Are we,” Guildenstern asks quite seriously, “Dead?”This time Rosencrantz answers. His voice is subdued. “Does it matter?”“If a man in a theatre gets up to piss and misses dialogue from the show, did that dialogue take place? Might as well not have.”“Sometimes you say things and expect me to connect them,” Rosencrantz confesses, turning to the Player, “But I honestly can’t. And sometimes you say things and expect me to listen, but I can’t do that either. Skriver du svarene?”“What?”“Just curious.”“What in the god damned shit are you on about, Rosencrantz?”“Just talking. I suppose I’ll have to pick a new country not to believe in. Could France be undiscovered?”“Try saying ‘Rosencrantz’ with a French accent,” suggests the Player. “It’s horrifically fun. I think it adds a lot to your character.”“Your character,” Guildenstern repeats. “We’re characters,” he whispers, slowly and with growing wonder. Reflexively, he reaches out to Rosencrantz again. “We can’t really die. We’re characters. We’re here to teach people to be people. Or perhaps we’re actors. We might be both.” He turns to Ros, bringing their faces quite close. “Do you think we’re characters or actors?”“If you’re actors,” the Player cuts in, “You’re quite bad.”“Do you think we’re just disembodied voices talking to ourselves?” Ros asks.“I think we’re just words on a page talking to ourselves.”“That can’t be right,” Ros objects, “Because I’m holding your hand.”Guildenstern looks down. “That’s true.”“Seventy-six love,” Ros reminds him, pulling away. “You answered this earlier.”“What did I say?”“We live in a loop.”“Yes.” Guildenstern recalls his sentences. “We live in a loop. We’re different every night. There might be a different blocking, a different inflection, a sigh where one had not sighed before--a comma--a hesitation before plunging forward--”“Ah,” says the Player, having finally caught on.“A hesitation,” Guildenstern repeats. “One, love. Two, love. Seventy-six, love.” He looks at Rosencrantz. “How long?”Rosencrantz shrugs. “Long enough.”“And every time--”“Every single time.”“I’m sorry.”“Well, now you know.” Rosencrantz turns to the player. “We won’t remember this tomorrow?” he asks, already knowing the answer.The Player shakes his head.“And there’s nothing you can do?”“We exist when people watch us; that is all.”“You didn’t answer my question.”The Player spreads his hands. “I can’t.”“It’s scripted,” murmurs Guildenstern in defeat. “Our deaths are scripted. They still have it in for us. Four hundred years--no, six hundred years--and dying all the time. We’re hung, or strangled, or decapitated; we lose our heads. Heads,” he says stupidly, “Heads. We should have known.”“How many times,” Rosencrantz asks, “Have we forgotten?”“‘We’ll know better next time,’” Guildenstern quotes, very quietly. “I say that every night. And we never do.”“I’m sorry,” says the Player--no, the Tragedian. “I am.”“Yes, you are,” Rosencrantz agrees bitterly. “You get to be. You get to be. We don’t. Not in any capacity that matters. Yes, we come back, night after night--but where’s the hope in it--tell me one good thing in it--one moment of--of something other than rhetoric and blood--one line where we are happy--can you give us that? One line? Can you?”“I can’t.”“Why?” Rosencrantz challenges, nervy and loud.“Actors are the opposite of people. Only people can change.”Rosencrantz deflates. He shrinks, wraps his arms around himself like a child, rests his forehead on his knees. “One moment,” he repeats, his voice filtered through what must be angry tears. “One moment where we were happy. One.”“I’ll marry you,” says Guildenstern, and lifts Rosencrantz’s face.Ros blinks.“We might forgot it, and nobody else might ever know it. But, at least for one moment, we will.” He stands, taking Rosencrantz with him. “I’ll marry you, here and now, behind the curtain, offstage, off-script. Just the two of us, like it’s always been.”“Ahem,” coughs the Player, “I’m still here.”“You do it, then,” orders Guil, turning sharply. “Say it. Say we’re married, and we’ll put the rings on.” He gives Rosencrantz a nervous glance. “You do have two of them?”“Erm,” says Ros. “No.”Guildenstern shrugs. “Mislayed prop. It’s alright.”“Well then,” decides the Player, standing and adjusting his costume, “Let’s make it official. In the fine tradition of being one or two letters away from the truth, henceforth and hereafter, Rosencrantz,” he points to Guildenstern, “and Guildenstern,” he points to Rosencrantz, “Are wed.” He bows. “You may kiss.”He exits.They do.*In every theatre, indoor or outdoor, large or small, there is a space where the imagination of the audience meets the literal stage. At some point, the curtains cease being curtains and become invisible; at some point, painted clouds cease being paint and become real; at some point, wooden boards cease being boards and become grass, or a road, or an ocean; at some point, a plywood set becomes a breathing world. At some point, in every theatre, the suggestion of something becomes the thing itself. Right at that point stand two people, or suggestions of people, half on grass and half onstage. A checked picnic blanket, or perhaps the suggestion of one, is spread out underneath them, weighed down by rocks, or the suggestions of rocks. Passing between the two men is a ring, or perhaps the suggestion of one. The men are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, or perhaps Guildenstern and Rosencrantz. They are in love, or the suggestion of it. No; they are in love.The lights are all out; it is intermission.Slowly, the audience files back in.